Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 23:27:06 +1100
Subject: Re: AUT: Tariq Ali: change the world by taking power
From: Thiago Oppermann <difference_3ngine-AT-yahoo.com.br>


On 14/12/2004 8:58 PM, "Peter van Heusden" <pvh-AT-wfeet.za.net> wrote:

> P.S. Thiago, your criticism that the PT in Brazil makes it difficult to
> elaborate certain alternatives - to what extent do you think it is
> possible to elaborate alternatives within the Zapatista controlled areas?

I really would not know, never having gone there and only having heard
reports from the Zapatistas' NGO partners and mostly delirious
anthropologists.

Right now I am looking at an interesting article in American Anthropologist
v98 n3 by G. Gosen, "Maya Zapatistas on the Move" which goes into some of
the ways the modalities of power in the Zapatista movement reflect
traditional Maya forms of social articulation. I think that's an angle that
should be looked into.

Good issue of AA, btw, graet Laurel Kendall article on South Korean
shamanism. 

I think the thing that really symbolises the limits of the PT formation is
not so much Lula federal government, which is just predictably pathetic (I
almost miss FHC), but the PoA participatory budgeting experiment, which is
at oncce the PT's greates achievement and a complete fiasco.  "Isca de ONG",
NGO-bait. The actual practice of these things was this: the forum would
convene and a debate would start. Business people would at first show up and
the PT would complain about stacking. Or the opposite happened. Then there
would be a debate which would not be resolved. The meeting would be
adjourned. With no 'elitist' quorum rules, this would just keep happening
until the PT got its way. Ha ha! It was like those bad campaign
spokescouncils which reward the obsessive, only in this case the result was
that rather than having the rally start at an inconvenient time, you didn't
get a road built, or electricity, or some wanker got a huge pay rise.


Thiago







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