Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Zapatistas: The Second Stage"

Immanuel Wallerstein

When NAFTA came into effect in January of 1994, the Zapatistas — a group
representing the indigenous Mayans in Mexico — revolted in Chiapas, one of
the poorest regions in the country, and drew attention to their right to
autonomy. For the last 11 years, the Zapatista rebellion has reinvigorated
anti-systemic movements around the world. The protests at the 1999 WTO
meetings in Seattle, as well as similar demonstrations in Genoa, Quebec
City, and Gleneagles, were in no small measure inspired by the Zapatistas.
Last month, however, the Zapatistas declared that their struggle had entered
a new phase, one that would be political and inclusive, but not military.
Similar to the actions of 1994, this declaration, says Immanuel Wallerstein,
seems once again to be the barometer of an international shift in sentiment.
Although the details have yet to be revealed, the author implies that this
new initiative could be the inspiration for a similar reevaluation
throughout similar movements around the world.

Since 1994, the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas has been the most important
social movement in the world — the barometer and the igniter of antisystemic
movements around the world. How can it be that a small movement of Mayan
Indians in one of the poorest regions of Mexico can play such a major role?
To answer that, we have to take the story of the antisystemic movements in
the world-system back to 1945.

From 1945 to the mid-1960's at least, the antisystemic movements (or Old
Left) — the Communist parties, the Social-Democratic parties, the national
liberation movements — were on the rise throughout the world, and came to
power in a very large gamut of states. They were riding high. But just as
they seemed to be on the cusp of universal triumph, they ran into two
roadblocks — the world revolution of 1968, and the revival of the world
right.The world revolutionaries of 1968 were of course protesting everywhere
against U.S. imperialism but they were protesting against the movements of
the Old Left as well. For the students and workers involved in the 1968
movements, the Old Left movements had come to power, yes, but had not then
fulfilled their promises of transforming the world in a more egalitarian,
more democratic direction. They were found wanting. The 1968ers went on to
create new movements (Greens, feminist movements, identity movements) but
none of these was able to mobilize the kind of mass support that the
traditional movements had acquired in the post-1945 period.

In addition, and in the wake of a major downturn in the world-economy, the
world right caught its breath and reasserted itself. Most notable of course
were the neoliberal governments of Mrs. Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. But even
more important perhaps was the ability of the IMF and the U.S. Treasury to
impose on most of those governments where the Old Left was still in power a
major retreat in their economic policies, getting them to shift from
import-substitution developmentalism to export-oriented growth.

When the last and strongest of these Old Left governments — the Communist
regimes of the USSR and its East-Central European satellites — collapsed in
1989–1991, the growing disarray of the antisystemic movements (both Old Left
and New Left) reached an apex of disillusionment and gloominess about their
capacity to transform the world.

But just as the tide of neoliberal ideology seemed to reach its peak in the
mid-1990s, the tide began to turn. The turning point was the Zapatista
rebellion of Jan. 1, 1994. The Zapatistas raised high the banner of the most
oppressed segments of the world population, the indigenous peoples, and laid
claim to their right to autonomy and well-being. Furthermore, they did it
not by demanding to take power in the Mexican state, but by seeking to take
power in their own communities, for which they asked the formal recognition
by the Mexican state.

And while the military side of their rebellion came rapidly to a close with
a truce, politically they reached out to the "civil society" in Mexico, and
then to that of the entire world. They convened "intergalactic" conferences
in the forests of Chiapas, and were able to obtain the attendance of an
impressive number of militants and intellectuals from around the world. When
a new president came to power in Mexico in 2000 (ousting the decrepit
"revolutionary" movement that had been in power for sixty-odd years), the
Zapatistas marched on Mexico City to demand that the terms of the truce
accord of 1996 (the so-called San Andre's Accords) at last be implemented by
the Mexican government. And when the Mexican legislature failed to do this,
despite the enormous support the Zapatistas were receiving from the "civil
society," they returned to their villages in Chiapas and began to implement
their autonomy unilaterally by creating — de facto, if not de jure —
democratic governments, their own school system, their own health
facilities. But the Mexican army remained poised around them, always
potentially threatening to dismantle this de facto structure.

The importance of the Zapatistas went way beyond the narrow confines of
Chiapas or even of Mexico. They became an example of the possible to others
everywhere. If in the last five years, most South American countries have
put left or populist governments in power, the Zapatista example was part of
the igniting forces. If the protestors in Seattle were able to derail the
1999 WTO meeting, and were able to follow up with similar demonstrations in
Genoa, Quebec City, and other places as well as this year in Gleneagles,
they were in no small measure inspired by the Zapatistas. And when the World
Social Forum capped this renewal of antisystemic struggle beginning in 2001,
the Zapatistas were a heroic model.

But now, suddenly, in June 2005, the Zapatistas proclaimed a red alert,
calling all their communities to leave their villages and come into the
forest for a massive "consultation" of the base. The reason? They said they
could no longer afford simply to wait indefinitely as the Mexican state
ignored the promises they had made a decade earlier in the truce agreements.
They declared themselves ready to "risk the little they had gained" (that
is, the de facto limited autonomy which had no juridical base) in order to
try something new. The Zapatistas declared that they had ended the first
phase of their struggle, and that it was time to move on to a second stage,
one that would be political and not military, they added.

In the third and last part of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacondona Forest,
issued on June 30, 2005, the Zapatistas have given us a clear indication of
the political line they are advocating. It makes no mention of any political
party, either in Mexico or elsewhere. They tell people everywhere who are
struggling for their rights, who are on the left, that the Zapatistas are
with them. They talk of creating a vast political alliance in Mexico — we
are Indians but we are also Mexicans. And they talk of creating a vast
political alliance in the world. They use a language that is at once
inclusive — inclusive of all strata and all peoples and above all of all
oppressed groups — but that is resolutely on the left, not however
necessarily tied to any party.

The most important thing about this initiative, in my opinion, is its
timing. It is eleven years since the tide began to roll back against
neo-liberalism and imperialism. But for the Zapatistas, not enough has been
accomplished. I have the sense that they are not the only ones who think
this. I have the sense that throughout Latin America, and especially in all
those countries where left or populist groups have come to power, there is a
similar feeling that this has not been enough, that these governments have
had to make too many compromises, that popular enthusiasm is waning. I have
the sense that in the World Social Forum, there is the same sentiment that
what they have accomplished since they started in 2001 has been remarkable,
but is not enough, that the WSF cannot simply continue to do the same things
over and over. In Iraq and the Middle East in general there seems also to be
a sense that the resistance to the machista interventionism of the United
States has been amazingly strong but that even so it has not been enough.

In 1994, the Zapatista rebellion was the barometer of a rejection of the
helplessness that had begun to overcome the world antisystemic sentiment. It
served also as the igniter of a series of other initiatives. Today, when the
Zapatistas tell us that the first stage is over and that we cannot linger
there, they seem to be again the barometer of a shift in sentiment
everywhere. The Zapatistas want to move on to a second stage — political,
inclusive, but thus far without having made very detailed objectives. Will
they now be the inspiration for a similar reevaluation throughout Latin
America, in the World Social Forum, throughout the antisystemic movements
all around the globe? And what will be the detailed objectives of the next
phase?

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