Zapatistas in Caernarfon - Journey for Life — Utopias Bach

“…above all, let’s seek out accomplices… for the sake of life”
- SupGaleano

Blog gan Lindsey Colbourne

On Saturday morning (23.10.21), I had the huge privilege to join an extraordinary group of people convened in solidarity at Llety Arall in Caernarfon. It was one of the most inspiring gatherings I have ever been to, thanks to The Listening and Speaking Zapatista Delegation from indigenous communities in Chiapas, south Mexico and about 15 people from North Wales who stand in solidarity with them, with their Welsh-language led organising, thinking, writing and actions in communities. And it brought together pretty much everything that I feel Utopias Bach is trying to explore, and I’d like to at least attempt to share some of it with you.

There are quite a lot of links in this blog because, I’m really ashamed to say, almost everything about the Zapatistas was new to me. So I’m linking to their words and websites so you can, if you like, find out more and find a way to be in solidarity with them, to be inspired by them, to link what you are doing to them.

“Is Zapatismo one more great answer, one more answer, to the world’s problems?
No. Zapatismo is a bunch of questions. And the smallest may be the most disturbing: And what about you?
In the face of the capitalist catastrophe, does Zapatismo propose an old-new idyllic social system, and with it a repeat of the imposed hegemonies and homogeneities that are now “good”?
No. Our thought is as small as we are: it is the efforts of each one, in his geography, according to his calendar and way, that will allow us, perhaps, to do away with the criminal, and, simultaneously, to remake everything. And everything means everything.
Each one, according to their calendar, their geography, their way, will have to build their path. And, like us, the Zapatista peoples, it will stumble and get up, and what it builds will have the name it wants to have. And it will only be different and better than what we have suffered before, and what we suffer today, if it recognizes the other and respects them, if it refuses to impose its thinking on that which is different, and if it finally realizes that there are many worlds and that their richness is born of and shines in their difference.
Is it possible? We do not know. But we do know that, to find out, we must fight for Life.”
- Chiapas Support Committee

A word about the local context

Llety Arall is an extraordinary place, in my mind, a Utopia Bach in itself, standing up to the tide of extractive tourism by providing “accommodation in the heart of the community for tourists and fellow countrymen who wish to experience the heritage, cultural and unique linguistic nature of Caernarfon”. And the north Wales delegation included food coops, anti-nuclear protests, Welsh language campaigns, independence, community partnerships, foundational economy activists, authors, artists and commentators. There’s something really radical going on in Wales, to paraphrase Mel Davies in her speech at the independence March in Caernarfon a few years ago, ‘we are not here against anything. we are here to celebrate the strength and diversity of our communities, and what we can do together, building from communities up’. And on the table was a new book: “The Welsh Way" - essays on neolibralism and devolution”

So this is where, and with whom, we met the Zapatistas…

Who are the Zapatistas?

The Zapatista delegation took it in turns to tell us the story of their 30-year struggle, speaking in Spanish, their second language, pausing for translation into English. It is an incredible story that began with remembering the suffering and struggles of their grandmothers in Chiapas, Southern Mexico, the organising which stared with just 6 people, to mass engagement of women, to an armed uprising (which was stopped because ‘the people wanted it to stop’) to a system of self-governance and solidarity. Read about it here

“Zapatismo is not an ideology, it is not a bought and paid for doctrine. It is … an intuition. Something so open and flexible that it really occurs in all places. Zapatismo poses the question:
‘What is it that has excluded me?’ ‘What is it that has isolated me?’
… In each place the response is different. Zapatismo simply states the question and stipulates that the response is plural, that the response is inclusive …”
- The Zapatistas' spokesperson, Subcomandante Galeano

Journey for life

La Montana sets sail for Europe from Isla Mujeres. Photograph: Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

The Zapatista movement supports the idea of internationalism as a means to liberate the world from capitalist oppression as they try to do themselves. It promotes cooperation with other similar movements and sympathizers worldwide, and for the first time since 1994, the Journey for Life brought Zapatistas to Europe, to

“ To carry out meetings, dialogues, exchanges of ideas, experiences, analyses and evaluations among those of us who are committed, from different conceptions and from different areas, to the struggle for life”

Above all, the Zapatistas explained that they are coming to exchange with — that is, to speak, and even more so, to listen to — all those that have invited them “to talk about our mutual histories, our sufferings, our rages, our successes and our failures.” They want especially to do this in grassroots meetings so there is enough time to get to know and learn from one another.

