A-Infos (en) Zapatistas & Int'l Circulation of Struggles -II- of -VI- 2. The key role of computer communications

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

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

2. The key role of computer communications

        Chiapas, despite some long standing tourist interest in its
ancient
ruins and local indigenous color, occupies a relatively remote corner
of
Mexico.  The daily travails and struggles of its largely indigenous
and
peasant population have historically been mainly of interest to
anthropologists and linguists.  The initial explosion of rebellion on
January 1, 1994 led to spurt of media attention because it tore away
the
illusions crafted by the Mexican government and its Northern backers
to
surround and celebrate the initiation of the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA) on that same day.  But as the Mexican government
responded to the rebellion by pouring some 15,000 troops into the
highlands and the Zapatistas retreated into the jungles, this public
visibility risked being purely momentary.  Certainly the Mexican
government downplayed the rebellion and sought to isolate it. As the
body count dropped and fighting dwindled the Mexican government
expected media presence began to evaporate and looked forward to the
prospect of cleaning up an untidy and embarrassing situation out of
public view using its normal brutal methods.

        This hope, however, proved futile as a wide variety of
observers
from elsewhere in Mexico and from abroad poured into Chiapas and
solidarity crystallized in huge demonstrations in Mexico City and
elsewhere.  Before long such mobilization became an endless nightmare
for the Mexican state and forced it to abandon an overt military
solution
and enter into the last thing it wanted: a formal dialog with the
rebels in
which it was forced to recognize the indigenous character of the
rebellion and to negotiate. In this new political space the government
did
not know how to act and performed very poorly.  The Zapatistas,
however, won not only an ever wider audience but also ever wider
respect and support.  Eventually it would be revealed that the
government's negotiations were extremely hypocritical and that not
only
were they laying the groundwork for an extensive low intensity (i.e.,
terrorist) war against the Zapatista communities but that they would
--in
the Spring of 1995 and again in the Winter of 1997-98-- return to the
use of overt military force.

        Nevertheless, during the long hiatus between the end of
fighting
in January 1994 and the government's unilateral violation of
cease-fire
accords in February of 1995 the Zapatistas had the time not only to
develop a spectacular political initiative, e.g., the National
Democratic
Convention that brought together grassroots and political movements
from all over Mexico, but also to get their message out to the wider
world in such a way as to inspire not only solidarity but new
discussions and mobilizations about common concerns.

        Within Mexico the circuits of communication through which the
Zapatista communiqués, interviews and stories circulated were largely
traditional ones: a spate of books and collections, a few liberal
newspapers and magazines, especially La Jornada and Proceso, the
publications of formal political parties and organizations and a wide
variety of informal networks in urban barrios and rural communities.
Within Mexico the relatively new networks of computer
communications played a subsidiary role, probably most importantly
among those Mexican groups which had mobilized in opposition to
NAFTA in the early 1990s and had elaborated Internet connections with
their counterparts in the United States and Canada. It is important to

remember that the Zapatistas themselves had no direct connection to
the
Internet, nor to any other means of wider communication and relied
exclusively on the mediation of sympathetic individuals and
organizations to get their message out.

        Outside of Mexico, however, the story was quite different.  In

the extremely rapid circulation of information about the Zapatista
rebellion and of subsequent discussion and mobilization around the
world computer communications played a decisive role.  Whether media
coverage was intense or non-existent, the Internet hummed with a
steady and quite impressive flow of information generated from a wide
variety of on-the-scene observers and distant analysts and
commentators.  The Zapatistas' ability to produce a surprising array
of
communiqués, letters, metaphorical stories and news bulletins provided

a massive counterweight to government disinformation and media
neglect.  In moments of intensified conflict such information and
analysis were downloaded by the megabyte and transformed into
pamphlets, leaflets, newspaper articles, teach-ins, lectures and
letters to
the editor, all of which gave people far from Mexico a intense sense
of
the situation and fed local mobilizations protesting Mexican
government
repression.  Within the context of a previous widespread organized
opposition to NAFTA and equally widespread computer networks
concerned with human rights violations, indigenous struggles, and
women's issues, this flow of information generated an almost
unprecedented breath of discussion political action.

        As more and more people became involved in these processes
they brought their computer and artistic skills to elaborate
discussion
lists, PeaceNet conferences and an explosive proliferation of web
sites.
Larger numbers also meant a greater capacity for translation from
Spanish into other languages and a further acceleration of the
circulation
of struggle. This was by no means the first time computer
communications had played a key role in social struggle, but it
quickly
became a highly effective and widely recognized one.  Even the media
began to pick up on these hitherto largely invisible currents of
communication that undermined and eclipsed their monopoly of and
ability to limit and distort  information but by providing means of
almost
instantaneous interactive discussion and collaboration dramatically
accelerated the possibilities of long-distance organization.

