The Zapatistas and the Other: The Pedestrians of History Part II
Translated by El Kilombo Intergalactico
Part II: The Paths of the Other
In August of 2003 the caracoles Zapatistas are born, and with them, the Councils
of Good Government, advancing the emerging separation between the political-military
apparatus of the EZLN and the civil structures of the Zapatista communities.
Parallel to this we worked on the structure of the chain of command and refined
the details for defense and resistance in the case of eventual military attack.
The first steps for the Sixth Declaration and what would later be the Other
Campaign were already being taken...
1. Alone? During the second half of 2004, the EZLN publishes,
in a series of writings, the fundamentals of its critical position with regards
to the political class and “sends” signals as to where this is all
going. By the beginning of 2005, the premises on which the Sixth Declaration
would be constructed were ready.
The electoral battle had already been moving forward for awhile already. At
that moment three possible paths presented themselves to the EZ: to incorporate
itself into the lopezobradorista “wave,” effectively omitting the
signals and facts that we had about its true tendencies (that is, we would have
to be inconsistent with ourselves); maintain silence and wait to see what happened
with the electoral process; or launch the project that we were preparing.
The decision to be made did not belong to the Zapatista leadership, but to the
communities. Thus we began to prepare what would later be the red alert, the
internal consulta, and depending on its result, the Sixth Declaration.
The immediate precedent to the Sixth was the text called “The Impossible
Geometry of Power.” It came after the red alert, which some interpreted
as an announcement of a Zapatista offensive or a “response” to the
constant military patrols. It wasn’t either one, but rather an act of
prevention in the face of possible enemy military action...which would be encouraged
through media attacks by progressive intellectuals whom, disenchanted with us
for not accompanying them in their praise of AMLO—and our refusal to be
quiet about it—attacked us without a second thought.
The Sixth is consulted with the Zapatista communities and they decide and state:
“we are willing, even if we are alone.” That is, to alone tour the
country, listen to the people from below, build with these people a National
Program of Struggle to transform the country and create a new agreement, a new
Constitution. For this eventuality, we had prepared for 3 years: to be left
alone [abandoned].
But it didn’t happen that way.
Soon the Sixth Declaration began to receive adherents. From all over the country
communications arrived demonstrating that the Sixth was not only understood
and accepted, but that many had made it their own. Day by day, the Sixth grew
and became national.
2. The First Steps...and faces. As we explained before, we
had foreseen a long process. Our idea was to convoke a series of initial encounters
in order for each to start getting to know the others who embraced the cause
and the path. These encounters should already mark a difference with those that
had taken place on other occasions. This time the Zapatista ear would have a
central role—to listen.
We began the meetings with the political organizations, to show them the place
that we recognized for them. After that with indigenous communities and organizations,
to reemphasize that we had not abandoned our struggle, but rather were conjoining
it to a bigger one. Next with social organizations, recognizing a terrain where
“the other” had constructed its own history. After that, with diverse
NGO’s, groups, and collectives that had remained close to our struggle.
Next with families and individuals, in order to say that, for us, everybody
counts, regardless of their size or their number. And finally, with “the
others,” that is, recognizing that our vision of the outside may be limited
(as of course it is).
In July, August, and September of 2005 we held what were known as the “preparatory
meetings.” In these we honored our word, we listened with attention and
respect to EVERYTHING that was said, including reproaches, critiques, threats...and
lies (although at the time we didn’t know they were lies).
One year ago, September 16, 2005, with the presence of the now deceased Comandanta
Ramona, the EZLN leadership formally handed over the self-named “Other
Campaign” to the group of adherents; [the EZLN] stated that it would participate
in the movement with, in addition to its role with the Zapatista communities,
a delegation (called the “Sixth Commission”) of its leadership.
[The EZLN] announced the “going out” of the first explorer, the
delegate number zero (to indicate that other delegates would follow), who would
have the mission of meeting and listening to those all over the country who
were now compañer@s but hadn’t been able to attend the preparatory
meetings, and to explore the conditions in which the constant work of the Sixth
Commission would be carried out.
