Contemporary political mass movements and ideologies, PO 336 Dr. Tamir Bar-On, Term paper "El Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional"

Résumé du document

Beyond the political fight, the choice of the date was surely not innocent since it marked the effectiveness of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, United States and Mexico, and as a consequence the triumph of neoliberalism in the country. Among the 10 millions indigenous people living in Mexico, it is not by accident that the movement takes its roots in Chiapas. Indeed 'the causes of the first post-communist revolution are local and profound'. And it is important to understand the context in which the rebellion developed itself so as to apprehend its essence. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes highlights, among all the unfairness that hit the south of Mexico, the end of the public-works program in Chiapas, the fall of coffee price, and the decline of living standards as a consequence. Globalization and impoverishment are seen as a threat of disappearance of the Indian culture. The NAFTA came as a catalyst for all these inequalities. At the same time, the constitution has finally been translated into Indian tongue, and the majority of illiterate non-Spanish speaking Indians were finally able to compare the rights granted by the Constitution with their daily unfair conditions.

Extraits

[...] We will first look at the combination of ideological influences making up this leftist movement. Between socialism, communism, idealism, ecologism, feminism, anarchism its leaders refuse all political affiliation. Then we will acknowledge the interesting synthesis made by the EZLN between all its paradoxes of being a pacifist guerrilla, a post-modern intellectual revolution supported by indigenous masses and a non-power seeking organization. And we will conclude that these paradoxes turn Zapatismo into a hybrid movement. Finally we will pay attention to the universal appeal of Zapatismo through its fight against neo-liberalism and its reflections toward a sustainable alter-mundialism; EZLN is also a forum giving a voice to the world's civil society. [...]

[...] So as to be integrated among indigenous, who did not even spoke Spanish for a majority, the leaders began to study their culture, and gave away all the Marxist vocabulary of the revolution. Naomi Klein, in her so fascinating article, summarized this transformation by explaining that Marcos an Isabel Allende character in reverse: not the poor peasant who becomes a Marxist rebel, but a Marxist intellectual who becomes a poor peasant”[25] The lack of any clear ideological reference is not the only specificity of Zapatismo. [...]

[...] “What follows is not a new political party on the left, but a huge front made up of political and social organizations” explains Subcomandante Marcos[23]. By combining those ideologies and reformulating it in a new synthesis, Zapatismo has created a new movement, but surely not without any paradox. II. Between Indigenous movement and intellectual revolution, the paradoxes of the “first post-modern revolution” When the first intellectuals came to Chiapas in the 80s in order to organize the basis of the revolution, they quickly understood that the synthesis of a revolutionary socialism movement, with the indigenous culture would be a difficult challenge. [...]

[...] The demand for land, central to Zapatismo, as well as the fight for preserving zone of “virgin selba” (jungle) are seen as a new perception of an environment, in which human are respecting the nature while growing in a sustainable process. However, it is surely not about ecological radicalism. Zapatismo is supporting ecology and recognize the necessity to address it, but the need of the peasants, even if it means destroying a part of the jungle so as to be able of cultivating food to nourish the community, must go first. Ecology cannot be at the detriment of human life. Feminism is also a component of Zapatismo, since men and women are seen as being equal. [...]

[...] Among the particularity of Zapatismo, compared to other revolutionary movement, is their lack of desire to take power. EZLN “fight for labor, social and indigenous rights with a broad new political front that would influence candidates but not seek office itself.”[32] It is a movement which does not want to govern. They just want to create political dynamic not interested in taking power but in building where those who govern, govern by obeying”[33]. They also refused to get organized in the way the government wants; it means to become a political party. [...]