Theomai ISSN: 1666-2830 [email protected] Red Internacional de Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo Argentina

Aguirre Rojas, Carlos Antonio Chiapas, Latin America and the Capitalist World-system Theomai, núm. 11, 2005 Red Internacional de Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Chiapas, Latin America and the Capitalist World-system(1)

Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas *

* Researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. E-mail: [email protected]

“… The Chiapas Indians who have been using such intelligent tactics in their long struggle with the Mexican government.” Immanuel Wallerstein, “Indigenous Peoples, Populist Colonels, and Globalization”. Comment number 33, on http://fbc.binghamton.edu, web site of the Fernand Braudel Center, February 1st of 2000.

But today we say, enough!

Today, more than eight years after its public appearance on the Mexican, Latin American and World scenario, it appears evident that the Neo – Zapatista indigenous movement that developed in the Mexican State of Chiapas, is clearly a new type of social movement, typical of what the antisystemic movements in opposition of the capitalist system shall be like that are going to be organized over the next thirty to fifty years of this chronological third millenium.

This new type of social movement, that emerges in one of the poorest and most backward areas of Southern Mexico –an area potentially very rich in natural and economic resources, but very much behind in terms of its social structure and its political configuration(2)- has managed to stir up an interest and an echo of practically planetary proportions, precisely because it announces what the new anticapitalist social movements shall be like in the future.

Viewing that from its first public irruption on the first of January of 1994, the Neo – Zapatista movement of the Mexican natives has not ceased to be each time more present in worldwide mass media, therefore also asserting its influence within the ‘collective imaginary’ of practically all of the resistance movements in the world, and becoming a necessary reference for all of those interested in the processes of social transformation that the capitalist system, as a whole, is currently experimenting.

The worldwide impact and presence of the Neo – Zapatismo derived from what can be implied from its novelty as an antisystemic social movement, have not yet been sufficiently theorized nor analyzed by the contemporary social scientists, in Mexico and Latin America as well as in the rest of the world. However, in our opinion, the mentioned examination and study might possibly yield fundamental keys with which to try understanding which shall be the specific routes that shall be traveled by future organized struggles against the capitalist system. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. Therefore, in the spirit of giving impulse to the multiplication of this still necessary analysis, the present essay shall try to analyze some of the main expressions of Neo – Zapatismo from the perspective of the “world-system analysis”. This perspective has been basically created and developed by Immanuel Wallerstein over the last twenty - five years. During this last quarter of a century, Wallerstein has been setting forth a series of thesis and interpretations that very notably coincide extraordinarily with the Neo – Zapatista thesis, anticipating them by several lustrums in some instances, and in others, reinforcing and allowing to re-dimension their most profound purpose and significance.

Thus, while at the same time trying to review some of the central theoretic proposals of this perspective of the World-System Analysis, as well as to use them as an instrument for explaining the recent Neo – Zapatista phenomenon, what the present text pursues is the objective of indicating some “new leads” to continue re – thinking and explaining the social movement and the situation that currently exist and are developing in the State of Chiapas in Southern Mexico that today is a mandatory element of the possible essential geography of the world anticapitalist rebellion.

Therefore, playing with the demonstration of the evident “elective affinities” that we believe to perceive within the recent events in Chiapas and the perspective of the world–system analysis, we may perhaps advance one step forward in the process of clarification of the nature of this Neo – Zapatista indigenous movement and in the illustration of the possible productiveness of this same analytic perspective.

Planet Earth, mountains of the south east of Mexico

One of the ideas that the world–system perspective has insisted upon most, and that many consider to be its most original and specific contribution, is that of the indispensable need to systematically and permanently go beyond the limited “national” or “state” point of view for the study and explanation of the main phenomena that take place within the capitalist world–system(3).

Because according to Immanuel Wallerstein’s opinion, one recurrent fault incurred by the vast majority of contemporary social scientists consists in non – critically assuming the supposed legitimacy of the “national framework” as the “unit of analysis” that is pertinent for the study of the social developments of the last five centuries. Nevertheless, and stating for a fact that said unit of analysis is not and cannot be any other than the world-system itself considered as a whole, those who promote this world–system perspective are then going to defend the need to relocate the assembly of facts, phenomena and processes that have occupied and even today, still occupy the specialists in history as well as in the current situation of modern capitalism(4) from a more global and all – embracing vision.

Thus, and establishing a critical distance from the traditional concepts of “State”, “Nation” and “Society” – which they propose to recover and redefine from and within the most complex notions of the of interstate system, world–economy and world–system-- and extending by its own route the radically globalizing vision inherited from Marx as well as from Fernand Braudel(5), the perspective of the world– system analysis insist upon the fact that a global world–system dynamics in fact really exists, and which Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. dynamics, if ignored by our analysis, is inevitably going to misrepresent the adequate explanation of the problems we are addressing.

Therefore and in order to set forth only a possible illustration of this general thesis, Wallerstein will show us, for example, how, in the so – called “independence movements” of Latin America, early in the XIXth century, what is at stake at the level of world–system as a whole, is the worldwide process of market re - articulation where Great Britain asserts itself as the center of world–economy and Spain culminates the process of decadence, that began as far back as the XVIIth century, of its each time more diminished role within the concert of European nations.

It is in this way, following the example of the “de – colonization of the United States”, and stemming from this situation in which no one is interested in having Latin America continue under the domination and control of Spain, that the multiplicity of movements of our “independences” are going to take place. In these movements, the sectors that include the masses and those most radical shall be systematically excluded, alienated or repressed and where the Spanish Colonial domination shall end up being substituted by a new chiefly European economic domination, following a line that shall reaffirm, finally and in spite of our “independences”, the historically chronic situation that continues to this day, regarding the condition of Latin America as a simple “peripheral” – area of the world-system(6).

According to this perspective of the world–system analysis, our social and political processes of the early XIXth century cannot then be adequately understood, unless we are to consider this essential dimension of the global dynamics of the world–system at that moment. And this, not only for the purpose of “giving consideration to the so – called ‘external factors’” that would complement and perhaps round out or enhance somewhat more the explanation centered on the “internal factors”, but in the somewhat more profound and radical sense that the mentioned Latin American “independence processes” would have been impossible without the existence of that “worldwide situation” of the simultaneous Spanish decadence and British boom and without the historical pause that it creates. But also, and on the other hand, it is only the consideration of the chronically peripheral situation within the world–system that Latin America has suffered as a true ‘long duration’ profound structure throughout the entire history of capitalist modernity, that has allowed understanding of the limits as well as the ultimate results of the mentioned independences of our semicontinent(7).

Thus, reinserting the explanation of these local Latin American processes within this global dynamics of the world–economy and of the world–system, Wallerstein reaffirms his thesis that the so – called “globalization” is not a phenomenon that dates as recently as the last three decades, nor is it a process that is characteristic of the last century, but rather a process initiated five centuries ago and inscribed as an essential stroke of the nature itself of the capitalist world–system.

And that is the reason why, the same as so many other relevant processes of the current world – system, Chiapas only acquires its true profound significance when we observe it from the perspective of this global and universal dimension of the world–system as a whole. Because, if it is in fact clear that Chiapas can also be explained stemming from certain local processes and later, from some specific contexts and Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. national histories(8), it is equally clear that, without the consideration of that more universal and planetary dimension of the global dynamics of the current world–system, it is impossible to adequately capture the true essential nature and the specific international significance of the Neo – Zapatista rebellion. The reason is that it is only this level of the mentioned planetary dynamics of capitalism seen as a world–system, that can allow us to understand the extraordinary international echo of this Mexican indigenous movement, that is being seen everywhere as one of the several possible “models”, or as one of the concrete alternatives, that exemplify the challenges faced by the new antisystemic movements, as well as the possible responses that can be experimented in the face of these mentioned challenges(9). And it is extremely significant that the rebel indians of Chiapas always had an acute awareness of this international nature of their proposal, which is demonstrated as much by the fact that they decided to make public their movement on the same day on which the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, as well as by the fact that two and a half years later they have summoned and organized the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neo – Liberalism in their own territories(10).

