The Zapatistas – the first revolutionaries of the new age

This year marks thirty years since the Zapatistas emerged onto the world stage.  Mike Gonzalez looks at how events in Chiapas have unfolded since 1994 and assesses the latest developments as Mexico elects a woman president for the first time.

Chiapas, the southern state of Mexico bordering on Guatemala, had never attracted much interest outside the country. It was over 1000 kilometres from Mexico City, where most of the journalists were, and its majority population only spoke one of several indigenous languages. But Chiapas was rich in natural resources: it supplied Mexico with water and hydroelectricity and it was rich cattle country that enriched a small and shrinking elite. Its population grew maize, the staple diet, on small farms. The state had the highest levels of illiteracy and infant mortality in Mexico, and half of its population had no access to electricity. 

But out of the silence of its Lacandon jungle, on 1 January 1994, there emerged a guerrilla force that seized the state capital, San Cristobal de las Casas, with arms in hand – though many of their weapons were wooden replicas. Their faces were covered with woollen balaclavas, they wore Indian clothing and sandals. And they announced themselves to the world as the EZLN, the Zapatista National Liberation Army. Their name was an homage to the great peasant leader Emiliano Zapata, whose forces fought during the Mexican Revolution (1910-17) under the banner ‘For land and liberty’. Zapata was murdered in 1919 by his ex-allies in the new revolutionary government, but his name and his symbolic presence on a white horse inspired several peasant movements, all of which centred on the right to land and social justice. 

The Zapatistas had chosen the date of their insurrection well. On that day in the luxurious surroundings of the capital, the Mexican president Salinas was meeting with Bill Clinton and the Canadian premier to announce the formation of a key piece in a new global order, in which the Mexican economy would be effectively controlled directly by the U.S. and all protection removed. In this new global order, ‘freedom’ would be enjoyed by global capital, which would move freely across the planet in its pursuit of profit, while nation-states like Mexico would act only as agents of global capital. Since public spending would be restricted, the small maize farmers would lose their subsidies and the production of maize would be dominated by two giant American corporations who undercut the local farmers with prices they could not match. The landowners and cattle barons were happy with the new arrangements, and they seized the land of peasant farmers by force. Across Latin America, the workers driven off the land would cross the US border in search of work or crowd into the huge urban slums surrounding Latin America’s major cities. 

The theorists of this new order called it ‘the end of history’, after the fall of the Berlin Wall signalled the end of the false ‘socialism’ of the Soviet bloc. In this new world capital could walk freely across the earth and impose its priorities through global financial institutions, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Their strategies were masked by innocuous titles like ‘structural adjustment’. In exchange for loans with punishing interest rates the priorities of capital were imposed on the global south. 

But history did not end on that January day, instead an obscure movement in the global south had placed resistance back on the historical agenda. By a wonderful paradox the Chiapas rising coincided with the launch of the world wide web and the impoverished, oppressed communities of Chiapas sent a message across the internet. Their ‘Dispatches from the Lacandon jungle (in Chiapas)’ were signed by a mysterious masked man called Subcomandante Marcos. He spurned the title of Commander insisting that the leadership of the EZLN was the collective representatives of the Zapatista communities. At their meetings they all wore the woollen ski masks which expressed their collective identity. 

In their long and poetic letters to the world, the Zapatista documents denounced the neoliberalism that imposed the priorities of global capital across the global south. Some writers described their insurrection as the ‘first postmodern revolution’ – by which they meant that they were not led by the politics of the socialist tradition, nor by recognisable left organisations. But the resistance to the neoliberalism that had first bared its teeth in Chile in 1973 continued and spread. The language of rebellion had changed, but the struggle continued. In Brazil, the Landless Workers Movement occupied the great estates, in Ecuador the indigenous movements formed a new coordination, Conaie, and brought down three presidents who agreed to the priorities of the global order. In Bolivia the ‘water wars’ of 2000 were a victory for a new popular movement against the Bechtel corporation which set out to privatise their water, and the ‘gas wars’ that followed demanded the nationalisation of oil and gas. In Argentina in 2001 a movement  drew together the militant unemployed (the piqueteros), workers occupying factories and local communities in ‘popular assemblies’. 

The echoes of Chiapas reached beyond Latin America. In Italy, the movements of rebellious youth described themselves as ‘Metropolitan Indians’ – a clear gesture of solidarity with the poor and the marginalised fighting the same enemy. And in 1999, in Seattle, in the heart of the beast, a mass demonstration attacked the meeting of the World Trade Organisation. Many of the demonstrators wore the red bandannas of the Zapatistas. The WTO had existed for ten years, and met in obscure places to fix commodity prices and develop strategies to eliminate obstacles to the free movement of capital. But its secret was out as ‘teamsters and turtles’, workers and environmentalists, came together in protest outside their gates. 

