exico files

Is Zapatism a Libertarian Movement? by Pietro Vermentini An Italian anarchist living in Chiapas tries to answer to this question. And he explains why the answer is yes...

As an anarchist living in Mexico and supporting the Zapatista movement, I am often asked this question by many comrades from different places.
I therefore wish to use this space to give an answer, though I am aware that this is simply my personal view and, as such, it is undoubtedly partial or open to question.
I believe that Zapatism (or rather, Neo-Zapatism) has attempted, since its arrival on the scene in 1994, to avoid any labels, underlining only that human beings have their hearts on the left. They also affirm that the world they want to build is a multi-coloured world, with enormous diversity, a world with justice, freedom and democracy for all.
Not wishing to label (or to be labelled), I believe that it is important to see what the most important characteristics of this movement are. Analyzing their words (that is, documents and communiqués), I believe these can be summarized in the following points:

1• Antimilitarism: an army yes, but only for self-defence, the end of which is its own extinction.
The EZLN is a poorly equipped army, which is supported thanks to the logistical collaboration of the communities. It is not a guerrilla force, but an army, and by this I wish to emphasize the direct participation of the communities in the war, which gives the conflict a mass character: there is participation at various levels in the war effort, which all have decided upon.
Marcos said during the National Democratic Convention: “Fight. Fight without rest. Fight and defeat the government. Fight and defeat us. A defeat will never be so sweet as one that results in the peaceful transition to democracy, dignity and justice”; then, underlining how weapons aspire to be useless: “Military logic is the most antidemocratic and antihuman logic that exists. In this sense, the EZLN has a suicide wish....... a wish to disappear as an army”.
“Command by obeying” is not just a phrase, but a concrete fact, and this seems to be exemplified by the Consultation that took place in ‘95, in which the whole population was given the possibility to decide what the destiny of the military organization would be.

2• Non-Power: the EZLN radically changes the logic of the most recent (and current) Latin-American guerrilla wars: the struggle is not for power, the very meaning of which is often attacked and derided, but precisely to achieve justice, freedom and democracy.
“Take power? No, something more difficult: a new world”, wrote Marcos in a letter to the writer Gaspar Morquecho, a month after the beginning of the uprising. This is evidently one of the most difficult points to understand for all the movements that, in one way or another, make reference to Marxism in their conception and so are unable to conceive a revolution without taking power. On many occasions I have happened to see the embarrassment of Marxist or Pseudo-Marxist politicians and intellectuals, who, with their closed minds, made up of slogans learned by heart, could find no response to the fact that the Zapatistas can think of a revolutionary process without taking power. Most of these managed to answer the question Without Answering (we already know that politicians the world over are masters at this). Those who have not learned the modern art of politics so well reach the point of denying what has consistently been repeated by the Zapatistas and, with an ironic smile, mutter “but no, they are just saying that for propaganda’s sake, you’ll see later....”.
The anarchists alone have always insisted on this point; indeed, it was precisely on the subject of taking power through the formation of political parties, to then establish socialism, that the incurable fracture came about within the First International between Marxists and anarchists.
“If the causes of the evil continue to exist, even if Native Americans come to power, they too will be corrupted and sell out”, says Marcos, explaining that their condition as revolutionaries did not come about in order to win power, but to struggle for Dignity For Everybody and this can only be achieved by changing the dominant social values and through a profound transformation of social relationships.
“Dignity?”, replied Comandante Isaac to some journalists who asked what this word means for them. “You see, we believe we have the ability to control our destiny. We do not need to be led by the hand. We do not need someone to oppress us or manipulate us. As Native Americans we want our autonomy, we need this identity, this dignity. Dignity to live and to respect”.
Within the same logic, in July ‘94, through the Second Declaration of the Lacandona Forest, the EZLN called upon civil society - “in which our sovereignty lies” - to organize into the National Democratic Convention, because "the revolution will not end with a new class or group in power, but with a free and democratic space for political struggle”.