Along these lines and radically assuming the fact that their movement is a resistance movement with global implications and meanings and proclaiming that their struggle is part of a struggle that is located in Chiapas, as well as in Mexico, in Latin America and all over the world, the Neo – Zapatistas have known how to truthfully act with solidarity with the oppressed all over the world, making common cause against all forms of social oppression that exist in today’s world, and pronouncing themselves against timid politics that at times are in complicity with the UN and against government handling of the tragedy of last year’s flooding in Mexico, as well as in the face of the genocidal massacre of Kosovo or the ridiculous positions taken by the recent consecutive governors of the State of Chiapas.

And if on the Neo –Zapatista side there is clear awareness of the link of their movement with the global logic of the capitalist world-system, great receptivity and attention focused towards this originally Chiapas located movement has also been evident on the part of the capitalist world-system. The movement has also received vast and widespread publicity –a factor that, to a certain extent, has allowed putting a halt to the military repression that the movement could have suffered, making it possible for it so survive in better conditions-- that can be explained by the already mentioned fact that the Neo – Zapatista insurgency is seen, all over the world, as one of the most important experiences from which much can be learned of the new antisystemic movements, as much from the organization and political point of view as well from the cultural and general point of view.

We are the product of 500 years of struggles…

Another of the important ideas on which the “world-system analysis” focus insists repeatedly is that of the need to systematically introduce, into our analysis of the broached problems, a perspective that shall always study them from the point of view of long historical duration. Thus following up on Fernand Braudel’s(11) important lessons on this issue, Immanuel Wallerstein shall repeat that the social phenomena cannot be understood if, for their comprehension, we confine ourselves in the temporality of the short and / or medium duration, and that it is therefore necessary to always open generously the Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. temporal fan of our examination, incorporating these visions of much longer temporal strength into our explanations.

This can therefore completely change our perception of the studied facts. Because in the light of this historic long duration, to cite only one example developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, is the profound mutation symbolized by the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 which is no longer presented, as in the majority of the journalistic and superficial visions, as the “definitive death of socialism” or the “definitive end of Marxism or communism”, to reveal itself more as the evident conclusive moment of the process of “global collapse of Liberalism” initiated in 1968. This process entirely de – legitimizes said liberalism as the dominating ideology or geo-culture of the modern world-system, to fully introduce us into the situation of a new open confrontation of ideologies and the total re – structuring of the geo – culture we experienced thirty years ago and that shall continue yet over the following thirty or fifty years to come(12).

This is a completely original and heterodox interpretation of the events of 1989 and their historical significance, that is possible only if we take into consideration both the long history of Marxism and communism from the second half of the XIXth century and up until today, as well as the entire curve of liberalism over the past two centuries. Because in this light of the profound history, that is displayed in the records of the really long time, it is quite clear that Marxism has “died” dozens of times, only to be reborn again always with new strength on as many other occasions. At the same time that it has been shown, also very clearly, that the strange attempts of its application in the different variables of “real socialism” of the twentieth century can close their life cycle, without having to compromise with this closure, either critical social thought, nor the legitimate opposition movements and the struggle against the capitalist system. Therefore, they can also do so without abandoning the potential and the enormous benefit of this reference and theoretic contribution of Marxist thought.

In addition, it is also only from this long duration perspective that 1989 exhibits its profound connection, in the plane of essential cultural transformations and mutations, as much with 1968 as with 1917, 1848 and 1789, that is, with the really relevant turning points that mark the entire history of liberalism, when we regard it as the dominant geo-culture of the modern world-system, in the two centuries that have transpired since the French Revolution.

Therefore, and from this point of view, that embraces the entire period of 1789-1989 for the purpose of explaining the last of these two dates, it is clear that 1989, more than the assumed “death of Marxism”, is rather the moment of the final erosion and the cancellation of the basic premises that had been supporting the validity of liberal ideology. It is the end of the validity of the possibility, that previously had still remained open, of the obtainment of certain democratic achievements, or of the struggle for the extension of certain rights, or for the political recognition of these or those social sectors, groups or movements. Towards 1968 – 1989, all of the mentioned processes are totally exhausted as possibilities open to the future within the framework of the current world-system. With this comes the crumbling of the prior ‘liberal consensus’, collapsing the hegemonic strength of liberalism and giving way to the current situation of open ideological dispute that we have experienced over the last decade. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. And in the same way of any other fundamental social process, Chiapas also can only be adequately understood if we analyze it from this vision that comes from the long duration. And this understanding is in regard to several important interpretations.

In the first place, because the present Neo –Zapatista indigenous movement is in fact only the latest link of a long chain of indigenous resistance movements, present in Mexico and in an entire and important area of Latin America that goes through the history of the last five centuries of the evolution of our Latin American civilization, characterizing it with the recurrent presence of these same rebellious movements of the indigenous populations(13).

Since it is possible to postulate, quite specifically, that throughout the half of a millenium that encompasses the history of capitalist modernity, accompanying this modernity and as a true long duration structure of our Latin American civilization, this social positioning of strong focal points of the indigenous populations of our semicontinent has existed, in a permanent attitude of rebellion, opposition or confrontation against the dominant social structures that have been created and affirmed in Latin America during these five centuries of the mentioned curve of modernity. What this means is that, from the time of the Spanish Conquest to this day, and as opposed to other areas of Latin America where there is a predominance of populations of “white”, “mestizo” or “black” origin, there is still a strongly indigenous map of Latin America, that has tenaciously and consistently resisted the hierarchical, unequal and always discriminating imposition of the deformed and peripheral project of Latin American “modernity”.

Thus, at times breaking out in open uprisings and at others, remaining in check as latent resistance to the acceptance of certain cultural codes and of certain social conducts and practices, this indigenous America has turned its rejection to the logic of the conquest, to the submission, to the exploitation and later, to an overwhelming cultural “assimilation”, unfolded in the capitalist world-system, into a truly long duration daily reality, an authentic repeated outline of its survival and of its existence within the Latin American world.

It is an attitude of proud and chronic rebellion before the project of Latin America’s peripheral or baroque modernity(14), that does not project itself in the direction of a useless and impossible defense of the precapitalist world, or of the premodern past, or of the “good old times” as many hasty and superficial intellectuals have set forth, but rather more in the direction of radically refusing to accept the homogenizing logic of modernity. This is a predatory logic that sweeps away cultures, traditions, cosmovisions and rich and diverse civilizing habits, to substitute them with the “cold egotistical calculation”, with the merciless logic of the “enhancement of value” and with the complete standardization of the consumer and empty contemporary cultures.

Therefore, and from this attitude of active rejection of this predatory capitalist logic, has it been that the Chiapas and Latin American indigenous have known how to preserve and renovate a culture and some equally “modern” but alternative behaviors(15), where men, earth, world, time and space have a different significance, different from that which they have in the dominating Latin American modernity. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. Thus, having developed a ‘collective imaginary’ built with other references, and that functions with other logics, different from the dominating logic, the Neo-Zapatista natives –who are, in the final analysis, expression and part of that vaster Latin American indigenous world--, can then provide those same concepts of dignity, justice, democracy and power that we know and use, but with a very other and different meanings.

It is with these concepts and supported on this drawn back and marginal but live project of an alternative modernity, that recycles and re-functionalizes old practices and cosmovisions, at the same time that it takes on the new problems and challenges that are characteristic of the current social stage, that the Neo – Zapatista have been able to contribute this entire process of “re-signification of things” to the world, and that includes the construction of new languages for the same realities and the assignment of new meanings to old facts, as well as the proposal of new practices and new behaviors in politics, in culture and in society.

And, in our opinion, it is precisely from here from where the rare wealth and beauty of some of the pieces written by the ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ are derived, as well as are the strength and forcefulness of the Neo – Zapatista discourse, not weakened –as modern political rhetoric is already--, nor surrounded by the inevitable sentiment of suspicion that is spontaneously provoked by all of the modern “professional politicians”, in Mexico and Latin America as well as all over the world.