In Mexico itself, the state sent 40,000 troops to surround the rebels. In 1996 talks began at San Andrés to discuss the demands of the indigenous communities for recognition of their communal rights and for resources for education, health and electricity. The talks were mediated by the Bishop of Chiapas, Samuel Ruiz, a liberation theologian, who had supported the Zapatistas since they had begun their activity twenty years before. The agreements reached, the San Andrés Accords, however, were never seriously implemented. The violence against the Zapatista communities, by police and the military on the one hand and armed gangs on the other, was relentless. The worst example was the murder of over 40 members of the Acteal community in December 1997. Those responsible were never identified. 

Though they were isolated and besieged in Chiapas, the example offered by the Zapatistas reached other indigenous communities in Mexico and beyond. The Social Forums that brought together all those in struggle and which met in 2003 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, were inspired by the Zapatistas and drew together what came to be called the ‘new social movements’ who were spreading the resistance to neoliberalism. They were the reference point for the new radical governments of the so-called ‘Pink Tide’ in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador at the turn of the 21st century. What was new and original about the Zapatistas was summarised by John Holloway in the title of his book about them: Change the World without Taking Power. Their critique of the corruption of the state and the marginalisation of indigenous and poor communities was powerful, and thus theirs was not a revolution aimed at conquering the state. Instead, their collective vision emphasised democracy and the autonomy of the Zapatista communities, and this resonated with many of the new movements emerging in the fight against neoliberalism. It was also a profound rejection of the Stalinism and authoritarianism which had characterised many of the traditional organisations of the left. 

The concept of ‘autonomy’ connected with an anarchist tradition that had found new supporters in the post-Stalinist era, though in Chiapas and the indigenous movements its sources came from their own historic traditions. The organisation of the Zapatista communities – the ‘caracoles’ or snails as they were called – attracted the interest of people from across the world. They were organised as collectives, free of hierarchies, and women played a central role. They rejected individual ownership, celebrated the indigenous languages and cultures, and created educational and health programmes for a population who had been among the poorest in the continent. 

According to their current spokesperson Moises, who replaced Marcos by decision of the collective, the Zapatistas do not aspire to taking power but to the creation of new grassroots organisations that now replace the Councils of Good Governments that preceded them. The exploitation of the natural resources in Chiapas has made protection of nature central to their thinking, but the latest phase has a slightly apocalyptic tone, preparing for a future collapse.  

This may be a reaction to the continuing persecution to which the Zapatistas have been subjected. The current president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador or AMLO was carried to power by a mass movement and for a time he was seen as a champion of the Zapatistas. But his proposed mega projects, like the Maya Train, have been bitterly criticised by them, and he has sent more troops to the area. 

In 2001 the Zapatistas sent their spokespersons across the world; in 2012 indigenous communities across Mexico launched a new wave of resistance. The murder by the police at Ayotzinapa of 43 students of an indigenous university heavily influenced by the Zapatistas remains unsolved, those responsible still untouched. That stands as a symbol of the continuing discrimination and oppression of the indigenous communities, many of whom live in areas rich in the minerals sought by the multinational corporations. The latest Zapatista declaration from Moises speaks directly to the environmentalist crisis that threatens a world living through climate change. The future, they say, lies in the ‘commons’, a propertyless world worked collectively for the collective good. 

In July this year Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s president, the first woman to occupy the post. She will formally take office in October. Sheinbaum is an environmental scientist, a feminist, and was mayor of the huge capital of the country before becoming part of the current president AMLO’s Cabinet. Her opponents, predictably, insist she will be AMLO’s puppet, with the usual sexist overtones. She was a member of the PRD, the broadly social democratic party from which Obradors also came before they formed a new coalition called Morena. Obradors was, and remains, a popular figure and some of his policies marked a completely new direction in Mexican politics – the minimum wage, the social programmes included in the new constitution, the election of the judiciary. Sheinbaum herself introduced important environmental measures while mayor of Mexico City, and supported LGBT+ initiatives. She has supported AMLO’s infrastructure projects, especially the Maya Train, which have been opposed by the Zapatistas. Her public statements have not specifically addressed indigenous questions but she has promised a progressive regime extending welfare provision and acting against criminality and corruption as well as active support for women. Time will tell.