Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics Sabrina Melenotte

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Sabrina Melenotte. Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics. Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, Berghahn Journals, 2015, 2015 (72), pp.51-63. ￿10.3167/fcl.2015.720105￿. ￿hal-02567377￿

HAL Id: hal-02567377 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02567377 Submitted on 20 May 2020

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics Views from its day-to-day praxis

Sabrina Melenotte

Abstract: Since 1994, the Zapatista political autonomy project has been claiming that “another world is possible”. Th is experience has infl uenced many intellectuals of contemporary radical social movements who see in the indigenous organiza- tion a new political alter-native. I will fi rst explore some of the current theories on Zapatism and the crossing of some of authors into anarchist thought. Th e sec- ond part of the article draws on an ethnography conducted in the municipality of Chenalhó, in the highlands of Chiapas, to emphasize some of the everyday prac- tices inside the self-proclaimed “autonomous municipality” of Polhó. As opposed to irenic theories on Zapatism, this article describes a peculiar process of auton- omy and brings out some contradictions between the political discourse and the day-to-day practices of the autonomous power, focusing on three specifi c points linked to economic and political constraints in a context of political violence: the economic dependency on humanitarian aid and the “bureaucratic habitus”; the new “autonomous” leadership it involved, between “good government” and “good management”; and the internal divisions due to the return of some displaced members and the exit of international aid. Keywords: alter-native, autonomy, Chiapas, ethnography, Polhó, Zapatista

Building another world and making it possible: debate around this intimate constitutive other- this is the challenge the Zapatistas launched at ness of the Mexican “us”. Nevertheless, as it is the end of the millennium. Since its uprising in widely known, the uprising was not only about 1994, by making visible the “other” Mexico— Mexican issues. Actually, it symbolically took “deep” (Bonfi l Batalla 1987), indigenous, and place the day of the beginning of the North rebellious—the Zapatista Army of National American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) be- Liberation (EZLN) immediately supported the tween Mexico and its northern neighbors—that Mexican indigenous peoples’ claim for social is, fi ve years before the fi rst “no global” World justice and ethnopolitical recognition inside Trade Organization (WTO) countersummit in the Mexican state. Th e Zapatista uprising was Seattle. Th e symbolic use of the balaclava and supported by thousands of indigenous people the strategic diff usion of the movement’s mes- in several towns of Chiapas, and promoted the sages through the Internet enabled the “voice-

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 72 (2015): 51–63 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2015.720105 52 | Sabrina Melenotte less” around the world—such as sexual, ethnic, the Zapatista movement as a form of alterpoli- racial, and class minorities—to identify with the tics and how indigenous populations have been indigenous rebels and their “common” prob- turned into alter-natives. I will re-examine the lems. Left ist movements also found in the Zapa- major interest the Zapatistas aroused among po- tista movement the political innovation they litical anthropologists and philosophers relying needed to fi ll the vacuum left by the collapse of on both the anthropological imaginary attached the Soviet Union and, in Latin America, to re- to indigenous peoples and the left ist—and espe- act to the diffi culties faced by socialism in Cuba. cially anarchist—theories, debates, and political Th e Zapatista organization found an echo and engagements to see in the Zapatista movement engaged in heterodox Marxist, anarchist, and a political alternative. Second, I will put these libertarian debates, so that left ist youths from theories to the test by confronting them with around the world eagerly identifi ed themselves the evidence I collected during the extended with this new strategy of realizing a utopian al- fi eldwork I have conducted in the highlands of ternative. Actually, the rebels called for a “dif- Chiapas since 2003. Th us, I will scrutinize these ferent” way of doing politics. Th is clear claim theories on the basis of the history of the EZLN for alterpolitics was translated both inward, in and the everyday practices of indigenous peas- the internal organization of the movement, in- ants affi liated with the EZLN. I will emphasize sisting on self-government and autonomy, and the analysis of a specifi c experience of autonomy outward, with a more general call for a poli- by bringing out three specifi c points linked to tics of inclusion and emancipation of minori- economic and political constraints in a context ties: “a world in which many worlds fi t”. Aft er of political violence: the contradiction between twenty years of struggle, some commentators the freed-from-the-state ambition of autonomy note a slowdown of the movement in recent and the economic dependency on nongovern- years. Nonetheless, the Zapatistas still proved mental organizations (NGOs); the new “auton- their strength on 21 December 2012, during omous” leadership between “good government” the thirteenth baktun (the end of the world in and “good management”; and the internal ten- the Mayan calendar), by bringing together over sions due to the return of some displaced mem- 40,000 Zapatistas in a silent march through the bers and the exit of international aid. streets of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. In August and December 2013, they also invited national and international civil society to participate in Th e Zapatista experience their escuelitas (“little schools”, pedagogic camps as a source of alterpolitics to learn indigenous daily life and “go native”) to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. Resistance to the neoliberal empire Th is article stems from a paradox. Despite the national