In this first plenary, the EZLN proposed that in order to be consistent with
the proposal of the Sixth in constructing another form of doing politics, that
the words of everyone must be taken into account, no matter if they had attended
the meetings or not. The leadership of these few organizations were not honest.
As it would become evident later, their gamble was to join the movement in order
to lead it, to lead it breakdown...or in order to negotiate a better position
in the “marketplace” that the movement around AMLO was turning into.
They were so sure that he would be president.....well, official president, that
they felt that the train (the budget) was passing them by and they didn’t
even have a ticket. And the Other Campaign was the merchandize they could exchange
for cushy jobs, candidacies, and positions.
3. The first problems. We also saw in this plenary that there
was an imbalance: the groups and collectives (that find in the assembly form
their natural way of discussing and deciding things) had a significant advantage
over the political and social organizations, above all families and individuals...as
well as over the indigenous peoples.
We should say on this point that the majority of adherents of the Sixth Declaration
are indigenous (and this is without counting the Zapatistas). If that isn’t
reflected in the acts and meetings, it is because indigenous peoples have other
spaces of participation, of struggle, which are less “visible.”
For now it is sufficient to say that if all of the adherents were to meet, on
one occasion and in one place there would be (in a very conservative calculation),
a proportion of 10 indigenous people for each person from another political
or social organization, NGO, group, collective, family, or individual. One wishes
this could happen, the indigenous peoples could teach everyone, then, that we
don’t use “I” but rather “we” to name ourselves
and to be ourselves.
We saw all this and a few more things (for example, that there wasn’t
a mechanism for making decisions, nor a space for debate; that the groups and
collectives wanted to impose their ways on the political and social organizations
and vice versa), but we weren’t worried. We thought that the first thing
to be done was for everyone to get to know each other and, then later, define
between all of us the profile, then still incomplete, of the Other.
4. The stages. According to our idea, starting the Other Campaign
and “going out” on the first journey during electoral times would
have various advantages. One was that, given our anti- political class position,
we would not be “attractive” on the stages and meetings to those
who were, and are, on the electoral track. Going against the grain of those
of “common sense thinkers” would reveal those who had neared the
EZLN before only to take a photo, and lead them to avoid us and distance themselves
from neozapatismo (with books, declarations...and candidacies).
Another reason, no less important, was that, as we were going out to listen
to those from below, the word of these other struggles would become visible
and thus their histories and trajectories would become palpable. So “showing
oneself” in the Other would also be “showing oneself” to the
repression of the caciques, the government, business owners, and political parties.
According to us, the fact that it was an electoral period would elevate the
“cost” of a repressive action and diminish the vulnerability of
the smaller organizations and struggles. One more advantage was that, absorbed
as they were up there above in all things electoral, they would leave us alone
to do our project and neozapatismo would cease to be in fashion.
So then we thought of the following stages:
—6 months of a exploratory tour and getting to know each other throughout
the country (from January to June of 2006). Finishing that, a report to the
whole Other Campaign: “this is who we are, we are here, this is our story”;
let the electoral period pass and prepare the following step.
—After that, the following stage would deepen the “knowing”
each other and create modes of communication and support (the network) between
the adherents in order to support and defend ourselves and each other (now with
the participation of more delegates from the Sixth Commission—September
2006 to the end of 2007—with intermediate breaks in order to report back
and relieve the delegates).
—Later on, the elaboration, debate, and definition of the profile of the
Other according to its adherents, not just the EZLN (all of 2008).
—For 2009, according to our analysis, the “lopezobradorista dream”
would have ended. Our homeland would not have disillusionment, discouragement,
and desperation as its only future; there would be “something else”
(an “other” thing)...
5. The steps toward Atenco: to be compañer@s? The tour began,
and what happened happened. The pain that we had intuited did not come anywhere
near to what we actually encountered, heard, and came to know along the way.
Governments of all the political parties (including those of the supposed “left”—PRD,
PT, and Convergencia) allied with caciques, landowners, and business people
to plunder, exploit, scorn, and repress the ejidatarios, the indigenous communities,
the small business people and street vendors, the sex-workers, laborers, employees,
teachers, students, young people, women, children, elderly; in order to destroy
nature, to sell history and culture; to strengthen a way of thinking and acting
that is intolerant, exclusive, machista, homophobic, and racist. And none of
this appeared in the mass media.
