Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 12:25:08 -0500 (CDT)
From: Chiapas 95 Moderators <chiapas-AT-mundo.eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: AUT: E;Yvon Le Bot Venice Speech on Zapatismo, Sep 12


This posting has been forwarded to you as a service of 
Accion Zapatista de Austin.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 18:07:41 +0200
From: Steve Wright <sjwright-AT-vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
To: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave-AT-mundo.eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: La Serenissima e gli Zapatisti (fwd)

Yvon Le Bot, speaking at the Venice meeting "For a Social Europe"

12 September 1997


As we speak, an extremely important event is unfolding in Mexico: the march
of the indigenous people, which is just reaching the country's central
streets.

In order to introduce the themes of this march, I will start, as is
traditional, with a little story. The story of a little newspaper vendor,
who has the problem that many people are too poor to buy a new paper.

People don't buy his papers because they are too old and they don't want to
read old papers. So the little newspaper vendor doesn't sell anything, and
day after day he accumulates papers that get older and older.

Given this situation, the little paper vendor decides to start a paper
recycling plant. Using his small capital of old papers, he soon becomes a
millionaire. Next he buys up all the companies that publish papers and
magazines. Having gained total control over the press, he forbids the
publication of current news, obliging people to read only news from the
past. In the papers on sale today you can read that the Zapatistas are
arriving in Mexico City, and will meet with Pancho Villa's troops, but you
can't see the date clearly, which could be 1914 or could be 1997.

Those who know something of Mexico will understand Marcos' viewpoint.

In September 1996, a few weeks after the intergalactic encounter, I
suggested in a letter to Marcos that the second intergalactic encounter
anticipated for Europe be held in Venice; I wasn't the only one who had
this idea. I received from Marcos the reply which I will now read you,
dated 12 October 1996 -- a not insignificant date:

"This idea of Venice is not a bad idea, it will offer us a pretext for the
inevitable scuttling [naufragio] of discussions."

Apparently the rest of the world was less taken with the project, and the
encounter was held elsewhere, without the excuse of the lagoon. The idea
that there was some affinity between the Zapatista dream and that of Venice
has continued all the same, and the contacts have now multiplied.

What is emerging here perhaps is a new solidarity which is not based upon
the guilt or compassion of white people, nor upon paternalism.

The exchange of ideas and experiences is different to that which once
occurred in the context of (a now defunct) third worldism. The best
solidarity with Zapatismo is made by movements which echo the former, which
share moments of correspondence and resonance with it.

I believe that the spirit of this [Venice] encounter moves in such a
direction, which involves finding a new relationship between society and
politics. This is also the meaning of inviting the Zapatistas here.

I will now address the theme upon which I have been invited to intervene,
which is the relationship between the local and global in the context of
Zapatismo; or more precisely, the relationship between the
local-regional-national and global from the point of view of Zapatismo. The
strength of the Zapatistas lies in being linked simultaneously on all these
levels. If they had remained simply on the level of ethnicity and identity,
they would have lost, and in time would have needed to have found an
international echo.

There are many ways of confronting this problem of difference and the
multiplicity of levels: I will look at it from the point of view of
autonomy and self-government. The question of autonomy and self-government
is a difficult question which has been avoided for a long time, but I am
convinced that at this point in time it is the central question. It's no
coincidence that it is on this question that the negotiations between the
Zapatistas and the government have become bogged down (as you know, these
negotiations opened after the Zapatista insurrection of 1994).

The negotiations have had their ups and downs, and have now been bogged
down  for more than a year, after the Zapatistas denounced the government's
failure to implement the first accord reached between the parties.

The first of the questions placed upon the table for discussion was that of
the rights and culture of the indigenous communities. Here the Zapatistas
opened themselves to everyone who had something to say on the subject.
Rather than starting with preconceived or dogmatic positions, the
Zapatistas developed their proposals through long discussions and debates.
In February 1997 an accord was reached thanks to a dual method: on the one
hand, continuous discussion; on the other, the intervention of mediators
interested in seeing a positive outcome from the negotiations.

These so-called "Sant'Andreis accords" (which take their name from the
location in which they were negotiated) contain above all an important
declaration of principle, that of the right of indigenous people to
autonomy and self-determination. Now these principles must be translated
into changes to constitutional law. Therefore it is now the legislative
power (the parliament) or the executive power (the presidency) which must
play their role in taking up these principles.

It is from the point of view of the political-legal translation of these
principles that the first difficulties have arisen, starting with the
Zapatista demand for the redefinition of municipalities.

What the Zapatistas seek echoes the example of Bolivia, where
municipalities were redefined around the original structure of indigenous
communities, entailing a shift from a hierarchical structure of
administrative decision-making to a structure controlled by the base.

