Autonomy Is in Our Hearts: Zapatista Autonomous Government through the Lens of the Tsotsil Language (Kairos) - Softcover

Fitzwater, Dylan Eldredge

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1629635804 ISBN 13: 9781629635804

Verlag: PM Press, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

Following the Zapatista uprising on New Year’s Day 1994, the EZLN communities of Chiapas began the slow process of creating a system of autonomous government that would bring their call for freedom, justice, and democracy from word to reality. Autonomy Is in Our Hearts analyzes this long and arduous process on its own terms, using the conceptual language of Tsotsil, a Mayan language indigenous to the highland Zapatista communities of Chiapas.

The words “Freedom,” “Justice,” and “Democracy” emblazoned on the Zapatista flags are only approximations of the aspirations articulated in the six indigenous languages spoken by the Zapatista communities. They are rough translations of concepts such as ichbail ta muk’ or “mutual recognition and respect among equal persons or peoples,” a’mtel or “collective work done for the good of a community” and lekil kuxlejal or “the life that is good for everyone.” Autonomy Is in Our Hearts provides a fresh perspective on the Zapatistas and a deep engagement with the daily realities of Zapatista autonomous government. Simultaneously an exposition of Tsotsil philosophy and a detailed account of Zapatista governance structures, this book is an indispensable commentary on the Zapatista movement of today.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Dylan Eldredge Fitzwater has encountered the Zapatistas as a human rights observer, a participant in several international gatherings, and as a student at the Zapatista language school in Oventik. He currently lives in Portland, OR, and works at Burgerville, a regional Oregon fast-food chain, where he is an organizer for the Burgerville Workers Union, an affiliate of the Industrial Workers of the World.

John P. Clark is an eco-communitarian anarchist theorist and activist. He lives and works in New Orleans, where his family has been for twelve generations. He is Director of La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology, which is located on Bayou La Terre, in the forest of coastal Mississippi. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, most recently The Tragedy of Common Sense. He writes a column, “Imagined Ecologies,” for the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism, and edits the cyberjournal Psychic Swamp: The Surregional Review. He was formerly Curtin Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University.

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Autonomy Is in Our Hearts

Zapatista Autonomous Government through the Lens of the Tsotsil Language

By Dylan Eldredge Fitzwater

PM Press

Copyright © 2019 PM Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62963-580-4

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, 
FOREWORD by John P. Clark, 
Introduction, 
PART ONE The History of Autonomous Government, 
CHAPTER ONE A Genealogy of Zapatista Political Aspirations: From the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to the Self-Determination of Peoples in Struggle, 
CHAPTER TWO The Zapatista Clandestine Organization: The Creation of a Collective Heart (O'on) and Collective Potentiality (Ch'ulel), 
CHAPTER THREE The Creation of the Caracoles: Relationships of Difference in the Collective Heart (Ko'ontik, Ko'onkutik), 
PART TWO The Practice of Autonomous Government, 
CHAPTER FOUR "The Community Has the Final Say": The Assembly and the Collective Work of Governance (A'mtel), 
CHAPTER FIVE Decolonizing Work: Zapatista Collective Work (A'mtel) and the Struggle against Systems of Desperation-Dependence-Displacement (Kanal), 
CHAPTER SIX Challenges in the Work of Collective Governance (A'mtel): Circumscribing Power, Creating Accountability, and Women's Participation, 
Conclusion, 
EPILOGUE Another World Is Possible, 
NOTES, 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 
INDEX, 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS, 

CHAPTER 1

A Genealogy of Zapatista Political Aspirations: From the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to the Self-Determination of Peoples in Struggle

Subcomandante Moisés and Subcomandante Galeano announced the second grade of "freedom according to the Zapatistas" for early August 2015. Admission would only be for those students who received a good evaluation from their guardians during the first grade. In July, they clarified that second grade would consist of a video and that the final test would be six questions, because "As is our Zapatista way, [the questions] are more important than the answers." While the heart of the first grade of the escuelita was the contemporary organization of dignified life in the Zapatista communities, the heart of second grade was the story of the beginnings of this organization before January 1, 1994. If the first grade was the experience of Zapatista organization, the second grade describes the process of beginning to create this organization. Instead of asking, "What is the practice of our organization?" it asks, "What was our way of organizing ourselves?"

