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Title: The Zapatista Effect Author: Harry Cleaver Date: 1998 Language: en Topics: Zapatistas, internet, autonomist Source: Retrieved on 2nd September 2021 from https://libcom.org/library/zapatista-effect-cleaver Notes: Published in the Journal of International Affairs, Spring 1998, 51, no. 2.
The primacy of the nation state is being challenged from both above and
below. From above, after the Second World War, the growth in the power
and scope of supranational institutionsfrom multinational corporations
to the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund-have gradually
usurped national sovereignty in both economic and political matters.[1]
More recently, from below, the increasingly active role of regional and
city governments in foreign trade, immigration and political issues have
challenged national governments’ constitutional monopoly over foreign
affairs.[2] Simultaneously, there has been tremendous growth in
cross-border networks among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such
as the hundreds that mobilized against the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). Not only do such networks outflank national
government policymakers; they often work directly against their
policies.[3]
In the last few years, governmental concern with the ability of NGO
networks to mobilize opposition to the policies of national governments
and to international agreements has grown-both during the period of
policy formation and after those policies have been adopted or
agreements signed. In part, this concern is derived from the growing
strength that such networks gain from the use of international
communications technologies. The rapid spread of the Internet around the
world has suggested that such networks and their influence will only
grow apace.
No catalyst for growth in electronic NGO networks has been more
important than the 1994 indigenous Zapatista rebellion in the southern
state of Chiapas, Mexico. Computer networks supporting the rebellion
have evolved from providing channels for the familiar, traditional work
of solidarity-material aid and the defense of human rights against the
policies of the Salinas and Zedillo administrations-into an electronic
fabric of opposition to much wider policies. Whereas the anti-NAFTA
coalition was merely North American in scope, the influence of the
pro-Zapatista mobilization has reached across at least five continents.
Moreover, it has inspired and stimulated a wide variety of grassroots
political efforts in dozens of countries.[4]
Today these networks provide the nerve system for increasingly global
organization in opposition to the dominant economic policies of the
present period. In the process, these emerging networks are undermining
the distinction between domestic and foreign policy-and challenging the
constitution of the nation state.
For reasons outlined below, it is not exaggerated to speak of a
“Zapatista Effect” reverberating through social movements around the
world; an effect homologous to, but potentially much more threatening to
the New World Order of neoliberalism than the “Tequila Effect” that
rippled through emerging financial markets in the wake of the 1994 peso
crisis. In the latter case, the danger was panic and the ensuing rapid
withdrawal of hot money from speculative investments. In the case of
social movements and the activism which is their hallmark, the danger
lies in the impetus given to previously disparate groups to mobilize
around the rejection of current policies, to rethink institutions and
governance, and to develop alternatives to the status quo.
The voices of indigenous people in Mexico have been either passively
ignored or brutally silenced for most of the last five hundred years.
Indigenous lands and resources have been repeatedly stolen and the
people themselves exploited under some of the worst labor conditions in
Mexico. The official policies of the Mexican state have been largely
oriented toward assimilation, with only lip service given to the value
of the country’s diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage.[5]
The result has been a long history of fierce resistance and recurrent
rebellion, first to Spanish colonization and then to the dominant
classes after independence. Since the consolidation of the modern
Mexican “party state” controlled by the ruling Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (PRI), this resistance has been met with both the iron
fist and the velvet glove. Overt rebellion has been crushed, while the
Mexican state has distributed land to selected indigenous communities
dating from the first land reforms of President Lazaro Cardenas in the
1930s.
For several decades prior to the 1994 uprising, local communities in
Chiapas largely confined their efforts to legally recognized vehicles of
protest, such as demonstrations and marches-sometimes as far as Mexico
City-and petitions for access to confiscated lands. The Mexican state
responded to such actions with limited patronage, creating local
instruments of power and endless bureaucratic delays in issuing land
petitions. Under continuing pressure for land reform, but unwilling to
undercut the power of local rural elites, the government opened
uncultivated forests for colonization after the Second World War.6
Immigrants from various parts of Chiapas and elsewhere carved new
farmlands and new communities out of the forests. Ironically, it was
often in these land-starved campesino populations, where the PRI was
unable to install institutions of control, that peasant
self-organization and sympathy for the Zapatista movement thrived in the
late 1980s and early 1990s.[6]
Caught between acute poverty and a dearth of arable farming land and
inputs on the one hand and oppressive exploitation in the agricultural
labor market on the other, some peasants began to join the Zapatista
National LiberationArmy[7] (EZLN) in the mountains or participate in
their work in the villages. Within the context of a highly patriarchal
indigenous culture, young women also began to join the EZLN, encouraged
by the Zapatista egalitarian ideology that allowed them greater control
over their lives and provided them with an opportunity for public
responsibility.[8] Gradually, over a period of years, a guerrilla army
was formed and a new fabric of cooperation was woven among various
ethnic groups.
