ON THE
ZAPATISTAS:

On the first of January of 1994, a small group of Mayan indigenous people, armed with machetes, sticks and a few guns, occupied four of the major cities of Chiapas and declared war on the Mexican government. It was the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

In 1995, Mexico suffered the most serious economic crisis of the century. The director of the International Monetary Fund considered it the first financial crisis of the 21st century. Mexico was suddenly transformed into an example of disaster. It became suddenly apparent that we had the wrong regime and an erroneous policy. What just a few months earlier had been celebrated with enthusiasm was now deeply despised. President Salinas had to go into a kind of exile in Ireland and his brother was sent to prison.

The old regime died. We are constructing upon its ruins. All sorts of pestilence emanates from the unburied corpse and we have not had time nor the serenity to bury it. But it is a corpse. There's no doubt about that.

I want to propose a question now that is not as rhetorical as it seems: How can such a small group, the EZLN, which never represented a military threat to the Mexican government, change a country of more than a hundred million people? Some may say that is not a valid question. They say that we haven't changed so much, as the recent electoral frauds demonstrate. Others recognize that yes, we have changed, admit that we live in a country radically different, but sustain that the change is not due to the Zapatistas, but many other groups and factors.

...

The terms that we use do not adequately describe the experience of what they are doing. Zapatista practices arise from ancient traditions but at the same time they constitute a radical novelty that is strictly contemporary. The idea of government clearly implies people governing and people being governed, the division of society into these two classes of people in the hollow of an oppressive regime. It assumes a conjunction of institutional mechanisms by which those who govern are able to control the governed. Perhaps for this reason, many indigenous communities do not use those terms to describe their own authorities, who don't have those same characteristics. Those terms are used only to allude to officials or institutions of the government, at any level, which they always perceive as alien, imposing, and oppressive. In calling their new bodies created to express the collective will, the Juntas de Buen Gobierno, the Zapatistas implicitly denounce the mal gobierno [bad government] of the dominant structure.

But perhaps a new words will need to be invented to express exactly what it means to “command while obeying” [mandar obedeciendo] – that the governed govern – and what specific "color" is taken by the hope that appears in the different names that the communities give to each Junta.

I believe that in future years Mexico will be studied as a peculiar laboratory for exploring the nature of modern power. To start off our discussion, I would like to say that words have been the main weapon of the Zapatistas, who have dared to say that the Emperor was wearing no clothes.

ON GLOBALIZATION:

We suffer all types of economic difficulties, social banes and political conflicts. Nonetheless, what defines our situation, what I am smelling at the grassroots, what feeds our hope, is the possibility that we are in the midst of the first social revolution of the 21st century, the revolution of the new commons. We believe that we are creating alternatives:

· We are organizing ourselves beyond development, reclaiming our own definition of the good life.
· We are trying to go beyond the economy and capital. We, the so called marginal, are now succeeding in marginalizing the economy from our lives.
· We are going beyond the individual in reclaiming our commons.
· We are moving beyond the nation-state, in reclaiming a new political horizon.

We see so-called globalization as an economic project, which attempts to root in the planet homo economicus, the possessive individual born in the West, under the hegemony of the United States and capital. This project has two attractive masks: a political mask, "democracy," and an ethical mask, "human rights." We are challenging three aspects of this project:

-- We are resisting the transnationalized economy that encroaches upon and disrupts our lives

-- We see "democracy" as a structure of domination and control

-- We perceive "human rights" as the Trojan Horse of re-colonialization.

We do not accept globalization. For us it is neither promise nor reality. It is the emblem of a hegemonic project of domination that we are not willing to accept.

To understand better what is happening and how we reached this point it is necessary to take a step backward.

UNQUESTIONED PARADIGMS OF POWER: What is modern power, this thing for which Mexico can be a laboratory?

The dominant idea is that it has to do with something difficult to define, located above, something that some have and others do not. For that reason, we talk about empowering people.

