This is an article I wrote for the Free News in Portland, ME in December, 2006.
On Dec. 12, there was a presentation by Professor George Caffentzis at the USM Law School, called The Next Mexican Revolution? Oaxaca’s insurrection, Obrador’s “Parallel Government” and the Zapatista’s “Other Campaign”. There were approximately 25 people there. Prof. Caffentzis has a group (Mainers for Democracy in Mexico) that involves students and faculty to support the Zapatistas, some of whom spoke also.
On January 1, 1994 the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN in Spanish) burst into the consciousness of the world by its armed takeover of several towns and cities in Chiapas, Mexico. They were an indigenous movement that rose up to oppose the beginning of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) treaty and the degradation of the Constitution of Mexico. Eventually the armed insurrection ended and the Zapatistas said that they did not want to take over state power- “If power is taken, it is not real power.” Then, in their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, they proposed the “Other Campaign,” in which they would travel to all the states in Mexico to dialog with ordinary people about what did they want to do to change Mexico from below. Subcomandante Marcos said last month that Mexico is “on the eve of a great uprising or a civil war.”
Then, there is the losing Presidential candidate, Lopez Obrador’ of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and his ‘parallel government’. His supporters camped out in the thousands in the center of Mexico City, vowing to not let the winner, Felipe Calderon of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) take office.
A powerful libratory current is rising among Mexicans. Many intense discussions are going on in Mexico whether to follow Obrador’s ‘Parallel Gov’t” strategy or the Zapatistas “Other Campaign” strategy of mobilizing from the ground up all over Mexico. Friends in Mexico told Prof. Caffentziz that recently the situation has profoundly changed. This great crisis will affect not only Mexicans but also people in the U.S. Even Marcos talked about how this force is growing so much that it can’t even be contained by the country of Mexico, that to the North of the Rio Bravo there exists another Mexico, “one that we are not going to lose.”
Across the Rio Bravo, the largest demonstrations in U.S. history took place in 2006 among Latinos, both documented and undocumented demanding immigration reform that recognized their human rights – hence their slogan, “No Human Being is Illegal!” In Max Blumental’s March article in The Huffington Post, I quote:
“I have just returned from the largest, most energized demonstration I have ever witnessed in my life. Over 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles to march against HR 4437, a bill authored by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner (heir to the Kotex fortune) which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico.
The rally reached a crescendo as thousands of demonstrators lined the walls and bridges above the 101 freeway waving flags and cheering while an endless parade of cars and trucks blasted their horns in support. It was the sound of a sleeping giant awakening.”
Basically millions of undocumened workers said to the U.S. Congress – “You are not going to pass legislation to make us slaves.” Congress was forced to dump Sensenbrenners bill, recognizing that a powerful movement was rising in the U.S., and that the Latino and immigrant population was not going to take this lying down.
In Mexico, the situation in Qaxaca may be the spark that lights the prairie fire, as it arose almost spontaneously from a teachers strike that, due to brutal governmental and paramilitary attacks turned into a mass insurrection by hundreds of thousands of people from the city and surrounding Indigenous communities. Initially a group of teachers and their supporters camped out in the Zocalo, or center of Oaxaca City demanding a pay raise, better working conditions and help for the poor children who could not afford books and lunches.
On June 17, 2006, the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) a coordinating organization was formed to lead the rising struggle. Recently Federal Preventive Police were sent to clear the square and New York City Indymedia reporter Brad Will was shot and killed by paramilitaries/police. The U.S. Ambassador used his death as a reason to call for more police to establish order. The EZLN has called for worldwide support for APPO as it seeks to oust the corrupt PRI (Partido de Revolución de Mexico) Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.
As the online journal narcosphere.com put it: “…the biggest force responsible for Oaxaca’s poverty is a global economic system bent on eradicating subsistence agriculture, replacing small farms with massive plantations, and turning farmers into low wage factory workers, all in the name of economic efficiency and maximizing profits. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) destroyed Oaxaca’s millennia-old corn growing culture in the 1990’s.”
At present, Nativity activities have caused a lull in activities, but the New Year will surely bring renewed people’s struggles all across Mexico and in the U.S. Southwest. The revolutionary movement in Mexico is inspiring activists in the U.S. into renewed interest in the new networking model and horizontal strategies of the Zapatistas which seek to create another way of doing politics – “from below and to the left.”
While Chicanos and other Latinos will lead the movement in the U.S., all committed activist in the U.S. can help build the movement here in the U.S. Below are some links and materials to help educate ourselves to the struggle in Mexico and inside the “brain of the monster,” as the Zapatistas call the U.S.
http://www.narconews.com
http://the-fourth-world.blogspot.com
http://fc.umit.maine.edu/~robert.mendoza/newjournal.htm
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
http://aztlanrising.com/
http://zapagringo.blogspot.com/
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=18059817