But if the Mexico of below that we were finding exuded an indignant pain, the
organized rebellions that kept appearing, and uniting, revealed (and “kept
awake in each other”) an “other” country, a country at its
boiling point, in struggle, in the construction of its own alternatives.
If in its first steps the journey of the Sixth Commission was seen, with the
clumsiness of those who only look above, as a “mobile mailbox of complaints,”
soon it transformed itself and the word of the other [el otro, la otra] began
to take on the size of the silence that those above had hidden until then. Astonishing
stories of heroism, dedication, and sacrifice resisting the destruction that
came from above were heard and echoed in other honest adherents.
We arrived to the State of Mexico and the Federal District with cargo that included
perhaps all the colors that struggle below. The calendar marked May 3 and 4
of 2006, and pain and blood painted the town of Atenco and the compas of the
Other Campaign.
Providing a true lesson of what it is to be compañer@s in the Other Campaign,
the People’s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) of Atenco mobilized to
support compas in Texcoco. The municipal government (PRD) faked a dialogue and
negotiation while they called the state (PRI) and federal (PAN) police to repress
this movement. The parties most representative of the political class, PRD-PRI-PAN,
joined forces to strike at the Other Campaign. Approximately 200 compas were
attacked, beaten, tortured, raped, and incarcerated. One underage boy, Javier
Cortes Santiago, was assassinated by the police. Our young compañero
Alexis Benhumea Hernandez, adherent of the Other Campaign and student at the
UNAM, after a long agony, died, also assassinated.
The majority [of the Other Campaign] reacted and carried out actions of solidarity
and support, as well as acts of denunciations and pressure. With the minimum
of decency and compañerismo, we detained the tour of the Sixth Commission
of the EZLN and dedicated ourselves, first of all, to contesting the smear campaign
and lies that were made against the Peoples Front in Defense of the Land in
the mass media (which offended some compas of the alternative media); and later,
to activities to collect funds for the prisoners and expose the truth about
what happened.
In contrast to the majority of the Other Campaign, some organizations only worried
and mobilized as long as their own militants were held prisoner, or while the
acts gained them attention. When their companer@s were released and Atenco “went
out of fashion,” they dropped the demand for liberty and justice for the
remaining prisoners. Awhile later they would be the first to run to install
themselves in the sit-in for AMLO in the Zocalo and on Reforma. What they didn’t
do for Atenco they did for Lopez Obrador...because with him were “the
masses!”...well, and also the stagelights.
Other organizations dedicated themselves to taking advantage of the conjuncture
in order to, maliciously, try to impose on the Other Campaign a policy of alliances
with who were, and are, looking above. With the pretext of “we have to
unite ourselves in the struggle for the prisoners,” they attempted (by
manipulating plenary assemblies) to impose agreements that tied the Other to
the electoral calculations of openly or shamefully yellow [colors of the PRD]
organizations. And not only that, they dedicated themselves to sowing discord
and division, saying that the EZLN wanted to impose on the people of Atenco
a politics of sectarian alliances. But they failed.
Another organization, where there are some compañer@s, dedicated itself
to saying that the prisoners would not be released soon, that there was no reason
to dedicate so much effort to this, that “someone” (that wouldn’t
be them, of course) would take charge of the situation, that the Other Campaign
should continue, and that the Sixth Commission of the EZLN had committed an
error in delaying its trip—that this had been a unilateral decision and
that it should continue its journey...so that it could get to those places where
they [this organization] had political work or interest in doing it.
But the attitude of these “companer@s” was surpassed by the solidarity
activity of the majority of the Other Campaign. In all of Mexico, and in more
than 50 countries around the world, the demand for liberty and justice for the
prisoners of Atenco resonated with people of many colors.
6. Indians versus mestizos and provinces versus Mexico City (DF).
If the EZLN had foreseen for the Other Campaign a gradual, drawn-out pace (with
one or two plenaries per year), in the months of May and June of 2006 there
were up to 4 plenaries, all in D.F., given that that was where a good part of
the activities for Atenco were concentrated.
