Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 01:40:55 -0500
From: Lowe Laclau <lowe.laclau-AT-gmail.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Tariq Ali: change the world by taking power


Doug,

> We're now coming on the 11th anniversary of the emergence of the
> Zapatistas. What have they really accomplished, aside from making a
> nice media splash? They haven't taken power, but they haven't really
> changed the world very much either. They've barely changed Mexico, in
> fact. I wish it weren't true, but I doubt you can change the world
> without taking power.
> 

I see what you're saying pretty clearly but I wouldn't reduce the
effect of the EZLN to simply a "media splash". I think there is much
more to what they've accomplished. Taking hold of the imaginations of
a large part of the world, generating hope for Indigenous resistance,
hell... I'd even go so far as to say that they very act --in and of
itself-- of standing up for oneself and what one believes in,
irregardless of its being a mass phenomena, is an event of
significance. I don't believe that any act is without consequence
beyond ones immediate situations. The EZLN have (whatever their faults
or lack of "effectiveness") shown that one can do "politics" and not
be a (reproduce the) State. Not everyone can or will be in the
position of a Kirchner or Chavez, resistance can and should take as
many forms as people have original ideas. Each person can "engage"
power whereever they are, no? I see your point but it might be giving
too much credence to power as a macroscale phenomena. That macro
always presupposes a micro which acts as its backbone.

BTW... I read yesterday that Marcos and Pablo Ignacio Taibo are
writing a novel. The first chapter will be published Sunday in La
Reforma (Mexican periodical).

 
-- 
"I am God most of the time... when I don't have a headache..." - Felix Guattari


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