Antipode - 2004 - Zibechi - The Impact of Zapatismo in Latin America

14678330, 2004, 3, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2004.00417.
x by Arizona State University Acq & Analysis, Lib Continuations, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
______________ ___________________
The Impact of Zapatismo in Latin

America
Raúl Zibechi1
20 de setiembre 1422A, apto. 008, Montevideo, Uruguay;
zibechi@brecha.com.uy
The EZLN’s most lethal attack was not on Mexican government

forces but on libraries, manuals and established revolutionary
knowledge. (Ferrara 2003)
Determining the influence of Neo-Zapatismo on Latin American
social movements involves going beyond its visible aspects and institu-
tional practices. In the new movements, the break with traditions
inherited from the 1960s and 1970s is not as evident as the continu-
ities. In order to discover them, one has to go beyond public expres-
sions and programs and examine the practices, ways of life and social
relations constructed within movements, which are what shape the
new ways of conducting politics and prefigure the society that the new
subjects long for.
Traces of Zapatismo can be found in some of the most recent and
least institutionalized movements, yet also include certain issues that
have been placed in the center of the debates by the new social actors,
such as the question of power, autonomy and self-management, the
state of being ‘‘outside’’ or ‘‘inside’’ and the means of understanding
social change. These impacts, however, have often been combined with
the more ‘‘traditional’’ ideas and attitudes and, barring exceptions such
as the Mesa de Escrache Popular in Buenos Aires, certain neighbor-
hood assemblies and pickets, the dominant pattern seems to be a
relatively strong impact on issues related to state power and other
more superficial ones, particularly those linked to internal times and
the way social change is conceived. The influence of Zapatismo can
largely be traced to many of the student and youth movements
throughout the continent. There is a strong empathy between Latin
American indigenous movements and Zapatismo, no doubt because
they share the same worldview. Conversely, outside these spaces, the
impact of Zapatismo is less evident, although the crisis of the left
and the current problems of the popular movement have turned the
EZLN into a necessary, albeit distant referent. Generally speaking,
the traces left by Zapatismo in Latin America are more visible in the
Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA
14678330, 2004, 3, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2004.00417.x by Arizona State University Acq & Analysis, Lib Continuations, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
The Impact of Zapatismo in Latin America 393
Argentinean social movement that emerged on 19 and 20 December

2001 than in the rest of the continent, perhaps because it is the most
recent, least institutionalized and most open of the movements in
the region.
Power, Counter-power and Anti-power

The now famous Zapatista proposal stating that ‘‘we do not wish to
seize power’’ has been taken up by political and social intellectuals
and leaders, although it also impregnates many of the debates by
some of the most important movements in Latin America. One is
struck by the fact, however, that the set of leftist political parties in the
region, which gathered at the Foro de San Pablo, remain unaware of
the strategic importance of this debate. For a decade, the most
moderate trends approaching the Third Way to guerrilla movement
failed to consider the possibility of reconsidering their aim of seizing
state power as a central point from which to implement change, and
they are still bogged down by the old debate on the revolutionary or
reformist means of achieving the ‘‘final objective’’. The same is true of
intellectual circles. The most exalted or institutionalized ones have
opted to sidestep the debate. Others participated in the latter in an
accusing tone, reproaching those that defend the thesis of not seizing
state power of showing signs of ‘‘weakness’’ (as in the case of Jaime
Petras) or of defending ideas that ‘‘lead to defeat’’ (as the Argentinean
philosopher Ruben Dri maintains). Open disagreements not intended to
demonize the adversary, such as the polemic between Atilio Borón and
John Holloway (Borón 2001; Holloway 2001), have been less common.
When the debate has been taken up by the left, results have
been discouraging. The Revolutionary Communist Party of Argentina
(PCR), a Maoist group that inspired the picket known as Corriente
Clasista y Combativa, the largest, best-structured group of
unemployed persons, harshly criticizes John Holloway’s Cambiar el
mundo sin tomar el poder (Holloway 2002), yet like other leftist
parties, support the EZLN. Unable to abandon the most classical
schemes, the PCR holds that the thesis of not seizing power ‘‘serves
the dominant classes’’ since it seeks to ‘‘keep the masses away from
power in order to be able to preserve it in the hands of the dominant
classes’’ (Nassif 2002:7). The tone used by the Social Workers’ Party
(PTS), a Trotskyist organization with a strong presence in the
restored Brukman and Zanón factories, is even more aggressive:
Holloway and the supporters of not seizing state power are labeled
as victims of ‘‘methodological eclecticism’’, ‘‘reformists’’ and ‘‘petits
bourgeois’’ to quote some of the mildest descriptions (Rau 2002:174).
The influence of Zapatismo in Argentina, and the impact on the
media of their main theses, spawned a counter-movement that