and international attention and Th e Zapatista experience had a broad resonance interest for the Zapatista experience and strug- in the international antiglobalization “movement gle, it is striking to see that, twenty years aft er of the movements” and was a source of inspiration the uprising, we still know very little about the for radical theories fi rst of all in affi rming politi- practices and the daily life of the Zapatistas. Our cal autonomy as a way to resist the neoliberal em- knowledge of the movement, of its internal or- pire. It is worth remembering that the insurgence ganization and its impacts on the lifeworlds of took place as a reaction to the 1980s economic local populations, is diffi cult to grasp mainly crisis and structural adjustment policies and the because of the strong “discursive curtain” held NAFTA agreement, with the adoption of free by the EZLN and the intellectuals interested in trade and privatization policies contributing to this political movement. Th us, in this article, I the dismantling of a developmental state model will fi rst tackle this issue of discourses around for economic regulation and redistribution. Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics | 53

Th e antineoliberal and antiempire perspec- a movement not aimed at a defi nite goal, but tive gave the Zapatista insurgency a catalyzing instead deliberately devoid of clear defi nitions role for revolutionary social theorists. From a or programs. Th is perspective was further de- post-Marxist perspective, Michael Hardt and veloped in Crack Capitalism (2010), where Hol- Antonio Negri (2000) defi ned the crisis and loway consolidates his critique of Leninism by transformation of capitalist states around the rejecting political party activism and a concep- world as the transition from imperialism to em- tion of social change confi ned to transforming pire. Imperialism referred to a system where the the dominant mode of production within the dominant nation-states competed for control of state. As the Zapatista show again, emancipa- territory or resources in order to increase their tion is possible in the state’s “cracks”, since they own national, sovereign power. In contrast, allow movements to form an alternative space empire is a network of power relations that re- to state power. Zapatista discourses of alterna- produces capitalism through constant reorgani- tive politics has informed Holloway’s idea that zation of social life and natural resources use. the alternative to capitalism does not consist of Control is no longer confi ned to one nation, a struggle of labor “against” capital, but in a spe- although some nations remain more infl uential cifi c “doing” of everyday practices that counter than others. abstract, fetishized, and alienating work. For Hardt and Negri, the Zapatista insur- gency is both an example and a point of depar- Autonomy as practice and as ture for the new wave of insurgencies around the anthropological imagination world, pitting the multitude against the empire. Th e Zapatista experience became an emblem- More broadly, Zapatista autonomy refers to po- atic case of actors resisting empire with their litical procedures of direct democracy and par- own localized projects, and with little need or ticipation that clearly resonate with the ideas of desire to have a centralized organization. Zapa- libertarian and antiauthoritarian philosophers tista discourses insisted on diff erence and het- of the 1970s who suddenly became, twenty to erogeneity in civil society and on the idea of a thirty years later, topical fi gures in post-Marxist plurality of subjects—rather than a universal revolutionary strategies. In particular, autonomy subject—struggling against the empire, which as a process is clear in the works of Cornelius clearly resonated with these new radical theo- Castoriadis, with his insistence on the transfor- ries of the antiglobalization movement. Its en- mative potential of the praxis of everyday life compassing slogan, “A world in which many (Castoriadis [1975] 1999: 130). By issuing its worlds fi t”, marked the beginning of interna- own laws (auto-nomos), an autonomous society tional support, which allowed various “minori- diff ers from a heteronomous society, based on ties” from all over the world to identify with the absolute power and rigid and sacred institutions movement. (such as ancestors, God, nature, reason, laws of In a similar vein, and directly infl uenced by history, competition). Th e autonomy project the Zapatista experience, political theorist and is both individual and collective, in the sense activist John Holloway has developed the Zapa- that it precludes the constitutive heteronomy tista idea that, instead of taking state power— of religious and traditional societies, but also of the old idea of revolution, with its subsequent capitalist and Soviet regimes. Th e autonomiza- proletarian dictatorship1—what has to be de- tion of society involves the political practice of mocratized are power relations in everyday direct democracy and the economic practice life and in all areas of society, as shown by the of self-production. By celebrating autonomy as evocative title of his book: Change the World society’s self-institution both as source and ori- without Taking Power (2002). Holloway talks gin, and by refusing any standard or extrasocial of the movement as an “uncertain revolution,” imposed law (Castoriadis 1999a: 479), Castori- 54 | Sabrina Melenotte adis suggests breaking with the “closing” of the Asia and four regions of China, of which it is instituted imaginary, that of heteronomous so- told that people voluntarily fl ed the imposition ciety, which warranted the truth and fairness of of the state. From a fragment of history, Scott a defi nite set of social norms. In this sense, the makes a comprehensive history of populations project of society’s autonomy would be a proj- avoiding the state or that have been expelled ect of radical democracy, where neither moral from it, like the Miao or Kachin of the Southeast rules nor formal laws are imposed on society Asian hills, as well as the Tziganes and Berbers. from without but emerge from within. Th is way Th is “art of not being governed” put these pop- of enforcing political power from individuals