A-Infos (en) Zapatistas & Int'l Circulation of Struggles -V- of -VI- 5. The Encounters: Energy and Difficulties

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

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H.Cleaver:
        From: owner-chiapas95-english@eco.utexas.edu
\
5. The Encounters: Energy and Difficulties

        From this perspective the unexpected enthusiasm of thousands
of activists from dozens of countries to trek into the jungles of
Chiapas
in 1996, or to cope with the expense and difficulties of traveling to
several different, widely separated towns in Spain in 1997, and the
ongoing energies for the elaboration of intercontinental circuits of
communication and struggle can be seen to derive not only from shared
perceptions of new possibilities for join action against a common
enemy, but from a spreading understanding that Zapatista politics are
not entirely unique but perhaps symptomatic of those directions of
class
struggle that hold the greatest potential in this period.

        The Zapatista proposal of these Encounters grew out of their
own practice in Chiapas.  One of an array of interrelated institutions
of
community consultation and decision making, the gathering together of
most of those from a village or from many villages in a setting where
all
voices can be heard and issues decided upon is central to the
Zapatista
politics.  A first experiment with the usefulness of this process on a

much larger scale were the meetings of the National Democractic
Convention --that brought together thousands of activists in Mexico.
The Continental and Intercontinental Encounters were another.  In both

cases the experiments were exciting and productive but also difficult
and
fraught with problems.

        The most obvious problem with this extension to a world scale
of this form of doing politics is the difficulty of gaining experience
and
learning how to do it. In the Zapatista communities this way of doing
things has been going on for years over and over again so that the
participants are familiar and practiced with the way things go.  Even
when multiple communities with different cultural practices and
languages are involved, a whole set of modalities have been worked
out, are familiar and contribute to making the gatherings a vibrant
part of
political life. In the case of the Intercontinental Encounters,
because they
can happen at best only once a year, gaining experience and working
out
effective methods is much more problematic, as we will see. It is one
thing for academics to gather from time to time to exchange a few
ideas
and then disperse with no collective follow-up, it is quite another to

construct an on-going productive political process.

        The First Intercontinental Encounter was certainly colored by
the
moral and political aura of the Zapatista movement.  Organized in five

different campesino communities in various parts of Chiapas, the
thousands of participants moved from place to place under the very
noses of the Mexican police and Army.  In this dramatic defiance of
those forces, the Zapatistas carried out a virtual military operation,

demonstrating to the state and to the world that neither they nor
their
friends could be isolated or immobilized through repression.  In each
of
the five sites participants discovered that the community had crafted,
out
of local and donated materials, sufficient infrastructure to host
hundreds
of outsiders, providing places to sleep, to bathe, to eat, to gather
for
roundtable and plenary discussion during the days and for music and
dancing at night.  They discovered rows of porcelain latrines and
libraries with shelves of books and electrical outlets for computers
and
printers.  The participants also discovered that these spaces had been

created for them to engage each other, with only marginal
participation
from the Zapatistas themselves.  They framed and hosted the meetings
but besides the welcoming and closing plenary speeches and the
beginning and end of the week of work, they participated very little
in
the week of discussions.

        In workshop session after session papers were presented and
discussion and debate swirled in several languages and translators
struggled to keep up and to make the arguments and points intelligible
to
those who couldnıt understand the speakersı languages.  People were
coming together from widely different backgrounds and practices with
very different conceptual frameworks and was of expressing them so
that the ³cross-language² problem was multiplied on several levels.
Nevertheless, a week-long struggle for dialogue and understanding
went on day and night, often in the rain and deepening mud, broken
only by meals, music, dancing and sleep. Under the quiet and dignified

eyes of the people of the Zapatista communities,  desires for
understanding almost always won out over impatience traditional
prejudices, at least to the degree that there were few truly hostile
moments and an amazing degree of good will and patience.  As the
discussions drew to a close the participants managed to draw up
documents that would reflect the complexity of the perspectives and
opinions that had come together.

        The 1997 Intercontinental Encounter in Spain replicated in
many
ways the experience of the first but in an entirely different context.

Instead of the unifying backdrop of the Zapatista communities, the
organization of the Second Encounter emerged out of the conflicts and
negotiations among various political groups in Spain.  The
distribution
of workshops over several cities in part reproduced what the
Zapatistas
had done, but with a different rationale.  Instead of a defiant
military
operation, the dispersion in Spain seemed aimed primarily at
satisfying
diverse and competing local claims for significant political roles. In

other words, the organization of the Second Encounter and many of the
difficulties that arose reflected the much less mature state of cross
struggle networking in Spain as opposed to that in Chiapas.  Whereas
in
Chiapas old sectarian prejudices and ideological tensions were muted
in
the presence of a highly respected population of people in struggle
--a
people whose own ideas could not be fit into any familiar ideological
category-- in Spain such old prejudices and tensions rose to the
surface
much more quickly and frequently.   Nevertheless, once more
thousands gathered, discussed, debated and sought to build linkages
across previous gulfs and to replace silences or harsh words with
productive political dialogue.  That neither the meetings not ex-post
assessments dissolved into sectarian diatribes and condemnations
testified to the presence of a new spirit of cooperation and
collaboration.