394 Antipode
includes both academic forums and the main social movements, but is
spearheaded by certain intellectuals and old leftist parties.
Conversely, the polemic on state power is present in certain import-
ant movements, such as those in Ecuador and Argentina. The debate
is sometimes presented laterally, perhaps to avoid turning down the
Zapatista proposals flat, or because of the enormous prestige of
Subcomandante Marcos and the indigenous commanders. The debate
arose for different reasons in both cases. In Ecuador, as we shall see
later on, it was the result of the experience of 21 January 2000, when
the indigenous movement and nationalist military men seized the
decomposing state power for a few hours. This brief assault on the
state spurred a crisis in the main organizations in the Indian world. In
Argentina, the events of 19 and 20 December triggered ideological
interpretations of reality, ranging from those who felt they were
witnessing a pre-revolutionary situation that should be channeled
into revolution and seizing power to those who sought to leave open
the questions raised by events that challenged the knowledge of
revolutionaries, as a means of keeping social creativity alive.
The impact of ‘‘not seizing state power’’ on the picket and neigh-
borhood assembly movement can easily be verified: Argentina is the
country where both Holloway and the EZLN’s theses have trans-
cended the borders of intellectuality and militancy and become incor-
porated into broad sections of the social movement, attracting an
unusual degree of notice in other Latin American countries.
A recent document by various Unemployed Workers’ Movements
(UWMs) within the Anı́bal Verón Coalition, one of the autonomous
picket groups of the parties and trade union confederations, states
that ‘‘we have kept our distance from the views that limit the idea of
power to seizing the state apparatus as the ultimate objective and
aim’’, establishing a concept of power that appears to be taken directly
from Zapatista ideology. ‘‘Power is not a ‘thing’ that is alien to us,
which we have to be for or against: we prefer to understand it as a
social relationship. Popular power is constructed from and within its
bases, with democracy and conscious participation, with relationships
that prefigure the society we long for’’ (MTDs 2003).
It is worth noting that several members of the Anı́bal Verón
Coalition are young people who were brought up on Zapatista read-
ings in the mid-1990s when Subcomandante Marcos’ communiqués
captivated young people, from university students to the unemployed
in shanty towns. One of the peculiarities of the Argentinean case
regarding Zapatismo is the identification of a sector of rock music
fans and rock bands with Marcos and the EZLN (UWMs 2003).
However, this debate has had a much broader influence, reaching
other parts of Latin America, particularly those with a large indigen-
ous population. The recent experience of the Ecuadorian movement,