ulations on the peripheries of power centers, the enables eff ective participation in the decisions place par excellence for alternatives to the state. that aff ect the group. In this sense, Castoriadis Th is choice to not live “at the heart” of the state advocates a direct democracy in which citizens generated “ungoverned” regions, where people are equal in a public sphere, avoiding the oppo- survived through pastoralism or gathering. sition between the state sphere and the collec- Th is anarchist libertarian thought has nota- tive sphere. bly infl uenced some other recent research on Castoriadis’s theory is connected to the way political or economic alternatives that generate in which the anthropological imaginary has af- a revival of horizontality as democratic politics, fected radical theories and practices on the Zapa- such as that analyzed by David Graeber (2004, tista experience. Th e idea of autonomy resonates 2011) or Marianne Maeckelbergh (2009). Th ese with the anarchist and primitivist interpretation works on contemporary social movements such of indigenous people according to their degrees as Occupy Wall Street and the alterglobalization of autonomy from the state. Th is has to do with movement do consider and quote Zapatism as the re-emergence, in activists’ and radical in- the fi rst global revolt and the origin of many tellectuals’ circles, of the work of Pierre Clas- contemporary social movements. Th ese polit- tres (1974)—a companion of Castoriadis in the ical anthropologists consider the Zapatista or- antiauthoritarian French movement—and his ganization as a space of autonomy for creating theory on the possibility of a “primitive” soci- alternatives of societies anchored in time and ety that can refuse the state. Clastres opposes space along with the state, while maintaining the ineluctable emergence of the hierarchical necessary political externality. Th eir works al- and coercive form in modern societies with the ways start from the political discourse of the small political units formed by the Amazonian organization and from the postulate that con- chiefdoms, where the whole social body pre- sensus and horizontality are a fairer way to make vents the chief from transforming the position politics. of social prestige into a political coercive power. According to Clastres, their institutions are Alternative knowledge in Chiapas weaker because they refuse, actively or passively, the political centralization of the state, thereby We have seen that the discourses of the Zapa- ensuring more horizontal and egalitarian prac- tista movement resonated with or had a direct tices and avoiding hierarchical obedience rela- infl uence on the production of radical theories tionships and exploitation. More recently and of intellectuals in the context of a post-Marxist from a similar anarchist and post-Marxist per- and libertarian turn and oft en with references spective, James Scott has stressed the capacity to the anthropological imaginary. Similar the- of indigenous or nonstate society to produce ories have developed also more in contact with alternative forms of politics. Notably, in Th e Art direct Zapatista experience and the social real- of Not Being Governed (2009), Scott elaborated ity of Chiapas, thanks to the work of researchers on an “anarchist history” of the world region he and intellectuals not only taking Zapatism as a calls Zomia, covering fi ve countries of Southeast paradigm, but also practically working closely Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics | 55 with the Zapatista peasants and indigenous who died unexpectedly in September 2007. Th e groups. Not without a strong ethical dimension fi rst International Colloquium in Memoriam of attributed to Zapatista autonomy, a new gen- Andrés Aubry, convened by the EZLN in De- eration of researchers oft en claims to practice cember 2007, gathered committed intellectuals social science in a “fairer” way. Th is claim of from many parts of the world. A year later, the “academic justice” is a way to break with other World Festival of Dignifi ed Rage gathered other works that have made severe critiques of the intellectuals (Baschet 2009), and the fi rst Inter- Zapatista organization in the name of science, national Seminars for Refl ection and Analysis, for instance, the work of Marcos Estrada Saave- “Planet Earth: Anti-Systemic Movements,” were dra, who worked in the Caracol La Realidad set up regularly at the University of the Earth. and analyzed the Zapatistas’ regional power as Th ese seminars are designed to refl ect the role “unfair” and authoritarian (2007). At the oppo- of the scientifi c world in the transformation of site end, other authors attribute to the Zapatista society. As Chiapas is one of the main laborato- organization many virtues of emancipation, but ries of Mexican indigenous policies of assimi- without mentioning the day-to-day practices of lation and acculturation, many social scientists the indigenous peoples involved in Zapatism. have felt the need to tell a story “against the For example, the medievalist historian Jérôme current” and examine the relationship between Baschet, who works and lives half of the year science and reality in-depth, in order to move in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, formulates the away from the legacy of these public policies. idea of autonomy as a new capacity of common Drawing on the last writings of André Aubry and ordinary people to handle their stories and on action research, on Paulo Freire and Ivan their future. In his book Haciendo otros mundos Illich’s popular education experiences, and on (2013), he developed the idea that “to govern intercultural education, this alternative research by itself” is both the starting point for reap- aspires to reach out to social actors and support propriating political power and an expression processes fueled by the Zapatistas. It attempts of self-organization as emancipation from the to decolonize knowledge through collaborative state form. Self-government claims to be eman- research that helps to reinvigorate collective cipated from the capitalist state and to contrib- action (Baronnet et al. 2011). Solidarity and ute to the making of an alternative world free organicity allow researchers to