This is a radical novelty in the Neo – Zapatista discourse that therefore may perhaps explain the fascination that it exerts all over the world, as well as the fact that it has even been capable of renewing and resignifying old symbols that had become void of content, becoming degraded in the hands of official politics and culture, as is the case of the Mexican National anthem and flag, or also the graveyard of our “illustrious national heroes”, that now begin once again to regain strength and validity as they are vindicated and revalued by the Neo – Zapatistas themselves.

In all of these expressions of a marginal and alternative modernity as compared to the dominant capitalist modernity, there is nevertheless, a clear revolutionary potential that today’s Zapatistas have known how to assume, to state explicitly and to show to the world, and that in its profound anticapitalistic and antisystemic sense, reminds us necessarily of Karl Marx’s position regarding the possibilities for a future of the ancient Russian rural community(16).

Because if the Neo – Zapatista movement cannot be understood without this long duration vision, and therefore as heir and legitimate bearer of this secular history of the Latin American indigenous rebellions of the last five centuries, that preserve and build that possible alternative modernity, it cannot be totally captured, in its entire sense, if we do not see it also as the first link of another new chain, that opens up after 1989, and that joining and building with other new links the spectrum of the current new antisystemic social movements, it shall surely continue to broaden and develop during the next thirty to fifty years, which shall most probably constitute the terminal phase or situation of historical junction of the capitalist world-system(17). Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. Because when we closely analyze the concrete questions and problems that the Neo –Zapatistas face and discuss daily, it is quite clear that they refer to common items of the agenda that the new antisystemic social movements share today all over the world. This agenda of items that are still subject to debate shall undoubtedly have to be resolved during the next decades of this chronological XXIst century that is beginning now.

Because it is not by chance that the Chiapas rebel indigenous movement questions itself in a similar manner regarding how to successfully face the onslaught of neoliberalism and of the Right that has revived in Mexico and in the world, as well as regarding the ways in which a new, inclusive, broad and efficient social movement must be organized for the current struggles, in order that they are able to transcend the crisis of the old, already hard as stone, leftist political parties, as well as, and more generally, the crisis of total credibility of the political level and of politics of contemporary societies.

Thus, trying to avoid the risks of “substitutism” that today is still chronic in the parties –where the class or the social group are substituted by the party, the party by its directive organs and the latter by the leaders, in a recurrent process of “delegation” of decisions, of reflection and of responsibilities of the “masses” towards their leaders—and seeking to restore the true and permanent participation and commitment, of the oppressed in their movements and of the militants in their organizations, the Neo – Zapatistas point to a universal problem, that today is present in all of the antisystemic movements the world over.

In our opinion, this type of questions and others that are similar and that today are discussed in the heart of the movement of the Chiapas natives in rebellion, can only be answered from a long duration vantage point, and that must also be looking towards the future, attempting to discover the concrete elements that connect, in an almost spontaneous form, the experience of those Neo – Zapatista natives, with all of that series of revolutionary experiences that they include, from the heroic attempt of the Paris Commune or the Russian Revolution and to the power of the Soviets, as well as the experience of the Italian Workers Councils and that of the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966 – 1976.

As it happens however, this connection does not only occur in the sense that Walter Benjamin has indicated, in as far as that the fury of all of the past and vanquished rebellions once again awakens and is reborn(18) in each new rebellion of the oppressed, but rather in the recurrent reappearance, in all of these cited examples, of certain strokes that repeatedly characterize the most genuine demonstrations of rebellion against capitalist oppression, domination and exploitation.

We refer to strokes like the one of the movement that functions as a true “festival of the oppressed”, in which these oppressed take the decision of their destiny into their own hands, and in which a genuine area is opened for the free demonstration and defense of their interests, their points of view, their concerns and projects for social change. It is a movement where the representatives are revocable at any time, and where the making of important decisions is always genuinely collective. In sum, it is a movement that is the antithesis of the traditional political parties, with their leadership decisions and Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. their secret negotiations, with their public officials completely separated from the ranks and files, and infatuated and many times corrupted by the sweetness of power.

These are traits of the most radical antisystemic movements in the history of the last one hundred and thirty years, that reappear in the Neo – Zapatismo and that must certainly also be recovered by the new antisystemic movements of the following lustrums yet to come.

Zapatista Army for National Liberation (‘Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional’ – EZLN). Those without a name are referred to with this new name

Another one of the important thesis of the world-system analysis is that of the internal structure that composes that global unit that is known as the world-system. It is a tripartite structure, composed by a center, a semiperipheral area, and a vast peripheral area, that not only assigns and determines the economic, social, political and cultural roles that the different nations and regions of the mentioned world-system can fulfill, but that also has an influence on the specific types of antisystemic movements that are unfolded in those different areas of the planet, marking the limits of their specific action and their possibilities of global impact as well as the particular social significance of their specific demands(19).

In this way, this differential location within this or that zone of the world-system, works as a fundamental element in the definition of the limits as well as of the possibilities of action of the “States”, of the “nations”, of the “societies”, but also of the movements, of the struggles and of the transformations of all sorts that occur in this location.

And it is therefore this tripartite and differential geography of the world-system, which allows us to understand for instance, why during the second half of the XIXth century all of Europe experienced the presence and growth of strong workers’ and socialists’ movements, whereas on the other hand, socialism is only very weakly implanted in vast zones of Asia, Africa or Latin America. Or also, on the other extreme, why have the nationalist, national liberation or anti – imperialist movements been so strong and so essential in all of the recent history of the three mainly peripheral zones mentioned above, whereas their role in Western Europe or in the United States has been either non – existent or clearly minor.

Or also, is it this different positioning in the world-system, that allows explaining, for example, why, in spite of the radicalism of the Russian proletariat and of the extreme lucidity of some of their leaders, such as Lenin or Sverdlov, the project of “socialism in one country only” –project that was implemented by Stalin after Lenin’s death--, ends up being an historically non – viable project, causing the supposedly socialist Revolution, to be in fact, dedicated to fulfill tasks that are typical of a democratic - bourgeois revolution, and that the Soviet Union end up being, through the Third International, the world leader of the above mentioned national liberation and anti – imperialist movements.

This, according to Immanuel Wallerstein’s opinion, therefore demonstrates that it is impossible to change just one portion or zone of the world-system, if all of the system, in its entirety, is not changed. Stemming Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. from its condition as a semiperipheral zone that Russia had before 1917 –and that in Wallerstein’s opinion it still has today--, the entire history of the Soviet Union will illustrate for us how the global logic of the world-system, ends up prevailing over attempts to change, no matter how radical these might be, by marking the boundaries of its general limits and even by modifying its profound significance in the medium and the long term. Strange indeed is the destiny of the socialist project in the USSR, that reminds of the already mentioned condition that Marx set forth for the success of socialism and communism in Russia as well as the explicit doubt that Lenin had regarding the future of socialism in the USSR, regardless of a triumphant socialist revolution in Western Europe(20).

And if this location within the world-system, is not only an element of the “external context” of the “nation”, or one more additional factor to consider, ”alongside” the “internal” processes that would be the most essential, but is instead rather a central dimension of all of the processes and systems of the world-system, then, and in order to understand Chiapas, it is necessary to begin also from the fact that Mexico and Latin America have generally always been part of the peripheral area and in a very small measure of the semiperipheral area of the world-system. They are therefore countries and zones where the national states are always weak, where the bourgeoisie is of recent appearance and always inclined to compromise and abdication, where the development of democracy is always incomplete, deformed and partial, and where the respect for human rights, the condition of the citizenship, the real effective exercise of the constitutional state or the habits of granting justice and of requiring its enforcement, turn out to be realities that are more than imperfect and only in effect by tendency. Thus, from the well – known “obey but do not fulfill” of the Colonial period, to the current and illegitimate non – compliance of the San Andres Agreements (‘Acuerdos de San Andrés’) on the part of the Mexican Federal Government, or also the sad recent spectacle of establishing a dialogue with the striking UNAM (Mexican Autonomous National University) students, at the same time that the campus and the university facilities were being occupied by the police, the peripheral and semiperipheral condition of our country and of our Latin American semicontinent, becomes present in a most evident manner.