the most powerful one in Latin America, together with Argentina’s,

changed after the uprising quelled by President Jamil Mahuad in
January 2000. After the uprising, the debate on the concept of
power was powerfully re-established within the indigenous movement.
Luis Macas, leader of Conaie, recalled that in Quechua, ushay, mean-
ing power, ‘‘is the ability to develop ourselves collectively’’ (Macas
2000:151). Macas’ assertion is strikingly similar to Holloway’s pro-
posal to distinguish the power to do (as a basic human capacity) from
the power to dominate (Holloway 2003).
Reflecting on the same experience, the study by economist Pablo
Dávalos concludes that the uprising of 21 January completed a cycle,
since it incorporated ‘‘the dynamics of power into a movement whose
coordinates for action were always established by the ability to
become a social counter-power’’ (Dávalos 2001).
The directors of CONAIE gradually moved away from the
Indians’ original project, which was based on the defense of a
multi-national state that would guarantee the autonomy of indigen-
ous peoples and nations. The dissolution of the three branches of
the state in January 2000 caused many of the leaders to succumb to
the ‘‘temptation’’ of state power. At that moment, Conaie crossed
the line between social and political movement, yet by doing so, it
jeopardized ‘‘everything that it had historically accumulated’’, since
‘‘becoming power meant neglecting its more strategic and long-term
project of creating a truly multi-national society. For a time,
CONAIE stopped being ‘‘the most effective counter-power in
society, which had been capable of vetoing the most anti-popular
initiatives of the elites’’ (Dávalos 2001).
Even more serious is the fact that opting for power (for a short
period of time, yet with dramatic consequences for the movement)
meant ignoring ‘‘the dynamics of resistance and creating more institu-
tional formats that would serve, in the long term, as control mechan-
isms to counteract the emergence of possible resistance by other
social actors’’. In short, the movement could not come to power
without ignoring its experience as a counter-power.
A year later, in January 2001, another uprising by the bases, not
organized by the leaders, took up the original project with a far more
modest platform of struggle. Leaders that had played a key role a year
earlier adopted a low profile due to pressure from the bases, who
understood that becoming an option of power led to the splintering of
the group. The resulting conclusion was that ‘‘More important than
achieving control of the government is the ability to transform a
country torn by racism, authoritarianism and high-handedness’’
(Dávalos 2001).
In other cases, such as the Uruguayan youth and student move-
ment, young people’s empathy with movements such as Sin Tierra

396 Antipode
and Zapatismo was visible in the type of organization they created:

a coalition that organized the occupation of universities in the winter
of 1996. They emphasized the fact that the coalition was ‘‘not the
leadership of the movement and that the leaders depended on the
movement itself’’. Although they spent days discussing the proposals,
in the end, they drew lots for their representatives and gave the
assemblies priority over coordination (Zibecchi 1997:213). A similar
thing happened in April 2000 during the uprising over water in
Cochabampa. There, ‘‘the multitude that had gathered deliberated
directly’’, repealing ‘‘the state power’s habit of delegating’’ to such an
extent that the multitude redefined the role of the leaders, who
thereafter became mere transmitters (Gutiérrez, Garcı́a and Tapia
2000:170). In both cases, the organization of the movement (both
assumed the shape of coalitions) was built on the double logic of
the greatest possible dispersion of power, and simultaneously, of
reflecting the social networks of the social sectors involved. This
double characteristic has gained space, hearts and minds in most
Latin American social movements.
The New Images of Social Change: Horizontality and

Community
Social change became increasingly linked with knowing what to do
with power once it had been seized. Hence the insistence of the
Verón pickets that their production initiatives ‘‘prefigured’’ the society
they longed for. This image gained ground among the new move-
ments, and was the one with the greatest number of expressions:
neighborhood groups, unemployed persons or farm workers engaged
in collective or community endeavors, with women from popular
sectors playing a key role. These endeavors ranged from self-managed
health clinics to community bakeries and from neighborhood
orchards to small jam factories and sometimes, as in a neighborhood in
the south of Buenos Aires, the unemployed persons themselves
(who survived on US$40 a month) set up a block factory from
which they built their increasingly precarious dwellings.
These simple images, which are far less ‘‘heroic’’ than those we saw
in the 1960s and 1970s, form part of the new landscape of popular
movements. They include the idea of promoting autonomy, based on
the de facto creation of territories in which collectives build their new
world, gaining spaces in which they seek to earn their living, but also
to establish fair, supportive relationships (Mançano 1996).
One of the questions that went right through the picket movement
(dubbed ‘‘urban Zapatismo’’ by Holloway) was ‘‘how’’ to make a
livelihood. A group of organizations are involved in the still-
unfinished debate on the need to rotate positions, the fact that working