keep in touch from established political norms. In his words, with social issues and thus to examine relations the ethical-political dimension of the Zapatista of domination, starting with the production of organization creates shared norms around a knowledge intimately linked to political proj- “good” way of life that refuses any kind of dom- ects in Mexico. Th is view posits that through- ination from a capitalistic, state-centered, pro- out the twentieth century, indigenous policies, ductivist, European-centered, and patriarchal closely related to the Mexican anthropological logic. tradition, itself infl uenced by North American In this polarized academic context, since cultural anthropology (including the Harvard 2004 an annual Immanuel Wallerstein Sem- School), reproduced a neocolonial tradition of inar has been organized by the University of data and local knowledge extraction. the Earth-CIDECI on the outskirts of San Cris- tóbal de Las Casas. Th e aim is to think about the critical function of social sciences in society What ethnography can tell us about and, by the same token, the role of intellectuals the Zapatista alterpolitical project engaged in projects of social change promoted by social movements. Th ese meetings also pay All the philosophical and anthropological theo- tribute to the pioneering work of André Aubry ries discussed so far converge on the same con- (1988), a former priest trained in anthropology clusion: the need to identify a space free from 56 | Sabrina Melenotte domination. I will now confront these theories side their community of origin (Rus et al. 2003). with the ethnography of a concrete experience For much of the nineteenth and twentieth cen- and space of political autonomy, in order to dis- turies, members of the indigenous communities cuss the gap between Zapatism as a philosophi- migrated to the central valleys and Soconusco cal and political project and its appropriation by to work on large farms as agricultural workers the inhabitants of the municipality of Polhó, the (peones asalariados or acasillados). Th e high- actual subjects and creators of this autonomous lands became a region of dormitory communi- space. ties with great political autonomy in contrast to the control inside the farms. Historicizing the space of In the 1950s, the state gradually penetrated the Zapatista autonomy the region, incorporating communities through indigenous policies. Th e new indigenous insti- In order to understand the Zapatista initiative, tutions allowed for the formation of an indige- it is important to understand the historical tra- nous elite, thanks to education and development jectory of politics and the social groups of the projects implemented in rural areas. Th e mem- region of the municipality of Polhó that I am bers of this elite were the fi rst agents of mod- referring to. Th e ethnographic research I con- ernization of the local communities and became ducted between 2003 and 2010 took place in the intermediaries between these communities the highlands region, near the colonial town of and the state, especially the Institutional Rev- San Cristóbal de Las Casas in Chiapas. From the olutionary Party (PRI). Th ey were oft en teach- sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this region ers of bilingual schools, becoming municipal was considered a “region of refuge” (Aguirre presidents via a corporatist and patronage pact Beltrán 1967) for the Tzotzil and Tzeltal indige- with the offi cial party. Th e “ladino way of life” nous groups settled in the mountains to escape (Dehouve 1974) of this elite and the political the colonial system. Th e rural communities use of “tradition” by its members within the PRI were like satellites of the colonial city, and the created an “intimate culture” (Lomnitz-Adler relations of peripheral indigenous groups with 1992) between the state and the new “cultural the center and especially the mestizos relied caciques” (Rus 1995; Pineda 1993). In the sec- on asymmetries of power. Colonial policies re- ond half of the twentieth century, bilingual grouped highland populations to facilitate tax teachers monopolized political positions. Th is levies, but the region remained marginalized be- progressive concentration of power in their cause of geographical adversities (diffi cult ac- hands encouraged arbitrary and authoritarian cess to villages, harsh climatic conditions, and practices. Th e 1970s witnessed the emergence demographic pressure combined with low soil of independent peasants’ organizations and the fertility). Under the colonial regime, the “In- fi rst ethnic claims, along with renewed dioce- digenous Republic” granted indigenous peas- san action around the Palabra de Dios. Many of ants relative autonomy and diff erentiated legal these organizations converged in the 1990s and rights that allowed them to maintain political joined the Zapatista uprising of 1994 in several and economic advantages despite their posi- municipalities of the state of Chiapas. tion of vassalage vis-à-vis the Spanish crown. At the end of 1994, the EZLN declared 38 In the nineteenth century, the evangelization by “rebel” municipalities within the federated state the Catholic Church has been diffi cult, making of Chiapas. Diff erent political autonomy pro- the indigenous of the region the custodians of cesses emerged in diff erent spaces, according to “indigenous tradition”. However, aft er indepen- geographic and historical specifi cities: in the La- dence, with Porfi rio Díaz, the ongoing dispos- candona Forest, in the highlands, in the north, session of the indigenous population from their and at the border with Guatemala. Th e whole land increasingly pushed them to seek work out- area under Zapatista control constituted a sort Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics | 57 of diff erentiated chiapaneca Zomia. Th is geo- called for a boycott of the elections; as a result, graphical heterogeneity and the specifi city of the PRI candidate won and seized municipal Zapatista organizing according to the diff erent power. In reaction to that, the “popular” candi- regions and social groups convinced thousands date decided to forcibly occupy the municipal of indigenous peasants to join the rebellion. palace as a symbol of his legitimate