This predominantly peripheral condition explains to us then why, at first glance, the principle vindication of the rebellious Chiapas natives seems to be demands that are not very radical and not very antisystemic. However, when these demands are observed from a more profound perspective, they reveal the fact that by including as part of their central banners the demands for “liberty, democracy, justice and peace”, the Neo – Zapatistas are defending a series of demands that, in the current conditions of Mexico and Latin America, are demands that are radically incompatible with the policies of neoliberalism, subordination and of total surrender that are practiced today by our Latin American States. Consequently, these are demands that, in this context of a periphery with weak development of its political formations, become completely and absolutely subversive and profoundly revolutionary.

Therefore, to seriously take care that liberty prevails in Mexico and in Latin America, or to here respect the complete exercise and integral development of democratic life, or to rigorously enforce the constitutional state and the granting of justice, or in the last instance, to eliminate the multiple low intensity wars that are being waged against the oppressed in all of these regions, are all processes that would imply undermining the roots and transforming the essence, of the current Latin American political Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. system, with its bizarre features of the long perpetuation in power of one single party, the increasing symbiosis between political domination and all types of corruption, the systematic cooptation and domestication of those oppositions that become ‘loyal’ as soon as they reach power, or also of the each time more fragile balance of the domination of the different sectors of the governing political class, that opens up the space to be able to have the presidents that the great majority of Latin America has suffered over the last fifteen or twenty years. Thus, the “political” demands of the current Zapatistas, are insoluble without a revolution of this political order in effect in Mexico and Latin America, and therefore they are clearly revolutionary demands.

Also obviously revolutionary are their more “economic” demands, claiming “work, land, shelter, food, health, education and independence”, which demands also refer to that mainly peripheral condition of Latin America and Mexico, and to its most recent exacerbated demonstrations.

The fact being that, from the economic point of view, Latin America is undoubtedly the civilization that is the most dependent of the entire planet. It is a civilization that was established from its origins as a civilizing project which began five centuries ago, and as an economy that was to function for, and in the terms of, the centers of the world-system, and in fact it developed then as a permanently disorganized, and fragmented economy, with areas of very high economic development alongside impoverished and even miserably underprivileged regions and sectors, and therefore, as a spineless, fragile and highly vulnerable economy(21).

We are referring to a structurally dependent and internally very polarized and unequal economy, that leads the same to the rich Argentina of the thirties of the twentieth century, as well as to the prostrated, weakened and in crisis Argentina of today or of the New Spain or Colonial Brazil of the XVI or XVIII centuries respectively, as compared to Mexico and Brazil of our days.

In view of this, the apparently elementary demands for work, land, shelter, food, education or independence, are once again revolutionary within the current Latin American and Mexican economic order, because their full and exact enforcement would imply abandoning the current privatizing and neoliberal policies that favor the rich areas and levels, while they abandon to their own fate and forget the poorest groups and regions. This has created sixty million people living below the limit of extreme poverty in Mexico, alongside twenty four Mexican hypermillionaires included in the list of Forbes magazine or that follow the IMF’s policies, even at the cost of scandalously increasing unemployment, rural exodus to the cities, the crisis in low – cost housing, the degradation of living standards, the elitization and dismantling of public universities or the subordination of our country to the dominant financial and economic centers.

All of which means that, no matter how elementary and simple those economic demands of the Neo – Zapatistas might appear at first sight, they are in fact, unattainable without an also parallel revolution of the current economic model that has been established in Mexico and in all of Latin America, over the last five lustrums. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. …we are not attracted by the songs of the mermaids and the angels to give us access to a world that … offers fame in exchange for dignity …

Another one of the important positions of the perspective of the ‘World-System Analysis’, refers to its evaluation and later critique of the “global strategy” that have been followed by the different antisystemic movements, in the struggle for the conquest of its goals, during the vast period that goes from 1880 to approximately 1968.

In trying to examine the routes traveled by these antisystemic movements within a broad temporal perspective, Immanuel Wallerstein believes that in all of them he detects a common trait that is repeatedly present, and he is here referring to the definition of a strategy always conceived in two successive stages. This strategy that was developed using the “nation-state” as its frame of reference, has established as the first objective to be fulfilled, or as the first stage of the struggle, that of conquering state power, the “overtaking of power” towards the inside of the national framework, which stage, once it has been accomplished and only during a second phase or moment, could give way to the desired and always requested general objective of “changing the world”, of “radically transforming society” in all of its complexity.

Thus, socialist and communist movements as well as socialdemocratic movements, or the nationalist, anti – imperialist or national liberation movements, all took upon themselves as the first task to be accomplished that of conquering State power in their respective nations. In a significant majority of cases, all of them were triumphant in the achievement of this first stage of their general strategy. But to the contrary and practically without exception, all of them also failed in attaining their second task: that was to modify the societies or the nations in question in a radical and substantial manner and to the degree in which they had planned and offered to so before they came into power.

Thus, according to the interpretation of the author of The Modern World-System, all of the antisystemic movements that came into power in the last hundred years, ended up by profoundly changing their original policies and objectives, delaying promised transformations, tempering the most radical demands of the masses, and re – establishing, much more than any of them would accept admitting to, many of the practices and the structures of the old order, criticized, and later overthrown or displaced by these same antisystemic movements(22).

In all of the following instances, beginning with the USSR itself and continuing with China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Vietnam or Nicaragua, as well as in the cases of Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Argentina, Algiers, India, France, Spain or Greece, among so many others, the same thing happened: the so – called “passing to communism”, or the repeated “total abolition of capitalism”, or also the “total economic and political independence” or the conquest of the “true national sovereignty”, or even more simply, the construction of a “French” or “Spanish socialism” or the overcoming of the unequal economic exchange, or the elimination of the zones of geopolitical and geostrategic influence and domination of this or that part of the planet, ended up being distorted and postponed until a more or less indefinite future. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. And in all of these cases, in accordance to the world-system analysis, the explanation of these changes of direction or “deviations” from the proposed final objective must be constructed stemming from the acknowledgment of the fact that in the medium and in the long term, and beyond the intentions, the will and even the heroics of these movements and their participants, finally the global logic of the world- system has ended up by gaining acceptance. After “assimilating” the impact of all of these revolutions or changes in the different countries, this global logic of the world-system once again proceeds to reintegrate them within their general operation mechanism.

Once again this refers us to the already mentioned thesis: if the world-system does not change as a whole, the changes of the different “pieces” or “parts” that form it –in this case the different nations that form the system—find themselves structurally limited in their possibility of advancing, due to that profound logic of the system as a whole. Because of the nature of the mentioned system, its logic has continued to be and is up to this day, a logic of capitalist reproduction.

Therefore, and however radical the attempts for change may have been, and even though the different triumphant revolutions staged by those antisystemic movements –be they socialist, or social-democratic or of national liberation--, may have effectively achieved profoundly changing the destiny and even the general role of its respective societies or nations, and in spite of all this, the global world-system continues to be capitalist. What also continues to exist are the relations of interdependence among the states and the growing inequality between center, semiperiphery and periphery, and the relations of domination and subjugation among states and nations and the political, social, economic and cultural hierarchy and inequality among the countries and zones of the entire planet and in the interior of these same countries and zones.

Having then formulated this diagnosis of the history of the antisystemic movements in the world, Wallerstein reaches the conclusion that, in the current situation, the first objective of said movements must no longer be that of “overtaking power”, state or national, but rather that of promoting and contributing as much as possible to the global transformation of the world-system as a whole. In other respects, the former does not preclude that under certain circumstances, the new antisystemic movements might take power in this or that country, but without considering this taking of power as a goal in itself, and without the prior hopes regarding the actual possibilities of radical change that said conquest of power involves. Inevitably this is a position that reminds us of Marx’ incisive reflections regarding the need for the communist revolution to be a revolution not limited to a local, national or even continental space, but rather a revolution of worldwide scope or dimensions(23).

This is consequently a radical redefinition of the main goal of the struggle, and equivalently of global strategy, that is also going to inevitably imply questioning the old forms of party organization and the former demands established by those parties, re – propositioning all of these elements from the lessons derived from the experiences undergone between 1880 and 1968 approximately(24).