Commited to a redical restructuring of the Mexican economy in order to
attract foreign investment and secure the NAFTA, President Salinas
abrogated the last meaningful guarantees of community integrity in
Chiapas by altering Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution to allow for
the privatization of communal land. In response, the Zapatista
communities ordered their citizen army to take action as a last ditch
effort to stave off what seemed like imminent annihilation. According to
Zapatista spokespersons, preparations proceeded throughout 1993. The day
on which NAFTA went into effect, 1 January 1994, was chosen as the
moment of action.
The rebellion came to the world’s attention on that day, when the units
of the EZLN emerged from the jungle and took over a series of towns in
Chiapas. The uprising was designed to make indigenous voices heard at
the national level in Mexico and appeared primarily to be a challenge to
Mexican domestic policies on land and indigenous affairs.[9]
The initial official response was to isolate the Zapatistas through a
variety of policy levers. Militarily the government sought to crush the
rebellion and confine it to Chiapas. Ideologically, state control of the
Mexican mass media was used to limit and distort news about the
uprising. Overall, the government attempted to portray the Zapatista
movement as a danger to the political integrity of the Mexican nation by
conjuring the threat of a panMayan movement embracing both Southern
Mexico and much of Central America[10] Evoking the horrors of the
Balkans, the Mexican government equated indigenous autonomy with
political secession and the implosion of the country.
Military clashes lasted only a few days, giving way to three years of
on-and-off political negotiations that have catalyzed a much wider
assault on the power of the ruling party. Grassroots movements have both
attacked and withdrawn from the official institutions of the one-party
state at the national and local levels. The PRI and the hitherto
powerful presidency have come under unprecedented attack for human
rights violations, media manipulation, corruption and lack of democracy.
Disillusionment with the prospects for meaningful Mexican electoral
reform has also led many communities in Chiapas to withdraw entirely
from the electoral process. These communities have burned ballot boxes,
overthrown fraudulently elected officials and created municipal
governing bodies through a variety of means that may or may not have
included a popular vote.[11]
Political stalemate, negative public reaction to events in Chiapas and
the Mexican peso crisis prompted the Mexican government to launch a new
military offensive in February 1995.[12] Such politics “by other means”
caused the Zapatistas to withdraw from occupied positions into the
mountains. Massive protests in both Mexico and abroad, however, forced a
halt to the offensive. Instead, the Mexican government has continued its
search for a forceful solution by conducting a covert, low-intensity war
that employs the military, various police forces and even paramilitary
terrorists.[13]
The Zapatista movement supports autonomy within, not against, Mexican
society-a point dramatically symbolized by the flying of the Mexican
flag at virtually all Zapatista gatherings. But if the Zapatista-led
reform efforts do not threaten the integrity of the Mexican nation, they
certainly threaten the integrity of the Mexican state under one-party
control. The demands for autonomy involve a devolution of both authority
and resources to local levels. The search for wider citizen
participation in public policy-making involves not only more direct
democracy but also the liberation of Mexican politics from the grip of
rigid electoral rules.
Importantly, such reforms have been widely perceived as a threat in all
corners of the mainstream political arena in Mexico. The PRI fears for
its fading hegemony The opposition, for its part, believes the demands
of the rebels will imperil its own chances to share power with the
dominant party.[14] As a result, the voices of reform energized by the
Zapatista rebellion have plunged the Mexican political system into a
profound crisis.
The role of the Internet in the international circulation of information
on the indigenous rebellion in Chiapas developed quickly and has
continued to evolve. Early on, the Internet provided a means for the
rapid dissemination of information and organization through preexisting
circuits, such as those which had been created as part of the struggle
to block the NAFTA, or those concerned with Latin American and
indigenous issues. These networks existed primarily at an international
level, mostly in computer-rich North American and Western European
countries.
News reports on radio and television were complemented by first-hand
reports in cyberspace from a record number of observers who flooded into
Chiapas with hitherto unseen alacrity, as well as from more analytical
commentators who could voice their opinions and enter into debates more
quickly and easily in cyberspace. These few circuits were rapidly
complemented by the creation of specialized lists, conferences and web
pages devoted specifically to Chiapas and the struggle for democracy in
Mexico. The breadth of participation in these discussions and the
posting of multiple sources of information has made possible an
unprecedented degree of verification in the history of the media.
Questionable information can be quickly checked and counterinformation
posted with a speed unknown in either print, radio or television.
Instead of days or weeks, the norm for posting objections or corrections
is minutes or hours.