power. Th e Th ey deliberately affi rmed their aim of extract- state police intervened and expelled the leader ing themselves from “bad government” (mal and his group from the occupied municipality gobierno), avoiding involvement in any partisan buildings. Th e “popular” candidate then set up and electoral processes considered corrupt. his headquarters in his locality of origin, Polhó, and proclaimed it an “autonomous municipal- Contextualizing the autonomy ity”. Th is local Zapatista leader rapidly adapted inside local struggles his action and discourse to that of the EZLN, as expressed during the national negotiations In the highlands region I am talking about, the some weeks earlier of the San Andrés Agree- Zapatista rebellion emerged later than in the ments, that is, self-determination for indigenous Lacandon Forest, which is considered the sanc- people. Th e rebels from Polhó formed a Consejo tuary of the EZLN and the center of the upris- autónomo (autonomous council) to break with ing of 1994. In the highlands, the power of the the fi gure of “municipal president” of Chenalhó, cultural caciques of the PRI had excluded sev- which was associated with the power of cultural eral sectors of the population from local poli- caciques. Th ey put at the head of the Consejo tics, so that the Zapatista rebellion converged autónomo an old farmer elected publicly in as- with a local history of attempts to subvert local sembly, according to traditional and indigenous asymmetries of power. In the municipality of usos y costumbres—that is, overtly and by con- Chenalhó that I focus on, the dissidents of the sensus—and not by secret ballot. PRI have tried to counteract the power of ca- Th is case raises a fi rst contradiction with the ciques, fi rst by embracing religious movements philosophical theory on Zapatism: the proc- (notably Presbyterian movements), and later, in lamation of an “autonomous municipality” is the 1970s, by joining the theological-liberation- certainly based on an idea of self-determination ist movement of the Diocese of San Cristóbal. and of the autonomy of a space, but this also In the early 1990s, other dissidents rallied with implies the seizing of power, at least at a local independent peasant organizations, such as the level, and the production of an alternative, but Alianza Nacional Campesina Independiente almost symmetrical, municipal authority. Th e Emiliano Zapata (ANCIEZ), not affi liated with parallel government of Polhó is in fact the out- the offi cial peasant union (Confederación Na- growth of the earlier failed attempt of substitut- cional Campesina). By the mid-1990s, all dissi- ing the constitutional municipal power, rooted dents rallied around a common goal against the in an old repertory of action in Mexico (Collier caciques of the PRI. and Quaratiello 2005; Dehouve 2003; Combes Another specifi city of the region and more 2011). Political autonomy was not only an active particularly of Chenalhó lies in the fact that the revolutionary and ideological choice, but also a fi rst aim of the Zapatista rebellion leaders here practical strategy following from local history was not the political autonomy of the region. For and the changing confi gurations of power. the municipal elections of 1995, the “popular” Th e work of David Recondo (2007) on Oa- candidate opposing that of the PRI was affi liated xaca has shown that the institutionalization of with the Partido Revolucionario Democrático traditional voting, in accordance to usos y cos- (PRD) but also the Zapatista organization. He tumbres, did not produce an alternative model, won the fi rst round of the elections in the as- but rather a hybrid mode of deliberation, in- sembly, but for the second round the EZLN tegrating both the ballot and the “traditional” 58 | Sabrina Melenotte voting and both the principle of majority and the pacifi c organization, especially women and of consensus. Recondo has also shown that the children. In this context of violence, all Zapa- mechanisms of delegation and control of power tista sympathizers and some members of the of the communal assembly were not necessar- Civil Society of the Bees had progressively taken ily a guarantee of “greater” democracy. Th ese refuge in Polhó, where they could be protected public political arenas could become the scene by rebel authorities. With all the displaced sup- of interest struggles, where individual choices, porters hence gathered in one space, the new publicly visible in the assembly, may proceed Zapatista municipal authorities saw an oppor- under strong community pressure. Th e assem- tunity to strengthen their regional power. Th e bly as a more democratic space and the “tra- political violence led the Zapatista leaders to ditional” vote as a more democratic procedure defi ne their territory more clearly for safety rea- can end up providing the context for a corpo- sons. Th ey installed a metal gate at the edge of rate vote that would upset the romantic picture the paved road, re-creating a kind of new “re- of an egalitarian community. gion of refuge” spatially inside the constitutional Moreover, in Chenalhó, the Zapatista ini- municipality of San Pedro Chenalhó, while af- tiative certainly broke with local caciques and fi rming politically and jurisdictionally their au- created self-government, but also produced new tonomy from it. Th e whole population of Polhó divisions and reinforced old ones. Th e upheaval was then affi liated with the Zapatista initiative, awakened latent tensions in several neighbor and the territorial border of the autonomous localities and reactivated old religious, political, municipality also established a visible border and land-related confl icts, until this turned into between Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas. overt political violence in 1997 between diff erent By 1998, Polhó constituted a closed space, groups of the same Tzotzil ethnicity. Neighbor- freed from the state but completely and inte- ing groups were politically affi liated with dif- grally submitted to Zapatista authority, to the ferent organizations and parties, especially the point that militias controlled the entrances to Cardenistas. And with one of the fi rst actions the autonomous municipality in order to defend of the