The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

February 2, 2022/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

Photo: Krzysztof Niewolny

Some Zapatista Wisdom — from the World of Snails

The world of snails — caracoles — exists right under our feet, but we hardly ever even notice their humble existence so close to the ground. Taking an hour to travel from flower to leaf, sipping a drop of water along the way, touching horns — such a lovely way to spend time. Just as we ignore the snail, they ignore us. We co-exist in parallel realities.

So with the Zapatistas in México. They produce food in harmony with the earth, take time to play, and live the truth that evolution and revolution usually develop at a snail’s pace. Year by year, the Zapatistas expand their protective shell, the accumulated and accumulating wisdom of generations. Making a world that most do not see, they ignore the “civilizing” and “modernizing” projects of globalization.

We humans who inhabit the giant-size capitalist world that towers commandingly above the Zapatista caracoles also experience life as a spiral. But our world has spiraled out of control, threatening our future survival at an accelerating pace. Our disruptive — no, suicidal — global order has reached its limits.

Slow down. Look and listen. Be humble and generous. Build on what your ancestors learned. In these troubled times, the Zapatista message we explore in this week’s issue inspires with its simplicity.

In this week’s issue, we’re also pleased to introduce a new monthly column, Anti-Imperialista, by José Luis Granados Ceja, a freelance writer and photojournalist based in Mexico City whose work focuses on contemporary political issues and grassroots social movements.

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The Zapatista Vision: A Listening, Embracing World

The Zapatistas in 2021 set out on an “invasion,” entering five continents by boat. How do they sum up the results of their world tour?

Gustavo Esteva: The Zapatistas didn’t set out to conquer other lands. They called their mission a “reverse conquest,” since they had an intention totally opposite the European colonizers, not to promote a model, not to preach — but to listen. They envision “a world in which many worlds can be embraced.” Their voyages became a source of inspiration.

The Zapatistas have evolved from when they first formed. Most importantly, they have learned to listen. The voyaging delegation loved meeting and listening to many diverse resistance groups, loved finding so much creativity from people not looking for saviors, but people who are saying, “Let’s do it ourselves!” In some cases, these groups lived in the same cities, but didn’t know each other. The Zapatista visit connected them.

The Zapatistas use humor, story, and art to convey their message. But they also use arms to defend themselves. What does this say about how they intend to change the world?

Guns are tools like any other, with their appropriate uses, subcomandante Moisés once said. The Zapatistas practice self-defense, but they have not used weapons.

But “EZLN” stands for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, doesn’t it?

They gave themselves that name a long time ago, in 1983. The “army” part is outdated, and they have also abandoned the concept of “national liberation.” Or even nation. For many years, you could always see the Mexican flag in photos of Zapatista events. But those events no longer display that flag. Twenty-five years ago, at the National Indigenous Congress, it was said, “Never again, México without us.” The Indigenous peoples are saying now, “We, without México.”

The Zapatistas see México as a ghost. They see nation states created for domination as the past. They see millions of discontents with that horizon and global capitalism. Zapatistas are not planning a future México composed of autonomous regions. They are constructing a new world on a reality that already has other horizons.

Today, AMLO wants to bring about a “Fourth Transformation.” What does this mean for indigenous peoples?

In the “first transformation,” when Spanish rule was thrown off, the mestizos “fathers of the fatherland” saw the United States of America as a model, even for the name of their new nation, called the United States of México in the first Constitution of 1824. A little later one of them said in the Congress, “To deal with the indigenous peoples, we must do what the US did — eliminate them.”

But the indigenous peoples proved too numerous. So instead the Mexican government used education as a weapon to de-indianize the people. In the “second transformation” in the 1860s, the government dispossessed the indigenous of their land. After the Revolution of 1910, the “third transformation” moved to dismantle their communal way of life. More recently, NAFTA formalized what already existed: concessions to foreign entities. Control of 40 percent of the central valley of Oaxaca went to transnational corporations. Those transnationals then extracted more gold and silver in 20 years than had been extracted in all the colonial period.