It is important to note that the EZLN has played no direct role in the
proliferation of the use of the Internet. Rather, these efforts were
initiated by others to weave a network of support for the Zapatista
movement. Although there is a myth that Zapatista spokesman
Subcommandante Marcos sits in the jungle uploading EZLN communiques from
his laptop, the reality is that the EZLN and its communities have had a
mediated relationship to the Internet. The Zapatista communities are
indigenous, poor and often cut-oft not only from computer communications
but also from the necessary electricity and telephone systems. Under
these conditions, EZLN materials were initially prepared as written
communiques for the mass media and were handed to reporters or to
friends to give to reporters. Such material then had to be typed or
scanned into electronic format for distribution on the Internet.
Today, there are dozens of web pages with detailed information on the
situation in Chiapas specifically and the state of democracy in Mexico
more generally Several widely used news and discussion lists devoted to
the daily circulation of information and its assessment are available.
These various interventions operate from many countries and in many
languages, and they are all the result of work by those sympathetic to
the rights of indigenous peoples and to the plight of the Zapatistas.
Some of these efforts were launched in Mexico. For example, the
“chiapas-l” list is run through computers at the Universidad Autonoma de
Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City The Zapatista National Liberation Front
(FZLN)[15] operates both a list (“fzln1”) and a series of voluminous
multi-lingual web pages carrying news and documents regarding the
negotiation process in Chiapas and more general discussions in Mexico.
Other sites have originated outside of Mexico. The first unofficial FZLN
webpage, for example, was implemented through the Swarthmore College web
server in Pennsylvania.[16]
More recently, the Zapatistas have begun to craft their missives and
adapt their public interventions as they have grown to better understand
the effectiveness of the Internet in making their voices heard,
communicating with supporters and forging new alliances. Today, through
the intermediation of the FZLN or other friendly groups and individuals,
Marcos and the EZLN regularly send messages to others around the world,
including, for example, messages to a European-wide demonstration in
Amsterdam against Maastricht and unemployment, to an Italian gathering
in Venice against regional separatism or to a conference of media
activists in New York. In these communications they make their position
on various issues known and seek to create or strengthen ties with far
away groups.
The Internet is also playing an increasingly central role in particular
organizing efforts initiated by the EZLN. While its role was limited in
the formation of the meetings of the National Democratic Convention in
1994 and 1995, which drew together a wide variety of groups from all
over Mexico, the Internet was employed to a greater extent in the
subsequent national and international plebiscites. The Zapatistas used
the Internet in those cases to seek feedback from their supporters
regarding the direction their political struggle should take.[17] During
the plebiscites, most participants in Mexico voted at booths set up
throughout the country by Alianza Civica, a well-respected pro-democracy
Mexican NGO. In addition, some 81,000 foreigners from 47 countries took
part, mostly via the Internet.[18] According to Alianza Civica, total
participation in Mexico was over one million persons.[19]
The most dramatic organizational efforts in which the Internet has
played a central role are the joint cooperative efforts between the
Zapatistas and other social movements linked to them. These efforts have
included the organization of large-scale meetings in response to the
January 1996 Zapatista call for continental and intercontinental
“encounters” to discuss, among other things, contemporary global
neoliberal (capitalist) policies, methods of elaborating a global
network of opposition to those policies and formulas for interconnecting
various projects for elaborating alternatives. The result of these
organizing efforts included: a series of continental meetings in the
spring of 1996;[20] an intercontinental meeting in Chiapas in the summer
of 1996; and a second intercontinental meeting in Spain in the summer of
1997. Through extensive E-mails and a small number of intermittent,
face-to-face meetings, possible approaches to the organization of
discussion were debated, agendas were hammered out and logistical
arrangements were made. The results were stunning. Thousands came to the
continental meetings-3,000 to the intercontinental meeting in Chiapas
and 4,000 to the intercontinental reunion in Spain. Grassroots activists
from over 40 countries and five continents attended both
intercontinental meetings.
Without the Internet, this turnout would never have been possible. It is
only recently that such encounters have become regular features on the
margins of meetings organized by supranational institutions like the
United Nations. It has usually been governments, not poor villages of
indigenous peoples, that have had the means to organize such gatherings.
The Zapatistas, however, successfully organized these encounters on a
scale that far exceeded anyone’s expectations, and this fact alone
warrants closeattention by those interested in the evolution of
international politics.
NEOLIBERALISM
These manifestations of an historically new organizational capability
were moments in the rapid crystallization of networks of discussion and
debate that range far beyond the Zapatistas and Mexican politics. While
the continental meeting of North America was organized by the Zapatistas
themselves and held in Chiapanecan villages, the others were organized
by a wide array of individuals and groups whose primary concerns lay not
in Mexico but in local opposition to global policies. The Zapatista Call
to discuss neoliberalism-the pro-market economic policies currently
embraced by corporations, investors, governments, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank-and possible global responses evoked a
resonance within hundreds of diverse grassroots groups which had
previously been unable to find common points of reference or vehicles
for collaboration.