You can read (and sign) their Declaration for Life here

And so they came to us in Caernarfon, fresh from Dublin.

Some Utopias Bach take-aways

These are just a few of the things that really struck me about the Zapatistas. I’d like to share them with you, because they seem to me to place some of the really tiny things we are trying to do at Utopias Bach in a context that perhaps re-galvanises the radical part of our intent, and reminds us perhaps, why we are doing what we are doing, and how we are doing it….(You can see our Utopias Bach questions and values/principles here)

A sense of experimentation, evolution, of making mistakes
As the Zapatistas told their story, it really struck that they talked as much about mistakes and things that didn’t work as they did to ‘successes’. And they neither used the terms mistakes or succeses! They talked in terms of learning and changing, and in particular to listening to those with different points of view.

As Hilary Klein writes: (and I really recommend reading her article!)

“They decided to take on global capitalism and aim to dismantle patriarchy in Zapatista territory. At the same time, they know that none of us have all the answers, that we make the road by walking. Contemporary social movements might do well to emulate this combination of chutzpah and humility.
The Zapatistas also readily acknowledge that theirs is a long-term struggle. They view their project of Indigenous autonomy as building a world of justice and dignity slowly, step by step.
There is much we could learn from the Zapatistas’ understanding of the enduring nature of this work, and the patience that comes along with that.”

2. Direct democracy, embracing dissent, different experiences and voices and devolution, learning to work with difference

Zapatista communities are organized in an anarchistic manner. All decisions are made by a decentralized direct deomcracy. The original goal for this organization was for all the indigenous groups in Mexico to have autonomous government; today in the Zapatista territory the Mexican government has no control. The councils in which the community may meet and vote on local issues in the Zapatista Chiapas are called the Councils of Good Government. Any issue may be brought up to be voted on, and all decisions are passed by a majority vote. There are no restrictions on who may govern or who may vote. Since December 1994, the Zapatistas had been gradually forming several autonomous municipalities, called Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ). In these municipalities, an assembly of local representatives forms the Juntas de Buen Gobierno or Councils of Good Government (JBGs).

The Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities are run in various communities, the general assemblies meet for a week to decide on various aspects concerning the community. The assemblies are open to everyone, without a formal bureaucracy. The decisions made by the communities are then passed to elected delegates whose job is to pass the information to a board of delegates. The delegates can be revoked and also serve on a rotation basis (and crucially, they are nominated rather than ‘standing for election’. In this way, it is expected that the largest number of people may express their points of view.

A civil society gathering in Oventic, a Zapatista Caracol (Photo by Hilary Klein)

Read the 7 principles for Zapatista Governance, leadership, community and decision making here:

lead by obeying
propose, don’t impose
represent, don’t replace
anti-power against power
convince, don’t defeat
everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves
construct, don’t destroy
we want a world where many worlds fit
PRINCIPLE: Strong communities embrace diversity, rather than needing to suppress those who don’t fit into a norm.
PRACTICE: Especially through oppressed peoples within Zapatista communities empowering themselves and speaking up, the movement has increasingly recognized the centrality of the rights and needs of women, queer folks, prisoners, and other marginalized sectors in the struggle for justice. This is also practiced through the idea of “Caminar Preguntando” (Asking Questions While Walking), maintaining humility in listening and always being open to other people’s perspectives and experiences in the world, rather than claiming superiority.

3. Small, rooted in place and land

Subcommander Marcos argues that the Zapatistas' Revolutionary Agrarian Law that was imposed following the land takeovers conducted by the EZLN and those indigenous peoples supportive of the movement in the wake of the January 1994 uprising, brought about “ … fundamental changes in the lives of Zapatista indigenous communities … ":

…When the land became property of the peasants … when the land passed into the hands of those who work it … [This was] the starting point for advances in government, health, education, housing, nutrition, women’s participation, trade, culture, communication, and information …[it] was recovering the means of production, in this case, the land, animals, and machines that were in the hands of large property owners.”
In the eyes of Marcos and the Zapatistas, their quest for autonomy — in their negotiations with the government the EZLN did not demand independence from Mexico, but rather autonomy, and (among other things) that the natural resources extracted from Chiapas benefit more directly the people of Chiapas — began with, and was only made possible through, reclaiming land and distributing it to "those who work it".