Reflections on a Zapatista Utopia (from Island Magazine)
by Ramor Ryan
Midnight Ignored
There are no fireworks, no bells, no dancing, no embracing, and certainly no booze. Midnight passes and the New Year is ushered in without even a word of acknowledgement from the stage. The 6000 people gathered in the great muddy open-aired amphitheatre of the Zapatista headquarters at Oventic, Chiapas shuffle about in the thick mountain fog, a few diehards shaking hands. The majority indigenous Zapatista’s, masked in ski masks or bandanas, barely move - as is their custom, their tradition. It is an unusually solemn and surreal way to herald in 2007 and mark the 13th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising on the 1st January 1994.
Wouldn’t any right-thinking Dubliner be stumbling around Christchurch Cathedral at this time, wasted amongst old friends, family and that particular species – the late-night garrulous Irish horde? Why spend it here in the eerie fog flanked by the craggy peaks and deep hollows of the towering mountains of south-east Mexico, literally off the map, the whereabouts of this rural hamlet only revealed by asking the right (generally masked, surreptitious) people along the mountain paths?
Because nowhere is always somewhere, whether it be the ragged edge of the universe, or this Zapatista nowhere, which despite the demure proceedings, the remoteness of the location and the absence of alcohol (prohibited under Zapatista Revolutionary Law) is host to an extraordinary celebration.
Not just because it’s the 13th anniversary of the armed uprising that resonated across the globe, re-igniting a dormant revolutionary current, and not because it’s the first ‘intergalactic’ gathering of the anti-capitalist movement in the 21st century. ‘A meeting of resistances and rebels against capitalism and global neo-liberalism,’ in the words of Comandante Moises from the stage, ‘and how to prepare ourselves and continue organizing resistance to combat the common enemy of all humanity.’
No, it’s something else: there is a touch of magic in the air. It is hinted at when a young indigenous Tseltal woman called Josefina from the Good Governance council speaks: ‘We the Zapatistas are free to organize ourselves, to govern ourselves, and to make our own decisions without being exploited by capitalist ideas. Because of that we had the idea to build a new society and a new struggle.’
So that’s what it is. This Zapatista nowhere -- where the inhabitants have rebelled and now govern in their own autonomous fashion -- carries within it the echoes of a beautiful old idea: utopia.
Autonomy as a Utopian Space
Sir Thomas More, a principled catholic executed by an unprincipled king and later beatified and canonized, coined the term Utopia (derived from the Greek words οὐ ou ("not") and τόπος tópos ("place").) in his seminal 1512 work. In the book, More portrays an imaginary perfect society, where private property does not exist, premised on radical democracy and religious tolerance. Thereafter, history resonated with notions of utopia. An early romantic manifestation came in the form of pirate utopias, autonomous enclaves - often fiercely democratic - existing in the shadows of 17th century capitalist expansionism. Karl Marx’ vision of an ideal communist state is informed by the idea, and thus gave rise, amongst other currents, to the utopian socialist movement
But let’s not get carried away. While the romantic element is potent in the Zapatista arsenal this new years eve – the full moon, the craggy peaks, the masked multitudes and the stirring revolutionary words – the gathering is concerned mostly with exigencies of the everyday struggle in the here and now.
This whole 4-day event – somewhat grandiosely called the First Encounter between the Zapatista’s and the People of the World - is not a political rally, radical academic conference or activist forum. It is ‘a space for a collective analysis and vision to emerge.’ The 2000 people from 47 countries (mostly Mexico) and the 4000 indigenous Zapatistas coming from all the regions of Chiapas are here to take stock of the situation after a particularly tumultuous year in Mexico and an eventful year globally. The large numbers present are a boost for a national anti-capitalist movement facing considerable challenges from a newly formed government of President Calderon – conservative and militaristic – which promises radical social movements the “iron fist”.
But mostly it’s a showcase of the Zapatista political culture, the nuts and bolts of constructing everyday participatory autonomy. Or how this little corner of the world - the Zapatista rebel zone, about the size of Munster - is governed in the absence of state authority. How they self-organize education, health, justice and land issues, through the 5 Good Government councils, across 29 regional autonomous municipalities, covering a reputed 1,110 rural villages.
The Zapatistas eschew party politics, instead focusing on organizing from below, amongst the grass roots. They are not interested in assuming state office. Everything for everyone, nothing for us, is a principle applied in their initiatives, including questions of power. ‘Autonomy,’ says radical academic and Zapatista theorist John Holloway, ‘is simply the other side of saying that we want to change the world without taking power.’
Zapatismo is not a cult, or a doomsday sect. It positions itself firmly within the national and global political discourse, albeit at the cutting edge. ‘Zapatismo is nowadays the most radical, and perhaps the most important, political initiative in the world’, says Mexican writer Gustavo Esteva. Yet it also embraces the utopian notions of a nowhere that is a refuge and a place of solace – both physical and metaphysical - for the world weary, the rebels, the excluded and the misfits.
Despite numerous attempts, I never really enjoyed ringing in the New Year at Dublin’s Christchurch cathedral. There was always something pathetic about the vacuous attempt to have a really marvelous time. Instead it invariably ended up in a Burdocks chipper fight or a vomit strewn pavement.
“Our territory is also your home’ says Comandante Moises, ‘You are welcome.’ Like a world turned upside down, here we have peasant farmers from a wretched corner of the global south offering solace to political ‘refugees’ from the urban metropolises and the rich north.
I am glad that the Zapatistas offer an alternative, allowing us to dream that another world is possible, and reminding us that at the ragged edge of the universe, a place called utopia can still exist.