In these meetings, the “assembly professionals” attempted to convert
them into decision making bodies, without caring that this left aside one of
the essential propositions of the Sixth: to take everyone into account. Some
organizations, groups, and collectives, primarily from D.F., tried to manipulate
the assemblies, which had been convoked because of Atenco, into making decisions
and definitions...that suited them. And this logic became generalized. Some
discussions and decisions were, to say the least, ridiculous. For example, in
one of the plenaries, someone who does cultural work in the Nahuatl language
proposed that Nahuatl be the official language of the country and that the document
be delivered to the EZLN (which is made up by 99.99% indigenous peoples that
speak languages of Mayan roots). The assembly voted unanimously in favor. In
this way, the plenary of the Other decided to try to impose what had not been
achieved by the Aztecs, the Spanish, the Gringos, the French, the etceteras,
and all of the governments since the colonial era: to strip the Zapatista communities
of their original language[s]...which is not Nahuatl. In a previous assembly,
the facilitation team attempted to put into discussion whether the indigenous
peoples were a sector or not...without the indigenous compañer@s having
said anything. After 500 years of resistance and struggle, and 12 years since
the Zapatista armed uprising, the assembly was going to discuss what the indigenous
peoples are...without giving them a chance to speak.
If the repression in Atenco obligated us to respond organizationally as a movement,
the void created by the lack of basic definitions (like the function of debate
and the form and manner for making decisions) runs the risk of being filled
by the proposals and “ways” of those who, in contrast to the rest
of the adherents, could not only be present in the assemblies, but could also
endure hours and hours waiting for the opportune moment (that is, when they
could win) to vote on their proposal...or to filibuster the vote with “motions”
(when they were going to lose).
In an assembly, it is one who speaks who is valued, not one who works. And one
who speaks Spanish. Because when someone only spoke in indigenous language,
the “españolistas” took advantage of the moment to go the
bathroom, eat, or nap. The Zapatistas have reviewed the Sixth and nowhere does
it say that, in order to be an adherent, you have to speak Spanish...or be an
orator. But, in the assemblies, the logic of these organizations, groups, and
collectives has imposed just that.
And there’s more. In these assemblies votes were carried out by raising
hands. And it so happens that, as the assemblies take place in one geographic
point (that is, DF), the Other Campaign in the states and regions send delegates
with the decisions agreed upon by the adherents in those places. But at the
moment of the vote, this wasn’t taken into account. In the assemblies,
the vote of a state or regional delegate was worth the same as the vote of someone
who was part of a group or collective. There were compañer@s that had
to travel days in order to get to the assembly, but it was established that
they had to submit themselves to the same 3 minutes per intervention as the
person who had arrived to the meeting by subway. And, if the state or regional
delegate had to leave because they had days of journey in front of them to get
home and couldn’t stay until the end of the assembly (when the facilitators—like
in the July 1 plenary—were voting resolutions with only adherents from
D.F.—with one foot out the door because they were turning out the building
lights already), oh well. And if the resolution was to agree that there would
be another assembly in 15 days, to be held there in DF, well then the companer@
delegate from an indigenous community would have to hurry to get home and impose
city time on an indigenous community that had entered the Other Campaign precisely
because they thought that this was the place where their ways...their times,
would be respected.
The actions and attitudes of these groups and collectives (that are a minority
in the national and DF Other Campaign, but they make noise as if they were the
majority) provoked the appearance of two identifiable tendencies in the Other:
—that some compas from the province identify the DF’ers with this
authoritarian and dishonest style (disguised as “democratic,” “anti-authoritarian,”
and “horizontal”) of participating, discussing, and making agreements.
While they don’t take part in this form of breaking up the meetings, the
majority of DF is included as object of this accusation.
—that compas from the National Indigenous Congress identify the scorn
and clumsiness of these groups as the “way” of all the mestizos.
Because if anybody knows how to be, discuss, and agree in assembly, it is the
indigenous peoples (and rarely do they resort to a vote to see who wins). This
is another injustice, because the immense majority of those who are not indigenous
in the Other Campaign respect the indigenous.