The purpose therefore, is to redefine the priorities and objectives of the antisystemic movements, assuming that the general goal or objective is, as we have already mentioned, to promote and to Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. contribute as much as possible to the transformation, that is already in process, of the world-system as a whole. This would cancel the road for its substitution by any other equally unfair and exploiting system, and push it towards the birth of a new historical system that may be egalitarian, fair and free, and where there no longer may exist any form of economic exploitation, of political domination or of social discrimination of any type.

The results are a series of thesis, strongly controversial and at the same time, also extremely interesting and attractive, that we shall re-encounter in some form or manner when certain important positions of the Chiapas Neo – Zapatistas are more closely analyzed. Since these Chiapas rebels have clearly stated that their objective is not to take power, and even joked regarding the fact that Mexico’s National Palace, the symbolic seat of said state power, is much too ugly and un – attractive, and then seriously imposing an explicit veto on their closest followers or sympathizers regarding the occupation of political public positions.

Having thus demystified the search of political power for power itself, that is each time more frequent, even in broad sectors of Mexican and Latin American Leftist parties, the Neo – Zapatistas defend a point of view, that in the final instance, is directed towards once more vindicating the “necessary re-insertion of the political into the social”, and consequently, the required subordination of this political dimension to the social dimension.

We are reminded in this way and all of us are again re – updated, regarding Marx’s old lesson, that had already explained to us that this level of the political was not and never could be a ‘selfsufficient’ or ‘selfexplanatory’ level, because that political dimension in general is nothing more than a “transfigured” and “condensed” form of the social dimension itself(25), the Neo – Zapatistas are therefore pledging their firm commitment not on creating a umpteenth political party, or in participating in the negotiated distribution of segments or spaces of this same political power, but rather to promote the creation of solid and powerful new social movements. These are to be new, well organized and conscientious forces and social movements, that by providing an expression and configuration to that somewhat amorphous and non – structured reality known as “civil society”, may therefore be capable of pressing for their specific demands, imposing their collective presence and strength for the defense of their interests, and hence, obligating politicians and politics in general to once again “be at the service” of the social, to connect and link by responding to it directly and to again take it into account as its main nutritional source and as its frame of intention in general.

By then inverting the perverse logic of the majority of Mexican and Latin America professional politicians that want to subordinate the social to the political, and in addition by transcending the also unhealthy infatuation of seeking political power for power itself, the rebel natives of Southern Chiapas vindicate their slogan of “ordering by obeying”. This is their idea that is totally incomprehensible for Mexican and Latin American modern “political scientists”, in the sense that the governments, the powers, the parties and the political representatives must always act, adjusting their actions to the demands of the social forces that have elected them or that have brought them into power, responding at all times to the interests and the demands of the social movements and groups which it is their intention to “represent”. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. By having changed the primary or initial objective, that is no longer to take over power, but rather the creation of a vast, strong and organized social movement, capable of calling for and imposing their specific interests and demands, the Neo – Zapatistas have also transformed the forms of organization and of fighting, the structure of their movement, their policies towards society and towards other leftist positions, and also the nature of their particular demands.

Thus, the indigenous rebels of the EZLN have permanently fought to create an inclusive and plural social movement, a “world in which there is room for all possible worlds”, and in which all of the vast spectrum of groups, classes, sectors and members of a politically oppressed, socially discriminated and economically exploited civil society can come together and merge. To a certain extent, this movement reminds us of the “rainbow coalitions” of the United States and of other countries, or the French “plural Left”, and that is clearly reflected in the long lists of categories addressed by the “Subcomandante Marcos” in his communiqués and that include the housewives, and the intellectuals or the workers, as well as the women, the students, the homosexuals or the farmers, among many others.

It is a movement with a flexible organizational structure and little hierarchy, non – bureaucratic, and very open to the participation of all of its members, which basically is the antithesis of the old and rigid traditional party structure, that exist even today. It is a movement that attempts to advance along the lines of the creation of a true “broad front” for the oppressed –attempt that has still not been achieved--, and that despite its inclusive, open, tolerant and plural nature, must nevertheless maintain its clear critical, rebellious, antisystemic and revolutionary profile.

The EZLN is, now and forever, a hope. And hope, as is the heart, is on the left side of the chest

Another one of the important proposals upon which Immanuel Wallerstein has repeatedly insisted, and that can be creatively connected with the explanation of the phenomenon of the insurgent indigenous movement in Chiapas, is the one that refers to the characterization of the situation that the capitalist world-system has lived through after the important crisis of 1968 and of 1972-73 and up until today. In other words, the thesis that typifies these last thirty years that have been experienced as the distinct period of entrance of the world-system into a new phase of its existence or historic life. This phase would be the last or final lap of the long journey that the referred capitalist world-system has had to travel, and during which its process of de – structuring and de –configuration as a historic system would already have begun, that is, this process of irreversible historic expiration that is determined by its entrance into what the perspective of the ‘World-System Analysis’ calls a clear situation of historical bifurcation(26).

This means that, getting critical and total distance on the easy but superficial “globalization theories” currently in fashion, and that would attempt to characterize the last five lustrums as that new stage of “globalization”, Wallerstein is going to insist to the contrary that it is not just one more stage, that would be linearly added to the previous ones, of the global life or curve of long historical journey of the capitalist system, but rather that it is a special or extraordinary stage, that occurs only one time in the life of the Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. historical systems and that, since it is its definitively conclusive or terminal stage, it is at the same time a stage of entrance into the mentioned situation of bifurcation or of global historical choice(27).

With the above, it is then possible for us to understand the exceptional historic density of the processes we have lived through since 1968 and up until this date. The fact is that during these thirty years that have transpired of the mentioned situation of historical bifurcation, or of the period of the global historic end and of the progressive de – structuring of the capitalist world-economy, at the same time the superimposition of the manifestations of four relevant processes has occurred. These processes, mutually dovetailing and strengthening themselves, partially explain the phenomenon of the rebel movement in Chiapas, but also the turbulence and complexity of the diverse historic events that we have witnessed over these last three decades.

Accordingly this stage is, in the first place, that of the evident decadence of the strong North American hegemony, that unfolded over the planet between 1945 and 1968-73. Until the end of the sixties, this hegemony did not have important rivals nor in the military or the economic, nor in the geopolitical or international, but which did begin to decline and successively loose ground, as of the heroic victory of the Vietnam people and from then on. A loss of strength in the hegemonic claim that becomes evident, for instance, in the Persian Gulf War, where the United States has only been able to try to impose or maintain its dominant position through the support and cooperation of several European nations and of Japan, to conclude with the meager result of an only temporary and still not very clear retreat on the part of the Iraqi forces(28).

Together with this decline of North American world hegemony, the period of bifurcation that has been experienced up to now is in second place, the final stage of the longest global cycle experienced by world–economy since approximately 1870 to the present. Being that it was precisely between 1870 – 1914 / 29 that the world dispute between Germany and the United States for the leadership position of the world-system, ended in favor of the United States, in the long world war or the new ‘thirty years war’ that went form 1914 to 1945 –that is, from the so – called First World War to the Second World War, and that in Wallerstein’s opinion are one sole and unique structural process--.

Therefore, if the initial phase of this cycle is that of the global United States – Germany dispute, its terminal phase, that we have witnessed from 1972 – 1973, is clearly the dispute between Japan, on one hand, and on the other, Western Europe that is in the process of unification, now seeking the hegemonic position that the United States shall be abandoning each time more, and that both of the mentioned contenders aspire to occupy. The end of the North American hegemonic cycle is indeed a complex process, the therefore explains the intense and ferocious economic battle for the markets all over the world, that has been staged over the last six lustrums.

In the third place, and as we have already mentioned, this recent period of the misnamed “globalization” is also the terminal stage of the life cycle of liberalism as the dominant geoculture of the world-system, which cycle began in 1789 and that became de –legitimized and de – structured before our eyes ever since 1968, becoming each time more shattered to pieces in its essential premises. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. Because, from “neoliberalism”, which beyond its rhetorical aspect is basically and rabidly anti – liberal, as from the critique and denunciation carried out by all of the post – 68 movements of the new Left, liberalism shall be each time more delegitimized, substituting the supposed harmony of economic competition of free exchange, with the economic depredation and devastation of the new and savage neoliberal capitalism. This substitution placed, in the position of the State --that is only the guarantor of order, or in other cases, the regulator and driving force of the general balances--, a political state that is corrupt, penetrated by the illegal mafias and groups of interest, and converted into a simple machine for the indiscriminate and illegitimate use of the monopoly of violence, against the antisystemic movements and of the oppressed in general(29).