newly proclaimed Zapatista leaders in the community and to control the transit of the Polhó being to expropriate a sandpit from their soldiers and the inhabitants of the region. Af- direct neighbors, such political divides among ter 1998, it became a demographic and political the Tzotzil were further reinforced. Clashes with stronghold of the Zapatista organization in Chi- neighboring communities were also intertwined apas, but also a delimited territory unique in the with religious affi liations, divided between tradi- whole Zapatista experience. Generally speak- cionalistas, or Presbyterian groups linked to the ing, the territorialization of the EZLN’s project PRI, and the liberationist Catholics, to which a in Chiapas did not consist of a strict delimita- part of the Zapatistas was affi liated. tion and appropriation of space, the Zapatistas In 1997, with the explosion of these oppo- being oft en mixed with non-Zapatistas within sitions, the municipality was militarized by the the same administrative boundaries. Polhó is an army, and paramilitary groups took form in the exception with regard to its spatial organization. neighboring localities. Th e escalation of violence brought a series of assassinations and the dis- placement of thousands of families. Its parox- “NGO-ization” of autonomy and ysm was reached on 22 December 1997, when new “autonomous leaderships” members of the Civil Society of the Bees, a po- litical and religious group close to the claims of Economic dependence on their Zapatista neighbors but adhering to nonvi- external humanitarian aid olent action and nonmilitary organization, were attacked in the village of Acteal. Non-Zapatista Autonomy fi rst meant a voluntary economic paramilitary groups caused 45 fatalities among break with patronage networks traditionally con- Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics | 59 necting local politics to the national and regional Th ey created an autonomous civil register and state. Th is implied the disempowerment of local carried out civil disobedience actions, such as caciques and the refusal—as well as the non- not paying for electricity. All these elements cre- remuneration—of diff erent state “promoters”, ated incoherence between the self-government “committees”, “commissions”, and “representa- of Polhó’s political project of autonomy and the tives”. Th e expropriation of the sandpit and a economic dependence of local Zapatista sup- “communal contribution”—a sort of tax—was porters, who were at the same time “rebels” un- supposed to compensate for the absence of state der EZLN instruction and “internally displaced” resources. But the self-administrated economy people under humanitarian government. rapidly proved unable to feed the thousands of landless people. To resolve this economic lack, Autonomous leadership: Between “good the Zapatista authorities allowed humanitarian government” and “good management” aid inside the new “enclosed” space of Polhó, as long as they considered the autonomous munici- Th is dependence on international aid became pality as a “freed-from-the-state” space. Quickly, the structural basis of this autonomous experi- this spatial and political autonomy became eco- ence, as shown by the fact that it also brought nomically dependent on exterior resources: the a change in the leadership of the autonomous autonomy from the state was only possible with municipality in 1998. Th e power of the local the integration of a larger political landscape of municipality of Polhó was then related to its ca- international solidarity. pacity to attract the resources coming from in- So, another paradox of the Zapatista ex- ternational aid. But these resources, rather than perience in Polhó is that one of the most suc- serving a revolutionary political practice, were cessful experiences of political autonomy in integrated in the same processes and practices Chiapas—geographically inside a constitutional of patronage that the Zapatistas were trying to municipality but politically outside state sov- resist. We can understand this by referring to ereignty—was possible only by resorting to an the notion of “bureaucratic habitus” (Auyero et economic dependence on external humani- al. 2010): a patronage link that can bridge po- tarian aid. Th e municipal and regional budget litical spaces that were a priori separated, such mainly relied on donations from international as social movements on one side and partisan civil society and the aid machine. For example, parties on the other. With this bureaucratic hab- the International Committee of the Red Cross itus, the autonomous space of Polhó becomes a (ICRC) and the civil association Enlace Civil more ambivalent space, between international took responsibility for supplying food and pro- aid and autonomy, rebel and bureaucratic at the posed projects for cooperative production (of same time. Th e autonomous council aft er 1998 coff ee, vegetables, chickens, craft s, tortillas). is composed of those who hold some amount But these operations targeted all the internally of economic and cultural capital and have the displaced persons in Chiapas, without distin- savoir-faire to deal with NGO experts. Th is was guishing according to political or religious af- the case of one of the autonomous council mem- fi liation. Médecins du Monde-France and the bers I was familiar with in Polhó. He led the au- Mexican Red Cross were in charge of the health tonomous municipality for two mandates while of the new “internally displaced” people inside simultaneously running a pharmacy and a vehi- the Zapatista space. Th e Zapatistas also rejected cle used for collective transportation, which al- all teachers that were not affi liated with their lowed him to perform his public function while movement and created their own educational at the same time earning his living. Moreover, program with the help of the Mexican civil as- he exhibited a special talent in raising humani- sociation Ta Spol Be. Th ey also promulgated tarian funds for the displaced Zapatistas. Th us, their own “good” laws, such as the prohibition “good government” meant that the new Consejo of alcohol inside the autonomous territory. also needed to be a “good manager” who could 60 | Sabrina Melenotte administrate the projects