Today, the global capacity for action that labor and social movements
have sought for over a century is becoming a more concrete possibility.
In the 1996 European continental meeting in Berlin, for example,
activists discussed at length whether and to what degree Latin American
“Neoliberalism” finds its counterpart not only in the “Thatcherization”
of the economy but in the move toward greater European integration
embodied in the Maastricht Treaty, the Schengen Agreement and the plans
for a common European currency. In the April 1996 American continental
meeting, the connections, similarities and differences between Latin
American austerity and structural adjustment programs and U.S.-Canadian
experiences with Reaganomic supply-side economics (the attack on the
welfare state and the deregulation of business investment) and central
bank tight money policies were similarly evaluated. The result of such
deliberations was a commitment to collective and coordinated opposition
to what is perceived as increasingly homogeneous global contemporary
policy.[21]
Because of the emergence of such a commitment, these meetings have
turned out to be more than singular, isolated events. They can already
be seen as generative moments in the coalescence of a growing number of
tightly knit global circuits of cyberspace communication and
organization that threaten traditional topdown monopolies of such
activity. Two examples, related to the pro-Zapatista circuits but
autonomous from them, can illustrate this wider phenomenon. The first is
at the level of the nationstate; the second is at the level of the
private sector.
An essential ingredient of the Maastricht Treaty and Schengen Agreement
is the coordination of police forces within a Europe of fading borders
and increasingly mobile populations.[22] To facilitate both the control
of the resident population and restrictions on immigration from outside
of Europe, police coordination has been organized-in part through
interlinked computer networks (the Schengen Information System).[23]
Yet, anti-Maastricht marches and an Alternative Summit in Amsterdam were
organized and coordinated in June 1997 by grassroots groups from all
over Europe using the Internet as one important means of
collaboration.[24] Moreover, the takeover by Italian protesters of two
trains for free transportation to Amsterdam led to dramatic
confrontations with Swiss, German and Dutch police forces in a way that
suggested a degree of grassroots communication and organization that
equaled, if not outstripped, arrangements among the governments
involved.[25] Reports of events reached the Internet via
minute-by-minute communications from the protesters using cellular
phones within the trains. Their reports and analysis of the unfolding
conflict were relayed through the Italian “free” radio stations to the
European Counter Network (of computer communications) and were
distributed more broadly via the Internet, using, among other things,
the lists and conference contacts managed by those who had participated
in the Zapatista encounters. The steady flow of reports on the
confrontations, arrests and police data gathering led to the immediate
organization of protests, including, for example, demonstrations at
embassies and consulates while the events were still unfolding. This
capacity for complementary action at the international level undermined
government efforts to isolate and repress the Italian protesters.
Indeed, the comprehensive reports on Dutch police repression have led to
continuing protests, from the grassroots level to the parliaments of
several European Union member states.[26]
It has traditionally been recognized that multinational corporate
communications are superior to those of international worker
organizations. This superiority, however, is increasingly being
challenged. In general, it has been extremely difficult for workers to
coordinate multinational actions against common or interconnected
employers. While there have been movements of solidarity via boycotts,
such as that which supported workers opposed to apartheid in South
Africa in the 1980s, there have been few effective international
strikes. One example worth studying is the current internationalization
of the struggles by Mersey dock workers in Liverpool, England, to ports
throughout the world. Coordinated strike actions have been undertaken in
dozens of ports not only in symbolic solidarity, but directly against
ships carrying cargo to and from port facilities operated by Mersey
Docks & Harbor Co. The sudden emergence of picket lines on ship arrivals
has come in response to a very self-conscious effort on the part of dock
workers to build a global system of Internet communication. The support
generated for the dock workers is closely linked, once again, to the
emerging coalition of antineoliberal Internet operations which has
proliferated in the wake of the intercontinental meetings mentioned
above.[27] Although the dock worker actions appear as fairly traditional
private sector conflicts, the arguments put forth via Internet about the
urgency of a global response clearly situate this multinational strike
within the broader framework of opposition to “neoliberalism.” Both
examples, therefore, must be understood as moments of a crystallizing
network of opposition to such policies.
ALTERNATIVES
Just as opposition to current institutions and policies has been
increasingly interconnected, so too has discussion about the development
of alternative approaches to public policy and social organization. As
critiques of the dominant ideology have been followed by
reconceptualizations and experimentation with alternatives, including
fair trade and citizen rights for immigrants, the sharing of these new
experiences via the Internet has accelerated their proliferation and
development. Ultimately, as alternatives which are not only more
attractive but also prove workable are generated, opposition to current
policies and calls for their replacement will grow faster.