parties should not have overseers and ways to reduce the division of
labor and the hierarchy of knowledge (Zibechi 2003). Some collect-
ives, such as the Solano UWM, reject the very idea of leaders,
thereby establishing a radical difference from movements such as
the Sin Tierra, whom they regard as their brothers and source of
inspiration (Colectivo Situaciones and MTD Solano 2002:42).
Since the mid-1990s, thanks to the dual influence of the Zapatista
experience and the new youth cultures, the idea of horizontality has
gained ground. In the beginning, it involved a profound rejection of
the centralist and hierarchical practices of the left and trade unions.
Once implemented, horizontality gained ground, expanding and even-
tually enriching the everyday lives of groups of women, young people
and increasing numbers of unemployed persons and farmers. It is
worth mentioning the case of the organization known as HIJOS
(children of those who disappeared as a result of the dictatorship)
in Argentina. The depth of their definitions parallels the depth of
their actions. In only a few years, they have earned the respect of the
popular movement, the media and intellectuals, and above all, their
trademark action, known as escrache (having people gather outside
the home of a person guilty of genocide to make everyone in the
community aware of his identity) has been accepted by broad sectors
of society during the period of greatest mobilizations.
An analysis of the experience of HIJOS shows that it is inserted in
social struggles in a very similar way to Zapatismo. HIJOS is defined
as a ‘‘horizontal organization with a desire for consensus’’. They have
made asymmetry a sign of identity. ‘‘There is no point always defining
ourselves with regard to the enemy, so that if the enemy says ‘white’
we have to say ‘black’ to fight the system’’ (Colectivo Situaciones
2002). They do not wish the law to punish those guilty of genocide,
nor do they propose a ‘‘popular punishment’’, but something that runs
far deeper; their aim is for every neighborhood they live in to become
their prison and for every neighbor to become their jailer. By opting
for social punishment, they attempt to (and in fact, manage to)
involve all the local networks and organizations in the escraches,
meaning that they work with them for months, ignoring the time
frames of the system and the media, and focussing solely on the
‘‘internal times’’ of the social movement. The results have been aston-
ishing: not only did dozens of neighborhood assemblies carry out
hundreds of escraches on genocidal military men throughout 2002,
but many of the latter were forced to move, since the neighbors
stopped greeting them and they found it increasingly difficult to buy
bread or newspapers in their neighborhood. For HIJOS, horizontality
and the reconstruction of the bonds of friendship severed by the
dictatorship are as important as punishing those guilty of genocide.
In other words, it is a question of principle.

398 Antipode
Horizontality is a particular view of democracy. In other words,

horizontality is both a path and a way of following that path (…)
Horizontality is basically an effort, asking everyone to do his or
her best, rather than relying on other people’s abilities to reach
an agreement or adapt to the collective’s times. All the organiza-
tions show the goal they wish to reach in the way they work. The
way they engage in politics is (or should be) a reflection of the
world or society in which they wish to live. (Zibechi 2003:58)
HIJOS is, in some ways, the most ‘‘purely’’ Zapatista organization in

the non-indigenous world of Latin America. It is certainly a highly
unusual collective. Its members are all children of militants in the
1960s or 1970s, or of those who disappeared or were imprisoned or
exiled. They are young, well-trained people, many of them students
and the EZLN communiqués are foremost among their texts of
reference.
Views of Social Change