Undermining the real premises of the validity of liberalism as the dominant geocultural consensus in the world-system, the last three decades have therefore observed the re – emergence of the conservative thinking in the new activist and threatening Right –that has once again become apparent recently in the preoccupying and scandalous case of the election of an ultra – rightist government in Austria, in the Mexican victory of Vicente Fox, in the level obtained by Jean Marie Le Pen in France or in the politics of Bush’s government after the 11th September 2001--, as well as in a new Leftist line of thought, more autonomous and radical, and that is deliberately composed as a diverse alternative to said liberal consensus.

Finally and in the fourth place, this situation of historical bifurcation also constitutes the end of a long secular cycle of the historic life of the world-system, which began towards the end of the XVth Century and that continued until the present. This situation of bifurcation or of true systemic crisis of the capitalist world-economy and world-system(30), that is then going to express itself over the entire length and breadth of the social dimensions, covering the current economic crisis, caused and deepened by the end of world de – ruralization, by the irruption of the ecological cost for the survival and reproduction of the system and by the progressive drop in the rate of profits, as well as to the already referred political crisis of a State, burdened in all areas by the fiscal crisis. This State that in turn, each time less fulfills its responsibility and each time more privatizes its traditional functions and tasks in the fields of health, security and education(31), nevertheless increases its taxes and its demands upon the population, in a senseless race that, in spite of everything, is structurally incapable of curbing the progressive increase of the growing, and each time more radical profound democratization of public life, in all of the nations of this capitalist world-system.

We are confronted by an economic and political crisis of the world-system, which is also and in a parallel manner, a far – reaching and deeply radical cultural and system of knowledge crisis. Because, in keeping with this situation of historical bifurcation, not only has liberalism been de –legitimized as the dominant cultural consensus, giving way to a much more open and general situation of clear ideological struggle, but also, a total re-structuring has begun of the main structures of global cultural reproduction of the societies, that covers from the models of every-day and family life, to the role and nature of the school apparatus, of the mass media, and of the entire system of knowledge, sciences and disciplines in effect until before 1968(32). Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. Finally, and as part of that systemic social crisis experienced by this world-system, the current antisystemic movements are also going to be radically restructured and renovated, progressively abandoning, for instance, their old sectarian attitude and their restrictedly national horizons, in order to adopt positions that are more tolerant and encompassing, though not less radical, as well as each time, positions of more solidarity and genuinely internationalist(33).

Having thus characterized, in this quadruple dimension, the situation of divergence opened ever since the years 1968-73, and that shall still continue over the next thirty or fifty years yet to come, Immanuel Wallerstein provides us with a series of clues, that also help to understand the specific nature and trajectory of the Chiapas Neo – Zapatista movement. Because in this light, it is clear that this movement is also, among many other things, one more of the multiple expressions of the planetary challenge of this declining North American hegemony. This challenge has embraced, with very different results, the experience of Allende’s socialist Chile, as well as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, passing through the Vietnam, Portuguese or Nicaraguan revolutions, and through the Cuban resistance against the unfair North American economic blockade, but also through the strange experiences of the opposition in Panama, Iraq or Algiers, among so many others.

These are indeed multiple symptoms of challenge against the authoritarian design of North American world geopolitics, of all the ideological signs and from very diverse social and cultural positions, that in Chiapas assume the form of an open protest against the Free Trade Agreement, imposed upon our country by the United States, and the effects of which, in terms of de - industrialization, unemployment, poverty and economic dismantling, we have been suffering over the last lustrum.

Also, it is clear that the aforementioned cultural crisis, the end of the liberal consensus and the cultural revolution that is in process, to some extent explain the possibility of the birth and the affirmation of a new type of indigenous movement, which at the same time that it questions the values and the cultural codes of capitalist modernity that is still in effect though declining, it is capable of rehearsing and proposing new practices, new attitudes, new languages and meanings, for the everyday activity and the social relations of their own communities, as well as for the forms of organization and the antisystemic struggles that are taking place. And it is therefore not by chance that both the strong Neo – Zapatista indigenous movement, as well as the original founding group of what was to become the ‘Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional’ National Zapatista Liberation Army, are direct results of the climate that engulfs Mexico with the tragic events of the 1968 student movement(34).

And also the circumstance of having become inserted within this historic crisis of the situation of bifurcation, which has allowed the EZLN indigenous movement of Chiapas –the same as the ‘Movimiento de los Sin Tierra’ (“The Movement of the Landless”) in Brazil, and the indigenous movement in Ecuador, or the other antisystemic movements in Latin America and in the world--, to constitute itself as a new type social movement and, consequently, being part of that world family of the planetary resistance, also become incorporated into the new capitalist neoliberal world disaster, the features of which we have summarized above. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. Therefore, when Wallerstein, following Ilya Prigogine, reminds us that the singularity of the ‘situations of bifurcation’ resides in the fact that at this point, actions that are very minor can have very important effects upon the system as a whole, one can therefore understand how it is that an indigenous revolt that was developed in a deprived and marginated state of the poor and forgotten southern Mexico, which during the fifties or sixties would, more likely than not, have been massacred, repressed, “buried” and silenced by the Mexican government of the moment, in 1994, and quite to the contrary, becomes an exemplary movement of planetary echoes and repercussions that raises worldwide attention and solidarity, and that presents itself over the continents, as an important symbolic reference of the world struggle against capitalist barbarity, and against its most destructive effects.

Because Chiapas shows the world the most perverse and undisguised effects of capitalist neoliberalism and of its referred terminal crisis, but also, and in one sole movement, it becomes present as the radical critique of those world policies and that world order, and as the search for real alternate solutions to said situation.

If the situation of bifurcation is also a situation of historical transition, that is, of transit of the capitalist world-system toward another new historic system, it is then clear, as in any transition, that the dying lines and strokes of the old system shall mix with the rising lines and strokes of the possible new worlds yet to be built.

And this last part is precisely what the Neo – Zapatista movement represents: the defense and the updating, that at this moment is still incipient but clear, of a non capitalist and even anticapitalist logic, where what is important is to cultivate man and not things, where what counts is not the accumulation of capital but rather the value of the concrete use of nature and of social life. This is a project that barters for humanity against money, for solidarity in the face of competition, for peace and mutual support against war. This means an anticapitalist logic that Marx has clearly specified in El Capital and that underlies the 1870 Paris Commune, the 1917 revolutionary Soviets, the 1966 Chinese Cultural Revolution, as well as all of the genuinely antisystemic movements and revolutions of the last one hundred and thirty years.

It is the logic of the oppressed peoples that rise up, of societies that rebel, of the students that resist obeying without criticism and yielding only because of discipline, the same as the logic of the natives that are saying “enough!” against a system that despises them, discriminates them and excludes them from all and any dignified political and social participation, within their own nations and territories.

And as Immanuel Wallerstein reminds us, the destiny of the future societies of the world is far from being secure. There is nothing to guarantee that after the end of the capitalist world-system, the new historic system that shall substitute it, is going to be more just, freer, more egalitarian and better. From the perspective of the ‘World-System Analysis’, this shall only depend upon our conscience and our concrete actions in favor of a world where economic exploitation, political oppression and all forms of social discrimination shall disappear. Similarly, the destiny of the Chiapas rebel movement is not secure either. It shall depend upon our clarity, our active work and our specific support and solidarity. Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. But beyond the destinies of Chiapas, of Mexico, of Latin America and of the world-system, what is already a conquest that has been achieved and cannot be given up, is the fact that this experience staged in the mountains of Southeastern Mexico, by honorable and exemplary natives of Chiapas, is undoubtedly a lesson and an important asset of future teachings, for the entire world family of antisystemic movements that today and in the future, struggle and fight and shall continue to struggle and fight for that more just, freer, more self-organized and egalitarian historic system, that today as it did yesterday, continues to encourage and nurture hope.