The coexistence and interconnections between the opposition to current
policies and the attempt to elaborate alternatives via the Internet was
obvious at the Zapatista-called meetings and continues to be discussed
in cyberspace. Important in these discussions have been the experiences
of indigenous peoples in seeking alternative ways to organize democratic
spheres of political interaction among the diverse cultural, ethnic and
linguistic communities, without dissolving their differences through the
formulation of universal rules codified in the kind of nation state
constitutions common since the Enlightenment.
These indigenous experiences have had wide influence not only because
the Zapatistas have brought them to the forefront of international
attention, but also because these efforts have actually been successful
at building networks among a diverse array of indigenous peoples. There
is nothing like success to attract attention. The agreements reached by
representatives of the Mexican government and the Zapatistas at San
Andres Sacam Ch’en in February 1996, spelled out the basic vision and
principles of a reorganization of democracy and the kinds of
constitutional changes that are required to meet demands for local
autonomy Despite the government’s subsequent failure to implement the
agreements, those principles are currently the object of widespread
debate not only among indigenous populations but also among many other
groups, including the newly elected Mexican Congress, which, for the
first time in history, is no longer controlled by the PRI.[28] Outside
of Mexico, indigenous demands for autonomy have resonated within a wide
variety of ethnic and linguistic communities.
The Zapatista call for the “democratization of democracy,” based on its
critique of the one-party system in Mexico and its demands for electoral
reforms, has struck sympathetic chords in other parts of the world. This
has been especially true at the regional and national levels where
electoral politics have come to be seen as formalistic spectacles-arenas
of professional politicians whose campaigns and policies are perceived
as being bought by the highest bidders. Stories about the various forms
of direct democracy reputedly practiced in Zapatista communities have
stimulated many jaded social critics to abandon their cynicism and
attempt instead to explore how real democracy and meaningful pluralism
can be crafted.
In this reevaluation of democratic institution-building, the role of the
Internet is significant. The Internet offers tremendous potential to
widen participation not only in policy discussions but also in the
sphere of direct democracy, through plebiscites and legally binding
referendums. Today, there are a several groups dedicated to the
exploration and evaluation of such possibilities.30 While most of this
discussion has been focused on local or national political processes,
the emergence of the kinds of global networks I have been describing
will necessarily lead to a similar discussion at the international
level.
Another highly elaborated sphere in cyberspace for the sharing of
innovative alternatives to current practices has emerged out of the
communications linking environmental movements around the world.[29]
Those movements have not only protested current practices and policies
concerning such issues as pollution and global warming, but they have
also generated a wide variety of alternative approaches to everything
from energy generation (a shift to renewable resources) and conservation
(solar architecture, for instance) to garbage and waste management
(including less packaging and more recycling). At the same time, serious
attempts to rethink the interconnections between human beings and their
environment have led to considerable overlap with an array of
non-Western cultural experiences and philosophies. Many of the
traditions and beliefs of a variety of indigenous populations have
received considerable attention and a surprising degree of acceptance.
As a result, a web of interconnections between environmental networks of
communication and indigenous and pro-indigenous networks has developed.
Environmental activist groups like Greenpeace have, for example,
intervened in the conflicts in Chiapas.[30]
A third realm of international discussion that has sought to elaborate
positive alternatives to contemporary policy rests in the diverse array
of women’s movements. In the days when the Internet first began to be
widely used, many critics expressed their concern that computers were
proving to be “toys for boys” and cyberspace a “men’s only” club.
Subsequent developments have shown, however, that women and women’s
groups have been quick to capitalize on the opportunities that the
Internet makes available for enhanced self-organization. As is well
known, the “women’s movement” has gone far beyond preoccupation with
what have traditionally been described as “women’s issues” to
incorporate virtually every sphere of public policy. Women’s lists,
conferences and web pages represent a substantial portion of political
cyberspace and are linked to many other domains.[31]
The existence of a “Revolutionary Women’s Law” in the Zapatista
movement-conceived, designed and drafted by indigenous women within the
context of a highly patriarchal culture-attracted the attention of women
activists outside Chiapas early on. As a result, women’s cyberspace
networks have established connections directly with indigenous women in
Chiapas and have played an active role in circulating information about
the Zapatista movement. In addition, such networks provide a means to
circulate discussions among women in Chiapas regarding the revision of
patriarchal traditions and its implications for democratic
constitutional reforms. Such revisions and reforms were incorporated
into the San Andres accords mentioned above.
Examples such as those discussed above regarding the spheres of social
activism and cyberspace activity that are involved in the autonomous
contesting of public policy could easily be multiplied. The implications
are only beginning to be perceived.
The Zapatista effect suggests that the fabric of politics-the public
sphere where differences interact and are negotiated-is being rewoven.
This is particularly important because these new forms of cooperation go
to the heart of the existing political, social and economic order.
At the grassroots level, the Internet is being used to promote
international discussion and connections that link struggles challenging
dominant policy and ideology in ways that often bypass the nation state.