and distribute the Th is movement certainly marked a step toward goods and money coming from donations. Th is greater self-government and self-administration. “good government” then raises the question of But it also meant a greater concentration of the reproduction of the old patron-client rela- power in the Caracoles. Actually, it forced all its tions between the rebel leaders and the NGOs members to acquire skills that were previously established in Polhó. concentrated in one person or group. Indigenous Th e autonomous regional network was con- peasants were politically trained by the organi- solidated aft er the failure of the second negotia- zation. Th eir “professionalization” led them to tions between the EZLN and the government in improve the quality of their work: they learned 2001. In August 2003, fi ve regional autonomous “bureaucratic” skills, using computers, taking a regions called Caracoles were formed, each with census of their population, making regional reg- its own authority, called the Good Government isters, writing public communiqués, speaking Council (Junta de Buen Gobierno, or JBG). Th is castellano, and presenting their organization and setup was meant to ensure a weaker control of its history in front of national and international the EZLN army on the civil municipalities, but civil society, NGOs, and youth solidarity groups also more democratic, inclusive, and participa- of many countries. Participating in endless tive decision-making processes and practices of meetings, they also learned how to solve social political representation. I will take the example and political problems involving Zapatista and of the Caracol of the Oventic region, which is non-Zapatista indigenous peasants, sometimes known as the “Central Heart of the Zapatistas from diff erent ethnic groups, in one Caracol. Facing the World” because of its proximity to Th e authorities take pains to provide fast and the colonial city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas— effi cient service in order to emphasize the dif- and which is also the region of the Polhó mu- ference with the government bureaucracy, pre- nicipality. Here, the JBG is composed of various sented as slow and ineffi cient. Th ey insisted, for autonomous municipal representatives who example, on the accessibility of political repre- gather each week in the Caracol, but every week sentatives: the Zapatista representatives were the representative of a municipality is diff erent. always available; anyone interested could meet Th is rotation on a weekly basis is presented as them during the day. Th eir strategies and pro- a strategy for avoiding power concentration in cedures resonated with some features of the the hands of a few people and, therefore, for libertarian theories I have previously discussed. avoiding the return of caciquism. In addition, Th e JBGs, as their name suggests, had no coer- the desire to actively involve all members of cive function, being “chiefs”, as Clastres would the organization, especially across gender and put it, without power. Th e JBGs were fl exible generations, reinforces the sense of belonging in their organization according to the needs of to a common movement willing to break with each municipality and the Caracol itself, bring- patronage relations, corruption, and caciquism, ing to mind Castoriadis’s idea of self-creating, while exalting the sharing of virtuous values instituting but never exhausting the capacity of such as mutual aid and solidarity. the autonomous society to regenerate itself. For Th is reconfi guration of power in a federal example, at the beginning, the weekly rotation form of bottom-up political representation was of representatives created problems, as it was also aimed at managing the relationship between diffi cult for incoming people to follow up on NGOs and the Zapatistas. Th e JBGs responded fi les and issues. Th e JBGs therefore decided to to the need to directly manage and better allo- establish a day of transition where outgoing and cate funds from national and international soli- incoming representatives could commonly de- darity agencies and to reduce the role of NGOs liberate on current cases and transmit the issues. in some autonomous spaces. Polhó was the fi rst Nevertheless, some questions were raised municipality to be aff ected by these adjustments. about the diffi culty of knowing the backstage Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics | 61 issues of the organization. Th e Zapatistas are graphic explosion of Polhó aft er the arrival of very careful not to talk about the administration the displaced people in 1998. At the beginning of money and donations. Is it possible that the of the 2000s, the “residents” were beginning to patronage networks implied by the presence of complain about this pressure on the land. Th e the NGOs have a negative consequence on the autonomous council wanted to preserve the so- “good governments” and reproduce elements of cial integration of displaced Zapatistas and res- dishonorable “bad governments”? What are the idents to preserve its prestige as a revolutionary consequences of the actual withdrawal of NGOs bastion and because it was a condition for keep- from Chiapas? Rebecca Galemba’s work (2013) ing the support of the NGOs. Some Zapatistas on informal and illicit entrepreneurs suggests families decided to disobey and go back to their that this opacity makes “autonomous spaces” lands without the agreement of their represen- more vulnerable to smuggling and illegal activi- tatives. Th e Civil Society of the Bees’ return to ties, especially at the Mexico-Guatemala border. their land in 2001 was then considered a prec- Th ere are certainly many questions that cannot edent for people wanting to recover their plots. be answered because of the well-preserved se- Moreover, in 2003, the capacity of the mu- crets of the Zapatistas about their internal orga- nicipality to preserve its preferential link with nization. However, I propose here to analyze the NGOs was diminishing, fi nally weakening the evidence about internal contradictions of the Zapatista movement. Th e ICRC decided to pro- organization that I was able to collect during my gressively leave Chiapas because of a “lack of fi eldwork in Polhó, by