Notes

1). Conference presented at the University of Berkeley, Departement of Ethnic Studies, in May the 3th, 2002. The initial inspiration for this text originated from three encounters. The first of which was the meeting and debate with colleagues, students and professors of the Universidade de Río Grande do Sul, coordinated by professor Claudia Wasserman, which took place in Porto Alegre in April of 1999. The second, was the discussions with colleagues of the Central Argentina de Trabajadores of Comodoro Rivadavia, in May of 1999 and finally, from the long interview and conversations with professor Immanuel Wallerstein conducted in November and December of 1999 at the Fernand Braudel Center of the State University of New York at Binghamton, for all of which encounters and exchanges I hereby publicly express my gratitude. 2). Regarding this profoundly contradictory situation of the State of Chiapas, that is at the same time very rich and very poor, please see the articles included in the journal Chiapas No. 1, Mexico, 1995. 3). This thesis is present in an enormous number of texts written by Immanuel Wallerstein. Only as an example, we can refer the reader to the following articles: “Hold the tiller firm: on method and the unit of analysis” in the journal Comparative Civilizations Review, No. 30, Spring 1994; “World – System” in the book “A Dictionary of Marxist Thought second edition, Ed. Blackwell, Oxford, 1991, “An Agenda for World-System Analysis” in the book Contending Approaches to World-System Analysis, Ed. Sage, Beverly Hills, 1983, “World-System Analysis” in the book Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Ed. Routledge, London, 1999 or the articles “Societal Development, or Development of the World-System?”, “Historical Systems as Complex Systems” and “Call for a Debate about the Paradigm”, these last three included in the book Unthinking Social Sciences, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991. 4). Perhaps the two most important examples that illustrate this different manner of focusing and analyzing the principal social phenomena of history as well as of the current situation of capitalism may be, in the first place, the works of Immanuel Wallerstein, and in the second place, the works of Giovanni Arrighi. . This is something that is evident in those that we could consider their most important works,, which for the case of Immanuel Wallerstein is The Modern World-System, Academic Press, New York and San Diego, tome I, 1974, tome II, 1980, and tome III, 1989, and for Giovanni Arrighi, The long twentieth century, Verso, London, 1994. 5). In regard to the importance of this globalizing vision in the perspective of Marx as well as that of Braudel, cfr. Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas “Between Marx and Braudel: Making history, Knowing history”, in Review, vol. XV, No. 2. 1992, Fernand Braudel und die modernen Sozialwissenschaften, Leipziger Universitaetsverlag, Leipzig, 1999 and L’historie conquérante. Un regard sur l’historiographie francaise, Ed. L‟Harmattan, Paris, 2000. 6). For the more extensive development of the reasoning that we summarize here in only a few lines, see Imanuel Wallerstein‟s book The Modern World-System, tome III, chapter IV, Academic Press, San Diego, 1989. A somewhat different perspective but that nevertheless insists also on this fundamental role of the world geopolitical situation as an explaining element of our independences can also be seen in Fernand Braudel‟s work Civilization and Capitalism, 15th to 18th Century, Harper & Row, New York. 7). It would not be difficult to exemplify the essential importance and the fundamental presence of this global dimension for the explanation of certain more “national” or “local” phenomena, as for example in the case of the Mexican Revolution or in the history or the course of the 1968 movement in France or in the United States. Demonstrations that have already been made for example by Friederich Katz in his brilliant book La Guerra Secreta en México, Ed. Era, México, 1982, or also in the article by Immanuel Wallerstein himself “1968, revolution in the World-System”, included in the book Geopolitics and Geoculture, Cambridge University Press/Maison des Sciences de l‟Homme, Cambridge, 1991, and in the interview to Wallerstein himself “1968: Entrevista con Immanuel Wallerstein” in Sociologíca, num. 38, 1998. 8). For the explanation of the elements more specifically pertaining to Chiapas, and later, at a second level, of the elements of the Mexican history and national situation that would allow the comprehension of the Neo – Zapatista Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. movement, it might be very useful to consult the complete collection of the journal Chiapas that has been published in Mexico since 1995 and of which number 12 has been published in December 2001. Also to be consulted is the book written by Antonio García de León, Resistencia y Utopía, Ed. Era, México, 1985 and Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas, “Chiapas en perspectiva histórica. Motor de tres tiempos” in Ojarasca, num. 44, Mexico, May – July, 1995. 9). Quite considerable at present is the abundant bibliography regarding this international repercussion of the Neo – Zapatista movement all over the world. Of this bibliography, by way of example, let us only mention the interview made by Ana Esther Ceceña of various European intellectuals “Como ve Europa a los zapatistas”, in the journal Chiapas, No. 4, Mexico, 1997 and also the article by Javier Pérez Siller, “La révolte du Chiapas: guérrilla ou transition démocratique? Bilan Historiographique” in Histoire et sociétés de l’Amerique latine, No. 8, Paris, 1998, and the book by Jerome Baschet, L’etincelle zapatiste. Insurrection indienne et resistence planetaire, Ed. Denoël, Paris, 2002. 10). In regard to this issue cfr. The “Primera Declaración de la Selva Lacandona” in the book EZLN. Documentos y comunicados, tome I, Ed. Era, 1994, and also Crónicas intergalácticas. EZLN. Primer Encuentro Intercontinental por la Humanidad y contra el Neoliberalismo. México, 1996. 11). Regarding this vision of the long duration cfr. Fernand Braudel‟s article “Historia y ciencias sociales. La larga duracion”, in the book Escritos sobre historia, Ed. Fondo de Cultura Economomica, México, 1991. For a discussion of the meaning of this perspective cfr. Bernard Lepetit “La larga duración en la actualidad” in the book Segundas Jornadas Braudelianas, Ed. Instituto Mora, Mexico, 1995, and Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas, “A longa duracao: in illo tempore et nunc” in Revista de Hisória das Ideias, vol. 18, Coimbra, 1996 and “Die „longue durée‟ im Spiegel” in Comparativ, year 6, num. 1, Leipzig, 1996. To see Immanuel Wallerstein‟s application of this vision of the long duration, that is in fact present in practically all of his intellectual production, his books –that are actually collections of essays that unfortunately have not yet been translated into Spanish- can be reviewed for example, such as The Capitalist World-Economy, Maison des Sciences de l‟Homme - Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979; The politics of the World-Economy, Maison des Sciences de l‟Homme – Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984 and Geopolitics and Geoculture, Maison des Sciences de l‟Homme – Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991. 12). Cfr. Immanuel Wallerstein‟s article “The collapse of liberalism”, in the book After Liberalism, The New Press, New York, 1995. 13). For the case of the history of the indigenous rebellions in the State of Chiapas itself, see the previously cited work of Antonio García de León, Resistencia y Utopía. 14). Regarding this issue of Latin America‟s cfr. Bolivar, Echeverría, La modernidad de lo barroco, Ed. Era, Mexico, 1998, a book that provides us with essentially and extremely original keys for the understanding the bizarre specificity of our Latin American modernity. 15). For a discussion regarding the separation and difference between modernity and capitalism and therefore, for the exploration of the possible non – capitalist possible alternative modernities, see for example, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Pela Mao de Alice. O social e o político na pós-modernidade. Ed. Afrontamiento, Porto, 1994 and Toward a new common sense, Ed. Routledge, New York, 1995; Bolivar Echeverría, Las ilusiones de la modernidad, coedition UNAM-El Equilibrista, Mexico, 1995, Valor de uso y utopía, Ed. Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1998, and also the book compiled by Bolivar Echeverría himself, Modernidad, mestizaje cultural, ethos barroco, coedition UNAM-El Equiibrista, Mexico, 1994 and by Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas, the article “La visión braudelienne du capitalisme anterieur à la Revolution Industrielle” in Review, vol. XXII, No. 1, 1999. 16). Marx, in being questioned by the Russian socialists, regarding the problem of whether the Russian commune or MIR could serve as a point of departure for the communist reconstruction of Russian society, stated that it was possible to take advantage of mush of that Russian commune, for a reconstruction of a non capitalist society in Russia, only provided that said Russian revolution should have the support and the concourse of a European socialist revolution (regarding this point, cfr. the texts of the drafts of Marx‟s letters to Vera Zasulich published in the book El porvenir de la comuna rural rusa, Ed. Pasado y Presente, México, 1980). Similarly, the alternative modernity represented by the Neo-Zapatistas, and more generally by the Latin American natives, might also contribute in the future in a radically different reconstruction of the Latin American societies and of other parts of the planet, but only with the contribution or support of a global transformations of the capitalist world–system in its entirety. 