However, it is important to note that, while there is no doubt that the
grassroots use of the Internet and electronic communications across
borders has in some instances constrained the ability of nation states,
international organizations and multinational corporations to pursue
their own goals, it is not clear how significant these constraints
really are and whether they are likely to proliferate.
In debates on the future of the nation state and the conduct of foreign
policy, consideration of such questions often appears muddled within the
burgeoning literature on “information warfare” and is sometimes barely
separated from musings on criminal, military and “terrorist” use of the
Internet. In a recent article on cyberspace terrorism, for example,
former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Deutch labeled
the Zapatistas as “insurgents,” arguing that “drawing the line between
terrorism and insurgency can be difficult.”[32] More interesting efforts
by public policy analysts to reconceptualize the potential political
ramifications of grassroots challenges to the nation-state via
cyberspace include the work of RAND scholar David Ronfeldt and his
co-author John Arquilla of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, who have
elaborated the concept of “netwar.” In their view, the Zapatista use of
the Internet and similar phenomena represent not only a threat but an
organizational innovation to which the nation-state must respond if it
is to avoid increasingly frequent defeat. In addition, Ronfeldt and
Arquilla call for the recasting of the organization of the nation state
from its traditional hierarchical lines to those of networks, thus
adopting and adapting to the forces arrayed against it.[33]
Similar arguments have been advanced by a variety of scholars. Bruce
Berkowitz, a former CIA analyst, applied this logic to the
reorganization of US intelligence.[34] On the basis of case study
analysis, Jessica Mathews, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, has pointed to a variety of instances in which governments
and intergovernmental institutions have gained some of the flexibility
and responsiveness of networks by working closely with NGOs in the
international arena.[35] Anne-Marie Slaughter professor of International
Law at Harvard University, has argued that this kind of fundamental
reorganization has already begun. She has pointed to instances in which
the constituent parts of states-for example, central bankers, jurists
and regulatory agencies-are disaggregating and forming international
networks in an increasingly effective new form of
“transgovernmentalism.”[36] Although Slaughter does not cite it
specifically, the Schengen Agreement and multinational collaboration
among police agencies also fit her model.
All of this suggests that the state, both at the national and
supranational level, is responding to the challenges from grassroots
networks not merely by resisting their influences, but also by adopting
similar forms of organization in two fundamental ways: either by
mutating its own structures or by co-opting and annexing those which
challenge it.
In Mexico, this struggle is being played out primarily between the
Zapatistas and their grassroots supporters on the one hand and the
political parties on the other. While the PRI-dominated executive wing
of the government has responded to the rebellion in a rigid and
repressive manner, the congressional opposition and political reformers
have sought to draw the Zapatistas into the system. In response to the
Zapatistas’ demand to recast Mexican political institutions, these
forces have urged the Zapatistas to enter politics in the traditional
manner, by becoming a political party Thus far, the movement’s
leadership has refused. At the September 1997 founding convention of the
Zapatista “Front” for National Liberation in Mexico City, the Zapatistas
and their supporters reiterated their call for new forms of politics
rather than adaptation to the current model. The conflict continues. At
the international level, some governments and multilateral organizations
like the World Bank are indeed developing methods of “incorporating”
NGOs into consultative processes, giving them voices at the table in
exchange for less voice in the street. Yet, against the backdrop of a
long history of co-optation and depolitization, many grassroots groups
have refused to collaborate and continue to organize and act
autonomously from the state and the private sector. At the same time,
they continue to elaborate networks of cooperation among like-minded
organizations to broaden their capabilities for research, reflection,
consultation and action. Cooperation at the local level is constant,
while the kind of large-scale, cross-movement gatherings embodied in the
Zapatista-led encounters and the Amsterdam counter-summit seem to be
proliferating.
While the capacity of such grassroots groups for collective protest
action has been clearly demonstrated, their potential for taking over or
usurping the functions of the nation state and intergovernmental
organizations will depend on their capacity to elaborate and implement
alternative modes of decision-making and collective or complementary
action to solve common problems. In some instances, such as the defense
of human rights, environmental protection or the formulation of new
constitutional frameworks for the protection of indigenous rights, this
potential is being realized.[37] So far, grassroots alternatives have
demonstrated that imagination, creativity and insight can generate
different approaches and new solutions to solving widespread problems.
To the extent that such new solutions continue to proliferate and are
perceived as being effective, the possibilities of replacing state
functions with non-state collaboration will expand.
At the same time, because such an expansion threatens the established
interests of states and those who benefit from their support,
government-led efforts to repress or co-opt such alternatives will
continue. The degree to which the autonomy of grassroots efforts will be
maintained is not a question of imagination or organizational ability
alone, but also of the political power of independent groups to resist
such efforts and displace governmental hegemony. Thus, the scope for the
positive elaboration of grassroots initiatives at the local and global
levels will depend entirely on their power to challenge existing
policies and force concessions. In this drama we are but at the opening
act.
[1] It is interesting to note that fears of the impingement of national
sovereignty seem to have proliferated on the right of the political
spectrum in the North (e.g., traditional conservative fears of a
one-world government or contemporary anti-immigrant racism) and on the
left in the South (e.g., anti-imperialist, “national” liberation
movements or more recent anti-IMF campaigns during the international
debt crisis).
[2] See Michael H. Shuman, “Dateline Mainstreet: Local Foreign
Policies,” Foreign Policy, 65 (Winter 1986–87).
[3] Cathryn L. Thorup, “The Politics of Free Trade and the Dynamics of
Cross-border Coalitions in U.S.-Mexican Relations,” Columbia Journal of
World Business, XXVI, no. 11 (Summer 1991) pp. 12–26; Thorup,
“Redefining Governance in North America: The Impact of Cross-Border
Networks and Coalitions on Mexican Immigration into the United States,”
RAND, DRU-219-FF, March 1993; Howard H. Frederick, “Computer
Communications in Cross-Border Coalition-Building: North American NGO
Networking Against NAFTA,” Gazette: The International Journal for Mass
Communication Studies, 50, nos. 2–3 (1992) pp. 217–241; Carlos A.
Heredia, “NAFTA and Democratization in Mexico,” Journal of International
Affairs, 48. no. 1 (Summer 1994) pp. 13–38. For a recent assessment of
the evolution of NGOs, see Ann Marie Clark, “Non-governmental
Organizations and their Influence on International Society,” Journal of
International Affairs, 48, no. 2 (Winter 1995) pp. 507–525.
[4] While it has become commonplace to discuss social movements and
their activism in terms of NGOs or “civil society,” such vocabulary is
highly problematic and vague. These words are often used in the context
of everything from multinational corporations to groups of villagers
organized through Rockefeller and Ford Foundation programs. In this
essay, the term “grassroots” is used to refer to member-funded efforts
at self-organization which remain autonomous of either the state or
corporate sectors. Such organization often includes independent NGOs,
but is more broadly inclusive of various informal networks of activists
and community organizations. The grassroots movements catalyzed by the
Zapatistas include a variety of actors, including human rights
advocates, environmental NGOs, local community governments and loose
networks of political, media and labor activists who have linked their
movements to those of the Zapatistas.
[5] On the struggles of the indigenous people to cope with such
attempted assimilation see Guillermo Bonfil, Mexico Profundo: Una
civilizaciĂłn negada (Mexico: Grijalbo, 1994), also available in English
as Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, Mexico Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996).
[6] On these sources of Zapatista support see the study by Collier. On
the indigenous sources of self-definition and cultural practices which
have nourished the Zapatista movement, see Bonfil and Gustavo Esteva,
Cronica del Fin de una Era: El Secreto del EZLN (Mexico: Editorial
Posada, 1994).
[7] In Spanish, Ejercito Zapatista de LiberaciĂłn Nacional.
[8] These opportunities in the EZLN for young peasant women were partly
achieved through their own efforts. Some of this remarkable evolution
can be traced in Rosa Rojas, ed., Chiapas, ¿y las Mujeres Qué?, vols. I
and II (1994 and 1995). That the Zapatista communities became islands of
relative liberation for women in the sea of Mexican machismo has been
one important source of the movement’s appeal among foreigners.
[9] While the EZLN did point to NAFTA as sounding the “death knell” for
indigenous peoples, their main orientation was towards gaining
recognition and standing within the Mexican nation.
[10] The government’s first, and quickly aborted, effort to mobilize
public sentiment against the Zapatista uprising was to portray it as the
result of foreign subversive manipulation of the indigenous people. Once
it was forced to recognize that the source of the uprising was located
within the indigenous communities themselves, the government shifted its
discourse to an argument that played on ignorance of the specificity of
Zapatista demands-an ignorance which it did its best to maintain.
[11] Small communities organize themselves collectively through endless
discussion and consensus; and “leaders” are those accorded
responsibility informally because they have proved themselves competent
through performance. Thus, decisions may be democratic in the sense that
everyone has a voice and everyone’s concerns are taken seriously into
account.
[12] A report on investment opportunities in Mexico signed by former
Chase Manhattan specialist Riordan Roett calling for the Zedillo
government to restore investor confidence by “eliminating the
Zapatistas” was leaked to the press and subsequently publicized in the
United States and Mexico. This memorandum not only led to protests at
Chase offices from coast to coast, but convinced many to interpret the
military offensive not only as a betrayal of the negotiations but also
as an offering to Wall Street to staunch the flight of hot money from
the Mexican market in the wake of the peso crisis. The text of the
report and postings on the subsequent protests and reactions is
available online at
.