Centuries ago, it was thought that power came from heaven, that it expressed nothing less than God's will. The Pope crowned the king. He would explain to all that his power came from above. Since the French Revolution and the U.S. Revolution, we have changed the terms for the constitution of power, but we retain the image. It's not just that some presidents take office swearing upon the Bible and often call upon God. It's also that the impression is maintained, that power resides above, in the hands of a few, the powerful, those who have political or economic power. It is generally assumed that power is something that could be distributed, that could be given to the people.

I want to use a children's story, the Wizard of Oz, as a parable of modern power. Dorothy and her friends approach the wizard of Oz, confronting the claptrap paraphernalia of power that attempts to intimidate them. A little dog discovers by accident the curtain behind which hides the wizard, who turns out to be a small man almost dead of fright. The important thing is what happens next. When he asks what they want, their petitions surprise him. "Why do you ask for courage?" he says to the Lion, "You have demonstrated that you are already very courageous." He says the same thing to the Tin Man, "Why does someone as compassionate as you ask for a heart?" And to the Scarecrow, "Why does someone as intelligent as you ask for a brain?" The parable is clear. People ask of the powerful what they already have. But the politicians do not react like the wizard. On the contrary, they reinforce prejudices. "If you vote for me," they say, "Then you will have everything you want: a job, protection, happiness …"

The premise of this dominant notion of power was well-formulated by Hegel in 1820, when he affirmed that the people cannot govern themselves and that, therefore, someone has to govern them; thus concentrating political power in those who govern. How to constitute power is discussed, but not the principle itself; that people give power to those who govern, by means of a revolution or through elections, or at least they accept that they hold the power. This is a central element of the democratic culture of the modern nation-state.

There exists another notion of power: the idea that the people already have it. In this conception, power has another name. It is called dignity.

OAXACA:
When the demonstrations began this year, people didn't pay much attention: it was the same as usual. When the teachers occupied the main square of Oaxaca City, with their modern tents and intentions to remain for a long time, and began to close streets and commercial establishments, people began to get worried ... and annoyed. The government thereupon launched a media campaign against the teachers, saying that it was making an extraordinary effort to give them everything that it could and that it was seeking dialogue, but that the teachers were responding with absolute refusal.

The government then believed that it had created a climate of public opinion sufficiently opposed to the teachers, and on June 14, mounted a clumsy repression that caused many injuries among the teachers, and the police as well. This action was the straw that broke the camel's back. Those who had been increasingly annoyed by the teachers suddenly took up their cause. People began express, in a spontaneous manner, all their resentments against the governor. Overnight a movement arose to oust him from office, with the slogan "Out with Ulises"!

Throughout the state, people went out into the streets. They occupied public buildings in 22 municipalities governed by the PRI. They participated in the largest citizens' march in memory, an estimated 25% of Oaxacans taking part. Thus the Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People (APPO for its initials in Spanish) arose, which quickly attracted hundreds of social organizations and groups and began to articulate diverse peoples' and groups' initiatives and integrate them into the teacher's movement.

The results of the elections on July 2 took everyone by surprise. There was a high degree of citizen participation, but instead of the million votes that governor Ulises Ruiz promised to the PRI, it suffered the worst defeat in its history. It practically disappeared from the state. The PRI won in only one of the eleven of the electoral districts; in the federal deputies' election, it lost senators and its presidential candidate registered a very weak vote. It was evident that people had decided to use their votes to express their rejection of the governor and the system, as APPO had requested.

Until July 2, Governor Ruiz had maintained hope that he would occupy a top-level position in the federal government. After the defeat of his party, he feared that his abuses would be uncovered and he might end up in prison (for corruption as well as murder).With the shameless support of the constituted powers, Ulises Ruiz has stubbornly hung on to the governorship and refused to acknowledge that he has lost all capacity to govern while the movement symbolized by APPO has spread, strengthened and acquired, after passing through various mutations, a profoundly innovative character.

For Oaxacans, and for Mexicans generally, Oaxaca has come to represent both a foretaste and a threat. The source of this ambivalence, in part, is the present polarization of social classes and sectors nationally. But there is something deeper and even more general going on. What is being built in Oaxaca, many feel, anticipates our future and carries a great burden of hope. But for the very same reasons, certain sectors of the current power structure feel threatened by a movement they are unable to stop, and are willing to use violence against those leading the transformation.