Zapatista History

The term Zapatista refers to several differing, but related, aspects of the history of Mexico.

Mexican Revolution of 1910

Zapatista originally referred to a member of the revolutionary guerrilla movement founded around 1910 by Emiliano Zapata, whose Liberation Army of the South (Ejército Libertador del Sur) fought during the Mexican Revolution for the redistribution of agricultural land. Zapata, his army and allies, including Pancho Villa at one point, fought for agrarian reform in Mexico and specifically the establishment of communal land rights for Mexico's indigenous population.

File:Zapatistas1.jpg

Zapata with some ‘city boys’ (intellectuals): First Row: Benjamin Argumedo, Emiliano Zapata, and Manuel Palafox. Top Row: Ignacio Ocampo Amezcua, George Carothers (U.S. Consulate), and Amador Salazar

The majority of Zapata’s supporters were the indigenous peasants, usually local, from Morelos and surrounding towns. But there were intellectuals from urban areas who also joined the Zapatistas, and played a significant part in their movement, specifically the structure and communication of the Zapatista ambitions. Zapata received only a few years of limited education in Morelos, and thus the educated members from foreign towns played a large role in expressing Zapata’s political aims. These urban intellectuals were known as ‘city boys’, and were predominately young males. They were influenced in joining the Zapatistas due to many reasons, including curiosity, sympathy, and ambition. Zapata agreed that politics should be left up to the intellectuals, but also kept his role in proclaiming the Zapatista ideology. The city boys also provided medical care, helped promote and instruct the Zapatista ideology, created an agrarian reform, aided in rebuilding villages destroyed by government forces, formed manifestos, and sent messages from Zapata to other revolutionary leaders. Zapata’s compadre Otilio Montaño was one of the most prominent city boys. Before the revolution he was a professor, and during the revolution he taught Zapatismo, recruited citizens, and wrote the Plan de Ayala. Other well known city boys were Abraham Martinez, Manuel Palafox, Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama, Pablo Torres Burgos, Gildardo Magaña, Dolores Jimenez y Muro, Enrique Villa, and Genaro Amezcua.

Zapatista Women

Many women were involved and supported the Zapatistas. Since Zapata’s political ambitions and campaign were usually local, the women were able to aid the Zapatista soldiers from their homes, and provided them with tortillas. There were also female Zapatista soldiers since the beginning of the revolution. When Zapata met with President Francisco Madero on July 12, 1911, he was accompanied by his troops. Amongst these troops were female soldiers, and some of them were officers. Some women were the leaders of bandit gangs during and before the revolution. Women joined the Zapatistas as soldiers for various reasons, including retaliation for dead family members or merely to perform raids. Perhaps the most popular Zapatista female soldier was Margarita Neri, who participated as a Zapatista commander. Many females fought as Zapatista soldiers, but La Coronela Maria de la Luz Espinosa Barrera was one of the few to be granted a pension as a veteran of the Mexican revolution.

Modern Zapatistas

Zapatista gained a new meaning in 1994 with the public debut of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, or EZLN).The Modern Zapatistas are part of an anti-poverty, anti-globalization movement. The majority of the Zapatistas live in the state of Chiapas in the south of Mexico. As result the word "Zapatistas" becoming generalized to include people who simply support the cause of the Zapatistas and the ideology. To their enemies, these people are Zapatistas. This tendency has contributed to the escalating tensions in the state of Chiapas.

The modern Zapatista movement makes use of the revolutionary figure Zapata as a rallying point for its cause, which is much the same as it was a century ago. Its main goals of sweeping agrarian and social reform, as well as a Southern Mexico separatist movement, are recurring themes from early 20th century Zapata rhetoric. While the first Zapatistas were led by Zapata himself, the EZLN is democratically organized. The most dominant figure and spokesperson of the modern movement is Subcommander Marcos. Other prominent figures include Subcommander Elisa, and Comandante Ramona who was of Tzotzil origin.

What differentiates and specializes the Zapatista movement is that its leaders are mostly indigenous and that it is the first social grassroots movement to successfully use computer communications. Subcommander Marcos has credited the media as the Zapatistas long range missile by constantly reinventing himself and the iconography of the Zapatista movement. The internet is essential to the declaration and liberation of the voices of the marginalized. Subcommadante Marcos sums up this belief in an absurd, but enlightening way, addressing the true nature of the Zapatista movement.

Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the National University, a Jew in Nazi Germany, an ombudsman in the Defense Ministry, a communist in the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery or portfolio.... A pacifist in Bosnia, a housewife alone on Saturday night in any neighborhood in any city in Mexico, a striker in the CTM, a reporter writing filler stories for the back pages, a single woman on the subway at 10 pm, a peasant without land, an unemployed worker... an unhappy student, a dissident amid free market economics, a writer without books or readers, and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains of southeast Mexico. So Marcos is a human being, any human being, in this world. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities, resisting and saying, 'Enough'!

