A-Infos (en) Zapatistas & Int'l Circulation of Struggles -IV- of -VI- 4. Alternatives, Plural

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@netvision.net.il>]

________________________________________________
     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
           http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________

H.Cleaver:
        From: owner-chiapas95-english@eco.utexas.edu

4. Alternatives, Plural

        The insistence of the Zapatistas on the creation and
elaboration
of a diverse array of alternatives to replace current capitalist
institutions
and relationships has been both the result of a conscious rejection of
the
revolutionary tradition of imagining the replacement of the current
despised capitalist order by another preferred one, e.g., socialism or

communism, and an outgrowth of their own experience with the politics
of diversity in Chiapas.

        On the one hand, they have been critical of the way such
replacement has in the past and would likely in the future only invert
the
structures of class power, e.g., the substitution of the dictatorship
of the
proletariat for the dictatorship of capital, and maintain rather than
do
away with the very class structures that need to be abolished. Thus,
their refusal, mentioned above, of a politics of the seizure of power.

        On the other hand, the experience of their communities, out of

which their politics have emerged has been that it is not only
possible
but highly desirable to eschew the generalized imposition of common
rules in favor of a much richer diversity of cultures and ways of
organizing and settling local affairs. That this is not a
simple-minded
withdrawal into localism can be seen in the willingness and abilities
of
these communities to collaborate with each other locally, regionally,
nationally and even with others internationally.  The EZLN itself was
created by the communities as a collective project and its leadership
is
made up of people from many different ethnic, cultural and linguistic
groups. Over the last four years the indigenous Zapatista communities
have reached out across Mexico and helped weave hundreds of distinct
groups into a linked web called the National Indigenous Congress.
This
organization of collaboration has no permanent institutional form, no
central committee or steering group but a multitude of connections
among autonomous ³knots² which from time to time coalesce into
assemblies for specific purposes. A key subset of these ³knots² are
now
linked via computer.  The Zapatistas have also provided key support
for
the formation of the Zapatista National Liberation Front that was
formally inaugurated in Mexico City in September of 1997 and involves
not only indigenous communities but a wide variety of grassroots
movements both rural and urban. Once again, the object has not been
the construction of a unified program or formal organization but the
acceleration of the circulation of struggle and mutual aid.

        This insistence on the revolutionary project being a rupture
of
uniform rules has challenged the traditional rigid structures of
Western
constitutional states and offered the alternative of working out a
more
multidimensional politics across a greater array of social practices.
While the Zapatista communities have considerable experience with such

politics they have refused to recommend their own solutions to others.

Instead they have pointed to the intolerability of current capitalist
structures and called for others to apply their own imagination and
creativity to the invention of other solutions.  This open-ended
proposal
has stimulated widespread discussion and debate within Mexico and
elsewhere.  The guardians of the present order have rejected it out of

hand evoking fears of chaos and the collapse of civilization.  Those
wedded to traditional notions of creating a socialist or communist
system to replace the present one have also reacted with disdain and
evoked similar fears. A common reference has been the collapse of what

was once Yugoslavia into civil war, ethnic cleansing and barbarism.
But others, disabused with both the current system and old
alternatives,
have been fascinated by the effectiveness of the self-organization of
the
Zapatista movement and its ability to build and elaborate a variety of

political linkages across vast differences in culture, tradition and
language. Even if that experience cannot be duplicated elsewhere, due
to
different traditions and practices, it at least suggests that the
invention of
new ways of doing politics is possible and on more than a local scale.

Thus the inspiration which many around the world have found in the
Zapatista movement.

        One part of the world where this apparently esoteric
indigenous
movement from the margins has resonated most strongly has been, of
all places, Western Europe.  But while some have smelled a kind of
desperate return to the Third Worldism of an earlier era, there are
good
reasons for suspecting a much more profound source: a surprising
convergence not only of resistance to capitalist policy but a growing
tendency to discover new forms of political practice that resemble, in

general terms, those in Chiapas. Nowhere does this seem to be more
pronounced than in Italy.  In both 1996 and 1997 one of the largest
and
most enthusiastic collection of people to participate in the
Intercontinental Encounters were Italian.  In a recent survey of pro-
Zapatista demonstrations in the wake of the Acteal massacre, a
disproportionate number of actions and people took place in the
streets
of Italy.

        If we investigate the sources of this connection, of the
sympathetic response of young Italian militants to both the Zapatistas

and the struggles they have influenced, we discover some interesting
parallels.  First, at the level of political practice, the cutting
edge of
Italian social struggles have embraced a refusal of representative
political
forms similar to that of the Zapatistas and, at the same time,
elaborated a
multiplicity of autonomous struggles such as the squatted youth
centers
that have been created throughout Italy.  These centers, in turn, are
often
linked to each other through the European Counter-Network of
controinformazione which has played a vital role in circulating not
only
information about the struggles in Mexico and Italy, but those
throughout Europe.  Many of those who came to Chiapas or Spain for
the Intercontinental Encounters also participated, or had friends who
participated in the European-wide demonstration against unemployment
and Maastricht in Amsterdam.  Over 3,000 militants in Italy demanded
free trains for transportation to that demonstration and got them
--much
to the annoyance of the Swiss, German and Dutch governments.  When
the police of those countries harassed the Italian protesters, they
used
cellular phones, the ECN and the network of free radios to mobilize
immediate support throughout Italy.  A few days ago, on January 14,
1998 another free train was apparently obtained to transport thousands

of demonstrators from all over Italy to a nation-wide demonstration
for
Chiapas and against the Acteal massacre in Rome.  We thus see the
circulation of ideas, people and methods of struggle between Chiapas,
Italy and the rest of Europe.

        At the level of theory, some recent expressions of militant
Italian
thought bare an uncanny resemblance to Zapatista ways of thinking
about revolution and the displacement-eclipse of state power.  In this

regard I will only mention one revealing collection of materials:
Radical
Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, edited by Paolo Vierno and
Michel
Hardt.  Although the language and formulations differ markedly from
those of the Zapatistas, there are many striking parallels.

        The Italians may speak of self-valorization and constituent
power instead of indigenous autonomy and the power of self-
determination but the ideas are homologous.  The Italians, coming from

a Marxist tradition may ground their appreciation of the power of a
proliferating multitude of alternatives in the spread of so-called
³immaterial labor² and ³mass intellectuality², whereas the Zapatistas
may spin tales that draw from both mass culture and indigenous
mythology but both have grasped the power potential of imagination and

creative energy freeing itself from the bonds of subordination to
capital.
Where the Italians discover an exodus from alienations of capitalist
work in favor of new spaces of self-valorization, the Zapatistas speak
of
the struggle for land as a means to avoid the brutalities of waged
labor
on cattle ranches and coffee plantations and as a means to the further

elaborations of new communal practices and politics.  I could continue

drawing parallels between the two bodies of thought but I think that
Iıve
said enough to suggest why the resonance of Zapatista struggles in
Italy
and perhaps elsewhere in Europe may not be grounded in simply
solidarity but rather in experiences of struggle and reflection which
despite their differences still embody many common elements that are
rooted in both the globality of capitalist exploitation and the
struggle
against it.  To the degree that this is so, the rapid circulation of
the
Zapatista resistance to Neoliberalism and its positive projects of
social
transformation must be seen as being of potentially much greater
import
than we have already observed.




     ****** A-Infos News Service *****
  News about and of interest to anarchists

Subscribe -> email MAJORDOMO@TAO.CA
             with the message SUBSCRIBE A-INFOS
Info      -> http://www.ainfos.ca/
Reproduce -> please include this section