        As mentioned above in the context of sketching the role of the

Internet, the organization and unfolding of the Second Encounter made
much greater use of e-mail and web sites than the First.  Not only
were
a very large number of papers made available on the web --and
sometimes circulated in e-mail discussion lists-- ahead of time, but
this
made possible some discussion even before the conference began.
However, in part because of the absence of such means the previous
year, most of the papers and documents which had been presented at the

first Encounter were NOT available as background to the Second --
despite repeated suggestions that discussions in the Second should
build
upon those of the First.  There were a few exceptions, such as the
publication in Italy of a translated collection of papers from the
previous
year, but for the most part participants to the Second Encounter
arrived
without benefit of familiarity with earlier discussions. The result
was
much more repetition and less progress than many had hoped.  Many
who had attended the First Encounter had been impressed with the
consensus both about the nature of Neoliberalism and the willingness
to
identify the common enemy as capitalism and not just one of its forms.

They therefore hoped that in the Second Encounter less time and energy

would go into discussions of those issues and more into the sharing of

experience of struggle and attempts to design more coherent networks
of
communication and struggle. While there was some progress in this area

it was far less than many had expected because so many of the old
discussions had to be repeated among new participants who had not
attended the first and had had no opportunity to familiarize
themselves
with what had happened then.

        Although the Intercontinental Encounters were by no means
academic affairs --there were certainly some people from universities
but
also lots of other kind of grassroots activists-- the formal workshops
all
too closely resembled typical academic gatherings.  The presentation
of
papers --even when they had been available ahead of time-- took far
too
much time and although there was much more time for discussion and
debate than is common in academia, it was still too small a percentage
of
the total for a great many peopleıs tastes.  Similarly, there were the

language problems familiar to academic and political gatherings across

borders and neither in the villages of Chiapas nor in the cities in
Spain
was there adequate provision for simultaneous translation to overcome
this barrier in a satisfactory manner.  In both sites same language
individuals often sat clustered around one grossly overworked
translator
who struggled to keep up, often with little relief.  The efforts were
valiant and much appreciated but the deficiencies of the situation was
a
major obstacle to a clear circulation of ideas and debate.  In
Chiapaneca
villages where provision for high tech multichannel earphones and
teams of translators was hardly imaginable, this obstacle was annoying

but understandable. In Spain where such technology certainly exists,
its
absence was less well received.

        On the other hand, there was some progress in the Second
Encounter in the thematic  organization of the workshops. The
Zapatista
organization in Chiapas had corresponded to some of their own
categories of organizing discussion: economic, political, cultural,
social,
and indigenous. But during the First Encounter and during the
organization of the Second there was considerable discussion about
alternative ways to regoup discussion.  The thematic organization
became: ³the neoliberal economy,² ³our world and theirs,² ³struggles
for culture, education and information,² ³the struggle against
patriarchy,² ³struggles for land and the Earth,² and ³against all
forms of
marginalization.²  It was generally recognized, however, that the
appropriate categorizations would evolve over time and the willingness

to embrace that evolution and see the process of organization as an
endless, ever renewed process was encouraging.

        Once again as the Encounter drew to a close, great efforts
were
made to draw up summaries of discussions and exchanged experiences
not so much to issue some formal declarations but to document the
progress made and the directions of movement to facilitate further
advances in the future.  There was considerable discussion about the
desirability of organizing a Third Encounter but no decision was
reached
and that project is still under discussion, both within groups and
among
them through the Internet.

        To summarize these experiences, let me just say a couple of
things.  On the one hand, they reflected a new desire for organization
at
a world level and they also demonstrated a new capacity to actually
achieve such organization.  They brought together a tremendous amount
of activist energy for struggle and these comings-together generated
more energy than they absorbed. Most people seem to have come away
from them enthusiastic and fired up for future efforts.  On the other
hand, they also embodied only partial solutions to many of the
obstacles
which still impede the acceleration of the formation of ever more
effective circuits of struggle capable of subverting and substituting
for
capitalist initiatives and programs. Old obstacles such as different
languages, modes of expression and practices of interaction persist
while new obstacles such as finding complementary and mutually
reinforcing modes of action among quite diverse struggles challenge
those who have set aside the old, simplistic solutions that they now
know have not, and cannot work, e.g., ³join the party and smash the
state².  In as much as the Encounters grew out of ongoing processes of

networking and discussion, no one expected them to generate some kind
of collective singular solution, and discussion continues the best use
of
such periodical large-scale meetings and their relatonship to other
means
of collaboration.

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