Both tendencies are unfair and false. But the problem is, we the Zapatistas
think, that in the assemblies this trap is permitted; that is, that some groups,
collectives, and organizations present their dirty and dishonest ways of debating
and agreeing as if they were the ways of everyone, or of the majority.
No. The zapatistas think that the assemblies are in order to inform, or at most,
to discuss and agree upon operative questions, not to discuss, agree, and define.
We think that it was our error, as the EZLN, to not have outlined from the beginning
of the Other Campaign the definition of the spaces and mechanisms for information,
debate, and the making of decisions. But pointing out our deficiencies as an
organization and as a movement does not resolve the problem. We still lack these
basic definitions. With regard to this, regarding what are referred to as the
“6 points,” we will make a proposal in the final chapter of these
reflections.
7. Another “problem.” Some collectives and persons have
been critical of the “protagonism” and “authoritarianism”
of the Sup. We understand that some feel offended by the presence of a soldier
(even though he is “other”) in the Other Campaign, given that this
is the image of verticality, centralism, and authoritarianism. Setting to one
side that these people “skip over” what the EZLN and its struggle
represent for millions of Mexicans and people around the world, we maintain
that we have not “used,” for our own benefit, the moral authority
that our communities have gained in over 12 years of war. In our participations
in the Other Campaign, we have loyally defended those that have joined....even
though we are not in agreement with their symbols and positions. With our own
voice we have defended the hammer and sickle of the communists, the “A”
on a black background of anarchists and libertarians, the skinheads, the punks,
the darket@s, the banda, the raza, the autogestionari@s [self-organizational
types], the sex workers, those who promote electoral abstention or the annulling
of the vote or who don’t care if one votes or not, the work of the alternative
media, of those who use and abuse the word, of the intellectuals that are in
the Other, of the silent but effective political work of the National Indigenous
Congress, of the compañerismo of the political and social organizations
that, without making noise, have put everything they have into the Other Campaign
and into the struggle for the liberty and justice of the prisoners of Atenco,
to the free exercise of criticism, sometimes crude and obnoxious (like the claim
that because the political and social organizations of DF have provided the
space, the chairs, and the sound equipment for acts and meetings of the Other,
they are being protagonists!) and other times friendly and fraternal.
And also we have received, directed against us, true stupidities, disguised
as “criticisms.” We haven’t responded to those...yet. But
we have differentiated between these and those that are made honestly to point
out our errors and make us better.
8. Tendencies regarding the AMLO postelectoral mobilization. The electoral
fraud perpetrated against Lopez Obrador produced, among other things, the rise
of a mobilization. Our position with regards to this we will state later. For
now we just point to some of the positions that we have seen present themselves
in the Other Campaign.
—There is the dishonest and opportunist position of some, a few, leftist
political organizations. They maintain that we are now faced with a historic
and pre-insurrectional moment (“un parte aguas, mano, y con esta lluvia
lo que se necesita es un paraguas”), but that AMLO is not a leader who
knows how to conduct the masses to attack the winter palace...well, the national
palace. But this is what the conscious vanguards are for, what the masses, now
convoked by the PRD, hope and long for.
So they join the sit-in and the lopesobradista mobilizations “in order
to create conscience among the masses,” “to steal away” the
movement from this “reformist” and “self-defeating”
leadership, and take the mobilization to “a higher stage of struggle.”
As soon as they gather their little monies, declare “dead and defunct”
the Other Campaign (and Marcos? bah! a political cadaver), they buy their tent
and they install themselves in the sit-in on Reforma. Then they call for collections
of supplies. No, not for the compas that, in heroic conditions, maintain the
sit-in at Santiaguito in support of the prisoners of Atenco, but for the lopezobradorista
sit-in.
There they organize conferences and round tables, they distribute fliers and
“revolutionary” newspapers with “profound” analyses
on the contemporary conjuncture, the correlation of forces, and the rising up
of the masses, popular coalitions...and more promotoras and national dialogues.
Hurray! Yesssss!