Another idea of social change is gaining ground, albeit in a very
different way. It is not based on a clear-cut proposal but rather the
conviction that changes must be linked to the reconstruction of
the links that the system has destroyed every day, for centuries. At
the same time, it is based on the idea that unless changes take place
‘‘between ourselves’’, they simply do not exist.
EZLN’s recent decision to end the experience of the Aguascalientes
(forums of discussion) and replace them with caracoles as spaces for
local and regional autonomy will be a stimulating form of inspiration.
The Zapatistas decided to put autonomy into practice, without waiting
for it to be granted to them by the Mexican state.
This is not a very different path from the one they had already
followed, or from the one taken by Ecuadorian indigenous people
(but also by groups in other parts of Latin America and Mexico) who
decided to reinforce their position in the municipalities where they
now have an ethnic hegemony, and use this to create the bases of a
new society.
The idea of forging a new form of society, new relationships between
people and the environment, in the island-spaces controlled by social
movements, has now been incorporated by broad sectors of organized
groups, on a variety of fronts. Marcos’ metaphor that there are those
‘‘who spend their time imagining that a helm exists and fight over its
possession’’ while others ‘‘do not regard these islands as a refuge for
their satisfaction but turn them into boats to discover other islands …’’
is becoming a way of life for a considerable section of those who devote
their lives to changing the world through social movements.

Endnote
1
Member of the editorial team of the journal Brecha in Uruguay.
References
Borón A (2001) La selva y la polis. Reflexiones en torno a la teorı́a polı́tica del
zapatismo. In Observatorio Social de América Latina No. 7, Buenos Aires
Colectivo Situaciones (2002) Genocida en el barrio. Mesa de Escrache Popular. Buenos
Aires: De Mano en Mano
Colectivo Situaciones and MTD Solano (2002) La hipótesis 891. Más allá de los
piquetes. Buenos Aires: De Mano en Mano
Dávalos P (2001) Movimiento indı́gena ecuatoriano. La constitución de un actor
polı́tico. In Cuestiones de América No. 7, November 2001. www.cuestiones.ws
Ferrara F (2003) Más allá del corte de rutas. Buenos Aires: La Rosa Blindada
Gutiérrez R, Garcı́a A and Tapia L (2000) La forma multitud de la polı́tica de las
necesidades vitales. In El retorno de la Bolivia plebeya. La Paz: Muela del Diablo
Holloway J (2001) La asimetrı́a de la lucha de clases. Una respuesta a Atilio Borón.
Observatorio Social de América Latina No. 7, Buenos Aires
Holloway J (2002) Cambiar el mundo sin tomar el poder. Buenos Aires: Herramienta
Macas L (2000) Ushay, el poder, es un concepto colectivo. In L Kintto (ed),
La rebelión de los indios. Quito: Abya Yala
Mançano F B (1996) MST, formaçao e territorializaçao. San Pablo: Hucitec
MTDs (Movimientos de Trabajadores Desocupados en la Coordinadora Anı́bal
Verón) (2003) Nuestra polı́tica para construir un presente y un futuro con Trabajo,
Dignidad y Cambio Social. Buenos Aires, June 2003, leaflet
Nassif N (2002) John Holloway: una espada del revisionismo contemporáneo.
In Polı́tica y Teorı́a No. 49–50, Buenos Aires
Rau V (2002) Reformar el capitalismo a través de la revuelta. El significado de las
tesis de Holloway. In Lucha de clases No. 1, Buenos Aires
Zibecchi R (1997) La revuelta juvenil de los noventa. Las redes sociales en la gestación
de una cultura alternativa. Montevideo: Nordan
Zibecchi R (2003) Genealogı́a de la revuelta. Argentina: la sociedad en movimiento.
La Plata: Letra Libre

Antipode - 2004 - Zibechi - The Impact of Zapatismo in Latin America

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Antipode - 2004 - Zibechi - The Impact of Zapatismo in Latin America

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

14678330, 2004, 3, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2004.00417.

The Impact of Zapatismo in Latin

The EZLN’s most lethal attack was not on Mexican government

Argentinean social movement that emerged on 19 and 20 December

Power, Counter-power and Anti-power

Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

the most powerful one in Latin America, together with Argentina’s,

Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

and Zapatismo was visible in the type of organization they created:

The New Images of Social Change: Horizontality and

Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

Horizontality is a particular view of democracy. In other words,

HIJOS is, in some ways, the most ‘‘purely’’ Zapatista organization in

Views of Social Change

Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

Ó 2004 Editorial Board of Antipode.

You might also like