What is particular about the Zapatismo ideology is that it is a historical conflict against the trans-historical oppressor of the indigenous of Mexico; altogether the marginalized people of the world. This historical oppressor has been described as the colonial Spaniard, the nineteenth century British and the post-cold war, neo-liberal United States. The Zapatista worldview adopts a position of humanity versus neoliberalism. The Zapatistas believe that the United States market dehumanizes people. It is a concentration of wealth-crimes against humanity.

The movement started in southern Mexico, in the state of Chiapas. It remains most popular with the poor indigenous peoples of that area. It appeared shortly after (and in response to) the signing of NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement [go to A Place Called Chiapas- A Documentary on the Zapatistas]. Soon after its inception, the EZLN held an international conference in Chiapas called the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and against Neoliberalism. It resulted in various other Zapatista groups emerging outside of Mexico.^{[citation needed]}

The new Zapatista rebellion is a smaller and more peaceful uprising that has had few serious encounters with the government. A brief spurt of violence accompanied its inception when several thousand peasants seized five Chiapan towns. Hundreds of lives were lost when the military was sent to confront the rebels. Another spate of violence occurred when forty alleged Zapatista sympathizers were killed during the Acteal massacre in 1997.

Presently, the Zapatistas are offering more nonviolent resistance. They reject parliamentary elections at the national level because they see such elections as not involving participation by the people in a meaningful way and therefore, as not truly democratic. (See Anarchism.) The Zapatistas have organized a network of grass-roots based democratic village councils in their autonomous region, and have set up schools, courts, and clinics. The most recent large demonstration was a 2001 march to Mexico City with only very scattered episodes of violence. Since the late 1990s, the movement has been involved in an introspective series of Councils of Good Government within their realm of influence. While the rebellion may appear to be in somewhat of a standstill, the people are still very active in their attempts to acquire autonomy. The government remains reluctant to address the rebellion because doing so might lend an impression of political instability. In 2005, the EZLN held a summit, the result of which was the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. This document reflects many Marxist ideas. The EZLN currently calls people to "be a Zapatista wherever you are."

As part of his campaign promises during the 2000 Mexican Presidential election, Vicente Fox claimed he would solve the EZLN guerrilla problem in "fifteen minutes." This was shown to be an empty promise, however, since Fox has simply left the Congress to deal with the constitutional changes demanded by the Zapatistas.

Global Discourse on the Zapatista Movement

In order to conduct a study into the modern day Zapatistas it is crucial to use primary sources and essays previously conducted on this everchanging movement. This section will look at a documentary which provides a first hand account of life in the mostly rebel territory of Chiapas, and essays which attempt to restate the nature of the Zapatista movement.

Marcos' statement on the marginalization of civilians of the world and the Zapatistas' persistent attention to the internet has also led to global discourse on the Zapatista movement. This has transformed the meaning and perception of the Zapatistas. James Petras, one of the intellectuals being drawn from this global discourse in Romancing the Zapatistas, International Intelletuals and the Chiapas rebellion, defines the movement as one who "mapped the influences shaping the emergence of both Zapatistas and a range of other 'new' peasant-based social movements in the region...He pointed to the emergence of peasant leaders, with some school-level education, emphasizing that, while the leadership and then new peasantry generally are 'rooted in the rural struggle,' they have a 'cosmopolitan vision'. At the same time he emphasized the importance of Marxism (particularly the idea of class struggle) to the thinking of these movements, making a case for the continued relevance of Marxism to any effort to understand political and socioecomonic change in the Americas." Henry Veltmeyer's, another international intellectual, perspective parallels Petras' perspective as the context for the "incipient third-wave revolutionary movements" which have a profoundly negative impact on "neo-liberal economic policies on a wide-range of social groups in Latin America". One of the main difficulites for Zapatistas and intellectuals in defining their movement comes hand in hand with the Mexican government's consistent militarization of the struggle and increasing number of paramilitaries in Mexico, particularly Chiapas. This presents the Zapatistas with the "dilemma of choosing between military and political struggle." The framework for this study homogenizes the neoliberal challenge and post-cold war modes of resistance to this "New Imperialism". Roger Burback's theory responds to Petras' and Veltmeyer's challenges in describing the movement as "postmodern because of their insistence on the need for a 'new social and economic order that goes beyond' both capitalism and socialism." A new perspective from the indigenous context has categorized the Zapatista movement in the lines of "the resurrection of the Mesoamerican soul". For Ouweneel she believes that the "the rise of the Zapatistas as primarily an attempt to recover indigenous ideas and practices [look up Maya]." The symbolism of the Mesoamerican soul has been given attention by Gary Gossen who argues, " 'few features of Mesoamerican life, ancient or modern, that demonstrate the tenacity than the unseen Mesoamerican essence,' that has been maintained to this day via, 'creative reinterpretation of a distinctively Mesoamerican vision of self, society, and ethnic identity.'" With these reinterpretations themselves the Zapatista movement continues to transform itself, ignite global discourse through the media, and invoke the spirit of the Mexican revolution today

External links

International Groups