And well, there they wait patiently for the masses to realize their error (the
error of the masses course) and recognize the clarity and determination (of
these organizations, of course), or for Lopez Obrador, or Manuel Camacho, or
Ricardo Monreal, or Arturo Nuñez to come to them looking for advice,
orientation, support, l-e-a-d-e-r-s-h-i-p...but nothing. Later they attend,
impatiently, the National Democratic Convention to pronounce and proclaim AMLO
as the legitimate president.
No joke, then and there they accept the leadership and the political control
of, among other “distinguished” “revolutionaries”: Dante
Delgado, Federico Arreola, Ignacio Marvan, Arturo Nuñez, Layda Sansores,
Ricardo Monreal, and Socorro Diaz (if you can find one that hasn’t been
a priista, you win a prize); that is, the fundamental pillars of the “new”
republic, the “new” generation of the future, the “new”
political party (damn! am I getting ahead of myself?)
The masses went home, went back to work, went to their struggles, but these
organizations know how to wait for the opportune moment...and they steal away
from Lopez Obrador the leadership of the movement! (ha!)
Whatever for whomever. aren’t they endearing?
There is also, within the Other Campaign, an honest tendency that is sincerely
preoccupied about the “isolation” that could come about if they
don’t join AMLO’s mobilization. They assume that is possible to
support the mobilization, without this implying support for the PRD. They analyze
that there there are people from below, and that one has to get close to them
because our movement is with and for those from below, and because if we don’t,
we will pay a high political cost.
9. The Actually Existing Other. And this is the tendency that,
according to what we’ve seen and heard, is the majority within the Other
Campaign. This position (which is also ours as Zapatistas), maintains that the
lopeobradorista mobilization is not our track and that we have to keep looking
below, growing as the “Other Campaign,” without looking for who
to direct and command, nor longing for who will direct and command us.
And this position clearly maintains that the considerations that give strength
to the Sixth Declaration have not changed, that is, to birth and grow a movement
from below, anticapitalist and from the left.
Because, outside of these problems that we detect and point out here, and that
locate and focus on some compas dispersed in various parts of the country (not
just in DF) and in these few organizations (that, now we know and understand,
were never and will never be except where there are masses....waiting for a
vanguard), the Other all over the country will continue its walk and will abandon
neither its path nor its destiny.
It is the Other of the political prisoners of Atenco, of Ignacio Del Valle,
Magdalena Garcia, Mariana Selva and all of the names and faces of this injustice.
It is the Other of all the political prisoners of Guanajuato, Tabasco, Chiapas,
Oaxaca, Puebla, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Guerrero, State of Mexico, and in all of the
country; The Other of Gloria Arenas and Jacobo Silva Nogales.
It is the Other of the National Indigenous Congress (Central-Pacific Region)
that extends its contacts to the peninsula of the Yucatan Peninsula and Baja
California and to the Northeast, and it grows.
It is the Other that in Chiapas blooms without losing identity or roots, manages
to organize and articulate zones and struggles that have been separate, and
advances in the explanation and definition of the other struggle of gender.
It is the Other that in cultural and informational groups and collectives continue
demanding liberty and justice for Atenco, which strengthens its networks, which
plays music for other ears and dances with other feet.
It is the Other that in the sit-in at Santiaguito maintains and converts itself
into a light and a message for our compañer@s prisoners: “we will
not forget you, we will get you out.”
It is the Other that in the states in the north of Mexico, and on the other
side of the Rio Bravo, did not stop to wait for the Sixth Commission but continued
working.
It is the Other that in Morelos, Tlaxcala, Queretaro, Puebla, la Huasteca Potosina,
Nayarit, State of Mexico, Michoacan, Tabasco, Yucatan, Quintano Roo, Veracruz,
Campeche, Aguascalientes, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Colima, Jalisco, the Federal District,
learn to struggle saying “we.”
It is the Other that in Oaxaca makes grow, below and without protagonisms, the
movement that now amazes Mexico.
It is the Other of young people, women, children, elderly, homosexuals, lesbians.
It is the Other of the people of Atenco.
It is the Other, one of the best things that these Mexican lands have given.
(to be continued...)
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Sixth Commission of the EZLN.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico
September 2006