The video consisted of over three hours of testimonies from elder responsables from all five zones of Zapatista territory who have been with the organization since its beginnings in the early 1980s. They described how they joined the organization, their responsibilities in the organization, and how these responsibilities facilitated the growth of the organization. However, perhaps even more important than what they said was why they said it. At the end of most of the testimonies, the responsable would close by expressing his or her hope that maybe his or her word could serve the compañeros and compañeras of the Sixth in organizing themselves in their own calendars and geographies. Francisco from the zone of Caracol V Roberto Barrios said:

We invite you students of the national and international Sixth, we invite you to pay close attention. Take this seed, put it in practice, and soon you will be as we are today.

Evider from the zone of Caracol I La Realidad said:

You should be under no obligation. You yourselves should decide whether to do as we did. Wherever you are, you can see if this helps you or not there, the way in which we did the work and continue doing it.

Daniel from the zone of Caracol II Oventik said:

You can learn to inspire, to organize in your communities, in your neighborhoods, in your municipalities, wherever they are in your country.

Estel from the zone of Caracol III La Garrucha said:

Why don't we [women] govern? It's the men, the men silence us. ... I am not afraid of these men, because the most important thing is the struggle. I give thanks that we are here now, I give thanks that your eyes can see us, I give thanks to the compañeros of the Comandancia [CCRI], and I hope that the whole world will do this as well, compañeros, because it is important. Why? Because women are important, even the young girls who make demands as well, even the children. These are my few words.

Bernabe from the zone of Caracol IV Morelia said:

Hopefully you of the Sixth will take up the example of how we started in the organization. I am very happy because now we have advanced very far in the organization.

The responsables described how the EZLN came to be, but these closing words show that the proposal of second grade is not a history lesson concerning a past that is meant to remain in the past, it is a proposal for the present and the future: it proposes that others listen to the Zapatista way of organizing, and it offers the hope that by listening others can build their own forms of organization and, ultimately, their own forms of dignified life.

However, listening is not the same as following a blueprint. The Zapatista form of organizing is a "seed," in the words of Francisco; a "way," in the words of Evider; a "hope," in the words of Estel; an "example," in the words of Bernabe. What do these four choices of description say about the nature of the Zapatista form of organizing? First, they say that it is a certain "way," a logic and method that is particular to its own way of doing things that is different from other forms of organizing. Second, they say that it is just one "example" of this form, that it is a way of organizing that arises from a particular context, but that this particularity does not foreclose the ability of others to take up the Zapatista example as inspiration in their own contexts. Third, they say that this example of a form of organizing is a "seed," and when it is taken up and planted in a different place what grows will be similar in form, yet will have its own path of growth, its own branches, its own flowers and fruits. And fourth, it is a "hope" that this seed will undermine the gendered oppression within the community that plants it. Thus, there are four central questions that can guide a reflection on the second grade of the Zapatista escuelita and the Zapatista way of organizing more generally: What is its form and how is this form different than other ways of organizing? What is the social and historical context that shapes the particular example of this form? How was it intertwined with women's liberation in this context? Lastly, how might this form be planted and nurtured as a seed in different contexts?

To understand how the Zapatista form of organizing is different, we have to understand the forms of organizing that it is different from. Although there are as many forms of organizing as there are peoples who struggle for a dignified life, there are certain forms that have particular resonance in different historical moments. In the context of Latin America, many of the most important struggles in the second half of the twentieth century looked to the forms of revolutionary organization promulgated by the successful Cuban Revolution of 1959. The example of Cuba was an important inspiration for the Forces of National Liberation, the Marxist political-military organization that first organized the EZLN in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas. However, the EZLN that emerged on January 1, 1994 was organized in a different way and with different...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PM Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1629635804
• ISBN 13: 9781629635804
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland