A-Infos (en) US, NortWest anarchist Common Action Newsletter INTERSECTIONS, Vol. 1, Issue 2 - Economic Crisis: Solutions from Mexico by Josh Neuhouser

As the United States enters what may be an extremely prolonged economic crisis, 
the Mexican anarchist Gustavo Esteva recommends that we learn from how people 
have coped in his country, which has lived La Crisis for over two decades with 
no end in sight. He also points out that in both countries, politicians have 
reacted by throwing money at the problem ­ a non-solution if there ever was one.
One solution has been the El Barzón movement, formed to defend debtors from the 
banks. Their tactics have ranged from counseling farmers on how to hold on to 
their property to forming roadblocks when the banks try to repossess their farms 
and homes. They have even brought home the crisis to those responsible, by 
tarring and feathering bankers.

Members of El Barzón have worked
closely in solidarity with the Zapatista
uprising in the state of Chiapas that
began in 1994. Today, autonomous
Zapatista communities are run by
Councils of Good Government, where
decisions at the village level are made
through the consensus of all th e
community, and at the regional level by
delegates that rotate yearly, selected by
the village assembly. Two years ago,
during the presidential elections,
Zapatistas and their supporters across the
country organized the "Other Campaign"
- an anti-electoral movement that
contrasted the empty promises for
change offered by candidates both left
and right with the need to develop
community-based organizations run by
principles of direct democracy, like
those practiced by the Zapatistas. The
most devoted supporters of the Other
Campaign have been street vendors, sex
workers, and other groups ignored by
politicians.
The southern state of Oaxaca has also
experimented with direct democracy in
recent years. In response to an attempt at
strikebreaking by an unpopular
governor, the people of Oaxaca
organized a Popular Assembly which
organized takeovers of government
buildings, as well as radio and television
stations. For five months, there was not a
single policeman on the streets of the
capital, but crime dropped to record lows
as neighbors who had never met each
other spent the nights in the streets
together. In rebellion, petty gangsters
found a cause to redirect their energies
toward, defending people from the brutal
repression that arrived with the federal
police in late 2006. As the immigrant
rights movement burst on to the North
American political scene that year,
Oaxaca's popular assembly also found an
echo with assemblies found in
Oaxaqueño communities from California
to Chicago and New York. Today,
Oaxaca is famous for its political graffiti
­ which often denounces in the same
breath the ruling conservative party, the
leftist opposition, and the Stalinists of
the Popular Revolutionary Front. All
share different beliefs and ideologies,
but all compete to rule over the people
-- goals that are alien to assembly-based
forms of social organization.
Even though the fire of the 2006
rebellion has died down, the tinder
remains dry. The teacher's union (which
played a crucial role in Oaxaca) went on
strike again in August, this time in
Morelos. These strikes are also revolts
against the union bureaucracy, whose
national leaders are fully complicit in the
government's plans to privatize
education and who sell out their rank-
and-file at the earliest available
opportunity. In early October, the army
was called in to break the strike, and to
repress the indigenous communities that
supported it.
There have been countless more revolts
across Mexico, including a prison
uprising this September in Tijuana, in
response to torture of prisoners. It is
certain that Mexico is headed towards
s o me s o r t o f s o c i a l u p h e a v a l --
especially as migrant workers in the
United States are beginning to return
home in the face of job shortages and
ICE raids. The business class in Mexico
is getting nervous, and the rich have
been marching, dressed in white, for
more jails, and for workers to abandon
their strikes. Obviously, Mexico is
different from the United States in
countless ways, but when we look south
we may be seeing our future.
Furthermore, the basic principles used
by Mexican radicals ­ primarily, distrust
of all politicians (right or left), and
insistence that power remain at the
community level ­ would make a good
guide for North Americans in the dark
days ahead.

--------------------------------------------

    Intersections is a publication of Common Action
            http://www.nwcommonaction.org
Common Action is a regional anarchist organization in the
Northwest United States with members representing the
cities of Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Portland.
To contact us, send an e-mail to nwcommonaction@gmail.com
or write to: P.O. Box 3462, Portland, OR 97208

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