Essentially, this entailed a new way of defining territory: what the
indigenous communities sought was neither an ethnic redefinition of
municipalities, nor the constitution of ethnically homogenous communities,
but rather a redefinition of territorial spaces.

The second point of conflict with the government concerns natural
resources. As a region Chiapas has a very poor population, but it is also
very rich in natural resources. It is the leading region in Mexico for
hydro-electric production, and is rich in oil and uranium deposits. From
this point of view the question of autonomy and self-government is posed
very concretely: it is not an abstract question, since it concerns the
control and exploitation of these natural resources. 

It s important to emphasise that the Zapatista movement is not a separatist
movement seeking independence for the region. The Zapatistas are jealous of
their membership within the Mexican nation, which Zapatismo has not
questioned. 

The question rather is to seek the place that the indigenous communities,
that is the political expression of the indigenous populations, can occupy
within the context of the nation, a nation coming to terms with the
processes of globalisation.

With these positions the Zapatistas have also provoked a debate within the
left itself. For not everyone agrees with these positions, as I will
attempt to show. There is a famous writer, very well-known in the Mexican
left, who has argued that "The autonomy of the indigenous communities is
dangerous, and it is dangerous because it risks strengthening attitudes of
authoritarianism, of sexism and male chauvinism, of the exclusion of women
from decision-making, and even a sort of religious fundamentalism". There
was an article in La Jornada (which is the most courageous paper in Mexico,
and whose correspondent H. Havilesse is here reporting on the Venice
Meeting), signed by Roger Bartra' (a noted Mexican marxist) entitled
"Indigenous violence", which questions the principle of autonomy. The same
article also denounces the danger of apartheid which may follow from the
concession and recognition of autonomy.

Many on the Mexican left think that the concession of autonomy leads to a
sort of separate development -- a separate underdevelopment -- along the
lines of apartheid. On the other hand there are many positions within the
left, amongst them many marxist ones, which eulogise the democracy of the
communities.

Others argue along different lines, saying that the democracy within the
indigenous communities is a model of direct democracy, because the
principle of consensus (namely, that decisions are taken after long
discussions and upon the basis of everyone's agreement and consensus around
the decisions themselves) holds sway, and because the authorities are
subordinate to the population and not vica versa. This principle translates
into a slogan that the Zapatistas use frequently - "Commanding -- obeying".

It's also true that things don't always work this way, and there are abuses
of "commanding -- obeying", and that a discussion has opened in order to
understand whether these abuses are the fruit of an intervention external
to the life and culture of the communities, or if these are an internal
problem or one which predates the process of colonisation. Even in the book
of interviews that I have recorded with Marcos, he distances himself from
what I would call a communitarian definition of the question. Marcos says
that before January 1994 the indigenous members of the Zapatista army had
not come to terms with the problem of political decisions, which is very
different in an open society compared to the taking of political positions
within a community.

In a complex society, a decision can't be held off until the last citizen
has been convinced of its correctness; it would be dangerous to attempt
this, as in this instance consensus becomes another form of
authoritarianism, another form of fundamentalism. Differences, different
points of view, conflicts of interest and the meaning of democratic rules
which allow minorities to be respected: all of these questions must be
taken into account. The problem of democracy is not to annul conflicts, but
rather to stimulate them so that they can find expression. What does all of
this mean in terms of the political and legal aspects connected to the
demand of autonomy?

The Zapatistas have no intention of going back to a concept of closed
communities. The various questions I have illustrated are already being
overtaken by new conflicts developing within the communities, and in their
relations with the outside world. While the Zapatistas don't have a clear
and definitive vision of their conception of autonomies, I think that some
precise features can be identified.

The first of these concerns the recognition of pluralities of viewpoints
and therefore of the possibility of the existence of conflicts between
different visions, and that there can be no democracy within social conflict.

The second concerns the necessity of deliberating and arriving at a decision.

The third point is the necessity of democratising national society as a
condition for promoting the development of a communitarian democracy; the
latter cannot exist without a framework of democratic guarantees in
society, otherwise all that will be reproduced is the mechanism of a closed
community. And this leads to social equality from the point of view of
rights for women.

The last point I want to emphasise is the necessity of combining -- without
merging -- the political and social dimensions, as this can help us avoid
on the one hand a lay ideology [laicismo], an abstract universalism which
is simply the heir of the Enlightenment, and on the other hand any ethnic
and religious fundamentalism.

In conclusion, I want to summarise what I believe are the fundamental
questions posed by the Zapatistas, questions which concern us all because
they are fundamental for the politics of our time. How is it possible to
live together whilst maintaining our differences? How can identity and
democracy be reconciled? How can the relationship between community and
nation be articulated? How can autonomy act to strengthen democracy, rather
then weaken it -- that is, so as not to produce dependence, discrimination
or any form of marginalisation? How can autonomy and solidarity be
combined? These are the questions which the Zapatistas have posed us.

Thanks.





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