        One interesting Zapatista initiative which reached out to the
world using the Internet to involve others in the political debates
inside
Mexico was their Call for a plebiscite on their future political
orientation.
In an unprecedented move, that caught the government entirely off
guard (once again), the Zapatistas talked Allianza Civica --a pro-
democracy NGO-- into setting up thousands of polling booths in cities
throughout Mexico where people could vote on a series of questions
about the Zapatista program and methods.  Participation was
simultaneously opened to people throughout the world through the
Internet which provided the means for circulating the questions and
gathering the answers. Over a million people participated in this
plebiscite in Mexico and over 81,000 people in 47 countries took part
through the Internet.

        By early 1996, two years after the public appearance of the
rebellion, these cyberspacial circuits of communication had reached
into
a wide variety of other struggles around the world.  They provoked
such extensive discussion of Zapatista politics and proposals that
when
the EZLN issued a Call for continental and intercontinental encounters
to
exchange experiences of struggle and to compare notes of capitalist
policies and strategies of resistance the response far outstripped all
their
expectations. Indeed, the Zapatista Call, which they issued with some
trepidation, high hopes but low expectations generated a mobilization
of
a scope and depth that no other individual group has been able to do
in
recent memory.   Not only did thousands of people respond
enthusiastically to the invitation and move quickly to organize a
series of
preliminary continental meetings.  The organization of the European
meetings, the Internet played a role in circulating ideas and
proposals
and the results of a series of face-to-face meetings.  In North
America,
with the organization of the continental encounter in the hands of the

Zapatistas, the Internet served mainly to circulate information about
the
event and collect applications for participation. The same pattern
would
be repeated for the Intercontinental Encounter, also held in Chiapas.
For security reasons registration and certification was required for
these
meetings in Chiapas and was handled in each country.  The Net
circulated information about requirements for certification and
communication between applicants and organizers.

        Over 3,000 grassroots activists from over 40 countries
gathered
in Chiapas in the Summer of 1996 for the Intercontinental Encounter.
As many expected the meeting was tumultuous, even arduous, as a wide
array of individuals with equally diverse backgrounds (in terms of
both
their struggles and organizing experience) came together to attempt a
multi-sided, multi-lingual conversation about the state of the world
and
how to change it. Different kinds of people working within different
political and theoretical perspectives shared their views on the state
of
the world and their proposals for struggle.  All sorts of Marxists,
feminists, environmentalists, indigenous organizers, social democrats,

and human rights activists did their best to engage each other and to
find
common ground.

        This Intercontinental encounter was remarkable not for its
difficulties but for achieving such a degree of coherency that
virtually all
concerned decided that they should be repeated as one vehicle for the
continuation of the conversations begun.  Out of that meeting came the

decision to organize another --in Europe-- and enthusiasm for finding
or
creating not just periodical but an on-going conversations on a global

scale about fighting capitalism and building alternatives.  The Second

Intercontinental Encounter was held in Spain in late July, 1997.

        Like the First Intercontinental the Second was largely
organized
via the Internet coupled with a series of face-to-face meetings of
various
groups in Spain.  Ideas were circulated and discussed over various
lists
and conferences. As the time of the Encounter approached web sites
were organized both in Spain and elsewhere in the world to carry the
dozens of papers prepared for the meetings to all interested parties
who
were unable to attend. Voluntary translators multiplied these texts
across
linguistic barriers and made possible a multilingual multilogue at the

meetings themselves.  There was a quite conscious attempt to extend
the
Encounter beyond the 4,000 who showed up in Spain by providing
daily reports on the Internet about the discussions being held.
Originally, there were hopes to create real-time interactive text and
video
reporting from the Encounter but technical limitations on facilities
available in Spain proved insuperable.  Nevertheless, textual reports
were generated regularly and the Italian participants proved adept at
returning digitized audio and photographs from the meetings to their
web sites. This material was not interactive but they certainly added
depth, color and immediacy for those who were following events from
afar.

        In the wake of the Second Intercontinental Encounter the
associated web sites have maintained an archive of material to feed
into
future discussions and a variety of post-event evaluations and
summations have circulated on the Internet and been added to those
archives. Today computer communications with their networks of lists
and web sites continue to provide an interactive flow of information
about the ongoing struggles in Chiapas as well as of discussion about
related struggles elsewhere.  The explosion of net activity in the
wake of
the December 22, 1997 massacre of 47 men, women and children in
Acteal, Chiapas and the widespread protests to which it has given rise
is
only the latest moment of the vibrancy of this technology at an
international level. What we have experienced here seems to represent
an historically new level of organizational capability whose
potentialities
we are only beginning to explore.  Moreover, the legacy of these
meetings has been an elaboration of an ever widening network of
contacts and collaboration which has complemented, reinforced and
expanded already existing networks.

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