Postcard from another Mexico: a glimpse into the Zapatistas’ alternative world of politics and development

[This is a good way to catch up on the basics]

by Sandip Hazareesingh

On Sunday 1 April 2007, the Zapatistas launched the second phase of the movement known as La Otra Campana (The Other Campaign).

La Otra was originally initiated in January 2006 in the wake of the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s (EZLN) new strategy spelt out in a document famously known as La Sexta (Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle). This proclaimed the need to open a space for the millions of ‘otros y otras’, i.e. the most marginalised sections of the Mexican population – indigenous Indians, maquiladora (sweatshop) workers, the low-paid, women workers in both the country and the city, the unemployed – who were ‘invisible’ to the main political parties and excluded from the official discourses of ‘development’.

La Otra was conceived as a listening tour of all 31 states of Mexico, during which EZLN representatives would gather the testimonies of ordinary people with a view to articulating from the bottom up ‘a political strategy that weaves together the strongholds of hope that already exist but remain dispersed’. It was proposed as a different way of doing politics, an alternative to the corrupt practices of the Mexican electoral process, but also a radical departure from the emphasis on armed struggle that had accompanied the Zapatistas’ initial insurrection of January 1994 in the state of Chiapas.

The rebellion was caused by the local effects of the Salinas government's NAFTA-imposed privatisation programme, which had seen the abolition of ejidos (communal peasant) land entitlements, one of the fundamental gains of the 1910 Revolution, amidst increasing environmental scarcities affecting indigenous communities (read more on this).

La Otra seeks to draw the lessons from the Zapatistas’ past campaigns – the unacceptable human costs of the spiralling violence implicit in any ‘armed struggle’ strategy, but especially, the Mexican Congress’s refusal to enshrine indigenous land rights in the new Constitution of 2001, as agreed under the terms of the San Andre Accords negotiated between the EZLN and the Federal Government in 1996.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of La Otra has been the success of its wide ranging popular consultations in initiating a common language of opposition and resistance to the global forces of neo-liberalism, identified as responsible for the twin ills of mal gobierno (bad government) and maldesarrollo (maldevelopment). The development of concepts applicable to various situations of exploitation and dispossession – e.g. ‘ya basta’ (enough is enough), ‘dignity’, the definition of neo-liberalism itself as ‘a crime against humanity’, has enabled Zapatista discourse to expand in both national and global space from its local origins, and to reach and be influenced by diverse contexts of struggle and resistance.

As La Otra travelled through the central and southern states listening to tales of land dispossessions to make way for a new airport or yet another Wal-Mart, development came to be identified, in Zapatista discourse, as the right to dignity and access to the means of ensuring decent livelihoods. At the same time, these travels have enabled the Zapatistas to build networks of communication and solidarity with other social movements (including many outside Mexico), and to reach a heterogeneous plurality of social groups including sweatshop workers, farmers, fishermen, teachers, and students.

As Mexico faces yet another crisis of legitimate governability following the presidential election swindle of July 2006, the relaunch of La Otra promises to consolidate this gathering of rebel civil society, though the new central and state governments may well be tempted to play the repression card. The threat to elite interests implicit in the Zapatistas’ project of moving towards a ‘richer’ form of democracy whereby representative democracy is cleaned up and enriched by direct democracy, has seldom been greater in Mexico’s history.

The progress of La Otra Campana can be followed through regular reports in the Narco News Bulletin and in the Mexican daily La Jornada.

Dr Sandip Hazareesingh is Lecturer at the Open University's Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies. He has just returned from a visit to Mexico and Guatemala.