17). In regard to this problem, to which we shall return later on, see the book coordinated by Immanuel Wallerstein and by Terence Hopkins The age of transition. Trajectory of the World-System 1945-2025, Ed. Zed Books, New Jersey, 1996. 18). In regard to this point, cfr. Walter Benjamin‟s extraordinary text, “Sobre el concepto de historia”, included in the book La dialéctica en suspenso. Fragmentos sobre la historia, coedition of Ediciones LOM and Universidad Arcis, Santiago de Chile, 1996. 19). Regarding this point of the history of these antisystemic movements, cfr. by Giovanni Arrighi, Samir Amin, Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. André Gunderfrank and Immanuel Wallerstein, Le grand tumulte? Les mouvements sociaux dans l’économie-monde. Ed. La Découverte, Paris, 1991 and also Giovanni Arrighi, Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, Movimientos Antisistémicos, Ed. Akal, Madrid, 1999. Regarding the possible future courses of these same movements, cfr. by Immanuel Wallerstein, “A Left Politics for the 21st Century? or Theory and Praxis once again”, in the section “Papers” in the Fernand Braudel Center on the Internet web site, http://fbc.binghamton.edu. 20). Regarding this issue, cfr. the text cited by Marx in note 16, or also of Lenin, a whole series of essays written after the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution in October of 1917, and included in his Complete Works, for instance, the well – known text “The economy and the politics in the time of proletarian dictature”, as well as the drafts of this same essay that have been preserved to this day. For a broader characterization of this problem issue, on the part of Immanuel Wallerstein himself, cfr. for example, “Semiperipheral countries and the contemporary world crisis” in The capitalist world-economy, cited, “Socialist states: mercantilist strategies and revolutionary objectives”, in The politics of the world-economy, cited, and also “Marx, Marxism-Leninism and socialist experiences in the modern world- system” in the book Geopolitics and Geoculture, cited. 21). In regard to this issue, cfr. the characterization that Fernand Braudel has made of this Latin American civilization, in chapter XX of his book Las civilizaciones actuales, Ed. Tecnos, Madrid, 1978, and also Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas, “Fernand Braudel y la historia de la civilización latinoamericana”, in the journal Mundo Nuevo, No. 78, Caracas, 1997. 22). Regarding this issue, in addition to the works already mentioned in footnote 19, cfr. by Immanuel Wallerstein, “Eurocommunism : its roots in European working class history”, “Nationalism and the world transition to socialism: is there a crisis?, and “Revolutionary movements in the era of US hegemony and after”, in The politics of the world- economy, already cited, and also his article “The ANC and South Africa: The Past and Future of Liberation Movements in the World-System”, included in the book The end of the world as we know it, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999. 23). Even though Marx may have left this problem as an open problem, his line of reasoning seems to go more in the direction of the impossibility or of the enormous difficulty of a communist revolution that may encompass only one or only a few countries, even though they may be countries that were the more developed countries in capitalist terms. Regarding this issue, cfr. Carlos Marx and Federico Engels La Ideología Alemana, Ed. Fondo de Cultura Popular, Mexico, 1974 24). For the critique of these forms of organization, of these demands and objectives of the previous antisystemic movements, cfr. the article by Immanuel Wallerstein “1968: revolution in the World-System”, cited previously. For a more positive proposal of the possible new forms of organization and of struggling, etc., that are still being discussed, cfr. “A Left Politics for the 21st Century? or, Theory and Praxis once again”, cited previously. 25). This brilliant idea, set forth by Marx, and that has not lost any of its force nor its effect, is expressed, for instance, in his book La ideología alemana, cited, or also in his book Miseria de la filosofía, Ed. Siglo XXI, 1978, books that our current specialists in political science should read or re – read, in order to adequately understand some of the central vindications of the Neo – Zapatista movement. 26). This thesis, that is important among Immanuel Wallerstein‟s more recent proposals, can be found developed and implicit in a great number of his essays and of his works. To mention only two examples, cfr. After Liberalism, cited, or also The age of transition. Trajectory of the world-system 1945 – 2025, cited previously. 27). For the critique of this concept, invented by the mass media and very simple, and that has been accepted non – critically by a large part of current social scientists, cfr. Immanuel Wallerstein “Globalization or The Age of Transition? A Long-Term View of the Trajectory of the World-System” included in the section of “Papers” of the Fernand Braudel Center site on the Internet, previously referred to. 28). For Immanuel Wallerstein‟s explanation regarding the more global significance of this Persian Gulf War and of the confrontation between Saddam Hussein and the United States, see the article “The collapse of liberalisme”, cited previously, and also comments number 4 and number 6, included in the section “Commentaries” of the Fernand Braudel Center site on the Internet, also cited above, bulletins published in November and December of 1998. 29). For a sharp and interesting description of the multiple phenomenology of this generalized crisis of the modern States, through the entire length and breadth of the world-system, see Immanuel Wallerstein‟s book Utopística o las opciones históricas del siglo XXI, Ed. Siglo XXI, México, 1998. 30). Regarding the restricted or strict use of the concept crisis, that Immanuel Wallerstein has defended against the majority of the social scientists, the following can be consulted “Crises: the world-economy, the movements, and the ideologies”, in the book Crises in the World-System, Ed. Sage, Beverly Hills, 1983, “La crisis como transición” in Dinámica de la crisis global, Ed. Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1987, and also the “Introduction” and Chapter I, of The Modern World-System, tome II, Academic Press, New York, 1980. 31). In February 2000, the Mexican State has decided to occupy the Mexican National Autonomous University with Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. federal police, in one more act of authoritarianism and of the involuntary confession of their lack of capacity to satisfy the population‟s legitimate demands, in this case in regard to the necessity for totally free public upper education. Therefore, neither the vast popular support of these legitimate demands of the Mexican student movement of 1999 – 2000, nor the solidarity of the Neo – Zapatista rebels with this student and popular struggle at the end of the second chronological millenium are by no means a matter of chance. 32). Regarding the nature of these referred general cultural changes, and of its effect upon historiography cfr. Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas “Gli effetti del 1968 sulla storiografia occidentale” in Storiografia, num. 2, Roma, 1998 and the article “Repensando las ciencias sociales actuales: el caso de los discursos históricos en la historia de la modernidad” in Itinerarios de la historiografía del siglo XX, Ed. Centro de Investigación ‟Juan Marinello‟, Havana, 1999. In reference to the theme of the re-structuring of the knowledge system, that constitutes a whole important line of research developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, cfr. only as an example, Unthinking Social Sciences, cited, Open the Social Sciences, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, “La historia de las ciencias sociales” Ed. CIICH-UNAM, Mexico, 1997, “The challenge of maturity. Whither social science?” in Review, vol. XV, No. 1, 1992, “¿Hay que „impensar‟ las ciencias sociales del siglo XIX?” in Revista Internacional de Ciencias Sociales, vol. XL, No. 4, Barcelona, 1988, “Social science in the twenty first Century” in the section “Papers”, in the Fernand Braudel Center site on the Internet, and finally The end of the world as we know it. Social science for the twenty first Century, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999. 33). Something that has become very evident, for example, in the protests staged in the City of Seattle at the end of the year 1999. Regarding these events, cfr. Immanuel Wallerstein, “Seattle or the limits of the globalization drive”, Commentary num. 30, December of 1999, in the section “Commentaries” in the Fernand Braudel site on the Internet. 34). Which has been explained by Antonio García de León, for instance, in his “Prologo” to the book EZLN. Documentos y comunicados, tome I, already cited, or also in his article “La vuelta del Katoom (Chiapas: a veinte años del Primer Congreso Indígena)” in Chiapas, num.1, 1995.