listening to the mutter- urgency”; the educative project Ta Spol Be also ings on these issues during my exchanges with quit the autonomous municipality. As a con- the families I lived with. sequence, by 2006, the Zapatista movement’s power was fragmented, and the sympathizers Internal divisions in the of the “autonomous municipality” searched for autonomous municipality of Polhó new alternatives. Some of them returned to the PRI, while others migrated to the cities to fi nd We have already seen that in Polhó there is a seasonal jobs. Most of the people maintained a religious and nonviolent movement that is po- radical rejection of the social programs of the litically close to the Zapatistas but was never government, but they nonetheless had to cope integrated into the organization. In 2001, a fac- with the government in order to apply for some tion of the Civil Society of the Bees decided to development projects, for example, by register- compromise with the government for the return ing their civil identity with the census and be- of the displaced people of their organization. As coming legible, as Scott (1999) would put it, to a result, the faction could buy some land located the administration. near their community of origin. Th e Zapatistas from Polhó refused to participate in the negoti- ations. Until 2003, the municipality remained a Conclusion bastion of the organization. Nevertheless, other internal confl icts later emerged. Th e fi rst reason Twenty years aft er the insurrection of 1994, for confl ict was in relation to the issue of the in- it is necessary to go beyond the image of the ternally displaced Zapatistas and their presence Zapatista experience as a perfect political “alter- in the territory. Confl icts exploded between native”, a virtuous indigenous peasant move- displaced people and residents, as well as be- ment integrated into a revolutionary project tween political representatives and constituen- with a world message against the empire. By cies of the EZLN. Th e region was experiencing looking into the history of a particular Zapatista an impoverishment of the common lands and experience of “autonomy”, the stereotype of the deforestation as a consequence of the demo- Zapatistas as the ideal alter-native of indigenous 62 | Sabrina Melenotte struggle against neoliberalism is confronted with an original perspective on the armed confl ict actual practice. Th e Zapatista experience in in Chiapas on the basis of the ethnography Polhó clearly raises the question of the histor- conducted since 2003 in the Chenalhó munici- ical possibility of political autonomy refusing pality. Her research articulates caciquism, Zapa- power hierarchies. It illustrates a progressive tista rebellion, and political violence to show the formation of spatial and political autonomy permanent coercive nature of the Mexican state and an institutionalization of power at the local despite the “democratic turn”. She teaches at the level that nonetheless remains far from “chang- Collège universitaire euro-latino-américain of ing the world without taking the power”. Simi- Sciences Po Poitiers and Paris. larly, the contradictions that emerged in Polhó Email: [email protected] since 2003 call into question the idea that the subordination of the local populations affi liated to the Zapatistas was real, active, and explicitly Note political in the sense of the movement’s dis- courses. What I witnessed rather suggests that 1. See also Baschet (2005) and Corcuff and Löwy the rebellion, from the point of view of the local (2003). populations, was more endured than chosen. Since 2010, the Polhó autonomy project has un- dergone such massive disengagement that there References hardly remain any supporters of the Zapatistas. Th e armed confl ict, the displacement of the Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. 1967. Regiones de refugio: population, and the Acteal massacre explain to El desarrollo de la comunidad y el proceso domini- a large extent such a process of atrophy within cal en mestizo América. Mexico City: Instituto this experience of autonomy. Th ey created a split Indigenista Interamericano. between the political project and the economic Aubry, Andrés. 1988. Les Tzotzil par eux-mêmes: constraints of an autonomy that was only pos- Récits et écrits de paysans indiens du Mexique. sible in relation to a prolonged armed confl ict. Paris: L’Harmattan. We should regret the rareness of studies about Auyero, Javier, Pablo Lapegna, and Fernanda Page concrete experiences of the Zapatista “auton- Poma. 2010. Contestation et patronage : intersec- omy” that would possibly give a more precise tions et interactions au microscope. Revue inter- nationale de politique comparée 17(2): 71–102. picture of the movement, oft en hidden by the Baronnet, Bruno, Mariana Mora Bayo, and Richard strong “discursive curtain” of this emancipatory Stahler-Sholk. 2011. Luchas “muy otras”: Zapa- project both infl uencing and being infl uenced tismo y autonomía en las comunidades indígenas by the search by libertarian and post-Marxists de Chiapas. Mexico City : UAM-Xochimilco/ theorists for a consistent political “alter-native”. CIESAS/UNACH. Th e infl uence of this movement in political and Baschet, Jérôme. 2005. La rébellion zapatiste: Insur- academic thought raises questions about the rection indienne et résistance planétaire. Paris: quest for twenty-fi rst-century utopias and the Flammarion. role of the humanities and the social sciences Baschet, Jérôme. 2009. Recueil de textes du in this search, which, to paraphrase Hellman Sous-Commandant Marcos, Saisons de la Digne (2009), seems to teach us more about scholars’ Rage. Paris: Climats. Baschet, Jérôme. 2013. Haciendo otros mundos: representations than about the world itself. Autogobierno, sociedad del buen vivir, multiplici- dad de los mundos. San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico: CIDECI-Unitierra. Sabrina Melenotte has a PhD in political an- Bonfi l Batalla, Guillermo. 1987. El México Profundo, thropology from the École des hautes études en una civilización negada. Mexico: Editorial sciences sociales (EHESS). Her thesis provides Grijalbo. Zapatista autonomy and the making of alter-native politics | 63

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