3• By not wanting power, the Zapatistas automatically rule out the idea of being a future party and distance themselves from these organizations (and their electoral logics). They refuse to impose their own pre-established model, instead stimulating the active participation of all (translated in practice into the concepts of autonomy and self-organization) in the construction of a different world. The ezln rejects the Maoist strategy of fencing off the cities from the fields; the armed struggle is conceived as part of a broader process, into which the EZLN can integrate. From what has happened between January ‘94 and today, the EZLN have clearly shown their interest in subordinating the war to the rhythm of the social movements (the so-called “civil society”). Indeed, the Zapatistas themselves tell us that they are not the only true path, the one almighty truth. Raúl Zibecchi writes about them: “The ezln recognizes that it only represents one flag, but that an even bigger flag can be raised. This bigger flag can be a national revolutionary movement to bring together the most diverse tendencies, the most diverse thoughts and the most diverse forms of struggle. A direct message both to the social movements and to individuals, but which excludes the political parties, since - as the Zapatistas say - they are the ones who least understand the people’s need to participate”.

4• A struggle against the Neo-liberal economic model and its cultural model. In a period in which the world’s major parties and movements of the left seem to accept the diktats of the IMF and the World Bank (some even justify them as positive), for the first time a small but clear and resolute voice was heard from Chiapas: “Ya Basta!”, followed by another phrase, sounding like a terrible blasphemy to the powerful of the earth “Nothing for us, everything for everyone” [“Nada para nosotros, todo para todos”].

5• Antiracism with its countless different faces (black, yellow, indigenous, women, gays, etc.).

6• Ecology: focusing more on the criteria of Native American cosmology than on that of “The West”. You need only spend a little time in any of the indigenous communities to realize this.

Delegations, not government

If, on the other hand, we wish to analyze their concrete organization, we can see that all the most important decisions are taken exclusively after consulting the communities. Contact with the communities is maintained by the members of the CCRI, a body made up exclusively of indigenous representatives elected by their communities (and to which Marcos cannot belong, being a “mestizo”).
As Tacho says: “All the comandantes were democratically elected at the meetings of the communities or by the local representatives who elect the regional ones. The meetings elect the delegates of the CCRI because the compañer@s at grass roots level have to know who they elect, and if delegates behave badly, the people remove them. Because it is not the work of an organization that is at stake here, but the work of a population”.
An armed organization, then, that submits all the important decisions to the base communities, who also have the possibility of exercising continuous control over the people that implement the decisions taken.
There are also clear similarities here with what Malatesta wrote:
“But if you anarchists have many social relationships, will you need to delegate functions, to make appointments, to name representatives?”
“Of course, but do not believe that this is equivalent to naming a government. Government makes laws and imposes them, whereas in a free society delegations are no more than certain temporary appointments, to perform certain tasks, and do not give the right to any authority or to any special remuneration. And the resolutions of the delegates are always subject to the approval of those who have appointed them”.

From what has been said so far, it seems clear to me that the Zapatistas’ political project is a project of a libertarian type and that its internal organization attempts - within the limits imposed by the war and so the fact of being an army - to maintain its spirit. As anarchists, I believe it is important for us to recognize these characteristics, just as I believe we need to be careful not to idealize them and know how to recognize the defects, which any individual or movement has, and which can only be overcome through constructive criticism.
Of course, for example, and despite the Women’s Law applied within the EZLN, the situation of women in the communities is still not quite what libertarians and Zapatistas themselves have proposed; but where in the world is it? I believe that the very fact of proposing a change is already very important and, if in reality there is still a lot missing, this only means that there is much work to be done (on the other hand, we can see that at many anarchist meetings there are procedures that are not very libertarian, yet this does not make us say that freedom or anarchy are wrong).
To give another example, words too often repeated by the Zapatistas, such as flag or country, immediately make me feel a little uneasy, because of my political culture.
Certainly, one could say that the sense is that of the demand to be treated like Mexicans (since, after all, they are more Mexican than anyone else) and refusing the imposition of a Western colonialist culture.
In any event, I believe that on these points, as perhaps on others, as anarchists we have to keep on fighting to push forward our libertarian message.
I believe it is important for Mexican anarchists, and those of other countries, to emphatically support the Zapatistas, who more than anybody else have organized to challenge the existing political, economic, social and cultural model. This does not have to mean losing our identity as anarchists - this would be a serious mistake and nobody expects that. The fact that the Zapatistas emphatically support the university movement and their strike does not make them any less Zapatistas; on the contrary, as Zapatistas, they say what they think, without imposing it on anyone. I believe, therefore, that the best way for anarchists to support the Zapatista movement is to organize, each of us where and with whom we think best, to have an impact on the construction of a new society with our libertarian ideas.

Pietro Vermentini
(English translation from Spanish
by Leslie Ray)