And now, with AMLO and his “Fourth Transformation,” we are seeing further colonization. The Tren Maya project isn’t just building a train. It’s aiming to change the Southeastern part of México to bring in more tourists, build more cities, more large plantations and cattle ranches. This will destroy forests, pollute land and water, and force indigenous people off the land. This will erase indigeneity.

Are any negotiations going on between the Morena government and the Zapatistas?

The Morena government has made no official declaration regarding the Zapatistas and begun no negotiations. I am afraid 2022 will be a difficult year, with drought predicted, the Tren Maya, and elections. The one thing we know: We cannot accept any more aggressions.

In 2006, indigenous peoples of Oaxaca, the teachers’ union, and their allies closed all government offices and occupied all public spaces. That can happen again — or other methods of resistance may surface. In other words, a time of radical uncertainly. We don’t know anything about the future, but we are ready, the people are ready, to construct in the present a different kind of society.

The End of the Myth of Meritocracy in México

Earlier this year, the head of the government in México City, Claudia Sheinbaum, touted the universal scholarship that now goes to all preschool, primary, and secondary students enrolled in the public school system. Her government instituted the scholarship — approximately US$16 a month per student — in 2019 to replace an earlier scholarship that only went to “talented” children with high grades.

Sheinbaum’s touting of the new universal program unleashed a wave of criticism from her political opposition and their sympathizers. They resorted to tired neoliberal clichés. The program, they charged, was rewarding mediocrity.

In response, Sheinbaum noted that the debate revealed some fundamental differences between the political philosophy of previous neoliberal governments and the philosophy of the “Fourth Transformation” led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Those who support the Fourth Transformation reject the myth of meritocracy, and this rejection perhaps best defines the Fourth Transformation’s ideology. The meritocracy myth used to permeate Mexican society and its political institutions. Indeed, this myth that capitalism rewards the “most talented” has always been a fundamental aspect of the ideology that underpins neoliberalism.

“For me,” Sheinbaum explained in defense of her universal scholarship program, “one of the foundations of the Fourth Transformation is the construction of a welfare state where no one is left behind.”

Politicians like López Obrador and Sheinbaum are doing something quite simple. They are making policies that acknowledge the structural barriers that impede working-class families from having the same opportunities as the privileged. These scholarships — and other direct cash-transfer programs by the federal government — also go a long way to explaining the enduring popularity of López Obrador and Sheinbaum. The people understand that, in contrast to previous regimes that gave priority to the interests of México’s ruling class, this government rules in favor of the poor majority.

Sheinbaum recently sent another clear message to her critics, announcing that she would seek to amend Mexico City’s Constitution to consecrate the scholarship as a constitutional right that future governments will not be able to take away from the city’s children.

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

Luis Feliz Leon and Dan DiMaggio, Mexican Auto Workers to Choose New Union in Landmark Vote, Labor Notes. An excellent guide to this week’s landmark union representational vote at the giant GM auto plant in the central Mexican city of Silao.

Eric Lawrence, UAW, AFL-CIO push GM, Mexican government to safeguard workers ahead of union vote, Detroit Free Press. About 6,300 workers will be eligible to vote in this week’s landmark election in Silao. Only one of the four unions on the ballot represents a true break from a corrupt past.

Enrique Calderon Alzati, El México actual y la 4T, La Jornada. Al iniciar el cuarto año de gobierno del presidente López Obrador, es necesario detenernos a analizar qué tanto se ha logrado en torno a la transformación del país.

Jonathan Blitzer, The Disillusionment of a Young Biden Official, New Yorker. Mexican-American immigration expert Andrea Flores’s efforts to roll back Trump’s immigration policies faced opposition inside and outside the White House.

Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul and Kevin Sieff, México offers bodyguards and bulletproof vests to vulnerable journalists. It hasn’t been enough, Washington Post. More than 140 journalists have been killed in México since 2000.

Clifford Krauss, México apuesta por el petróleo y compra una refinería en Texas, New York Times. El presidente López Obrador quiere detener la mayoría de las exportaciones de petróleo y las importaciones de gasolina y otros combustibles.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty. 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati, Courtney Childs, Victoria Hamlin, Agatha Hinman. To give feedback or get involved, email us!

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