[13] Although this policy of low-intensity warfare (the current
euphemism for counterinsurgency) has been repeatedly denied by the
Mexican government, it has been well-chronicled on the Internet in
dozens of field reports from local and international observers. Just
recently, in the wake of the massacre of 45 men, women and children in
Acteal, Chiapas, by such paramilitaries, documentation of these plans
have come to public light. See Carlos Marin, “Plan de Ejercito en
Chiapas, desde 1994: crear bandas paramilitares, desplazar a la
poblacion, destruir las bases de apoyo del EZLN,” Proceso, I 105, 4
January 1998. One result has been the repeated protests by well known
international human rights NGOs like Amnesty International over the
abuses to which Chiapanecan peasants and activists have been subjected.
See the archives of the Internet lists Chiapas 95 and chiapas-l at
.
[14] There is a long history of rejection of the subordination of
indigenous struggles to political parties that predates the Zapatista
movement. See Charlene Floyd’s description of the 1978 Representative
Assembly of the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas in which offers of
an alliance with the government were rejected (Floyd, A Theology of
Insurrection? Religion and Politics in Mexico,” Journal of International
Affairs, 50, no. 1 (Summer 1996) pp. 159–160). In response to widespread
rank and file enthusiasm for the Zapatista rebellion, the left-of-center
Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD) originally sought at least
informal ties with the EZLN. But during a visit to Chiapas, one of the
party’s leaders, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, was lectured by the Zapatistas on
the undemocratic character of the party and its own lack of interest in
electoral politics. Since then, hostility between the PRD leadership and
the EZLN has increased. The latter refused to support the PRD’s
electoral candidates in the elections in Chiapas.
[15] In Spanish, the Frente Zapatista de LiberaciĂłn Nacional.
[16] A report surveying and describing this network of Internet
resources is available online. See “Zapatistas in Cyberspace: A Guide to
Analysis & Resources” at
.
[17] The plebiscite asked the following six questions (author’s notes
are included in parenthesis): 1. “Do you agree that the principal
demands of the Mexican people are land, housing, jobs, food, health,
education, culture, information, independence, democracy, liberty,
justice, peace, security, combat of corruption and defense of the
environment?” (These are the demands put forward by the Zapatistas.); 2.
“Should the different democratizing forces (in Mexico) unite in a
citizen broad-based political and social opposition front and struggle
for the 16 principal demands (listed above)?”; 3. “Should Mexicans carry
out a profound political reform which would guarantee democracy?”
(respect for the vote; reliable voter registration; impartial and
autonomous electoral organizations; guaranteed citizen participation,
including for those not members of political parties and nongovernmental
organizations; and recognition of all political forces, be they
national, regional or local); 4. “Should the EZLN convert itself into a
new and independent political force, without joining other political
organizations?”; 5. “Should the EZLN join with other organizations and
together form a new political organization?”; 6. “Should the presence
and equal participation of women be guaranteed in all positions of
representation and responsibility in civil organizations and in the
government?”
[18] The final tabulation of votes can be found at
gopher://mundo.eco.utexas.edu:70/OR578176-598387-/mailing/chiapas95.archive/Chi
apas95/20Archives/201995/1995.10/20/280ctober/29. The countries with the
largest participation were the United States and Italy.
[19] Alianza Civica’s final tabulation of the results of La Consulta
Nacional por la Paz y la Democracia can be found in the 12 September,
1995, folder of the Chiapas95 Archives at
gopher://mundo.eco.utexas.edu:70/lm/mailing/chiapas95.archive/Chiapas95/20Archives/201995/1995.09/20/28September/29.
[20] The European meeting was held in Berlin, the American encounter in
Chiapas and the Oceania gathering in Melbourne. An African encounter was
supposed to have occurred in Nairobi, but no documentation is available.
[21] This consensus has had an impact on language. It is now
increasingly commonplace within the grassroots networks in Europe and
the United States for contemporary economic and political policies to be
referred to as elements of neoliberalism.
[22] The Maastricht Treaty is now available online at
.
[23] The 1990 Convention to implement the Schengen Agreement, which
includes a description of the planned Information System, can be found
at
.
[24] Much of this effort can be traced in the online newsletter The
Other Voices, published by the International Coalition for a Different
Europe, accessible at
.
[25] The Italian activists expressed explicitly that their demand for
free public transportation to this European event included a democratic
protest against the obstacle of high transportation costs to grassroots
participation in Europe-wide political “discussions.” The conceding of
two trains by the Italian government to meet that demand must have
immensely annoyed the governments of Switzerland, Germany and The
Netherlands, which subsequently did all they could to confine and
isolate the protesters during their transit to and from the event.
[26] On the events and the subsequent protests see Nicholas Busch and
Tord Bjoerk, The Other Voices, 7 October 1997, as well as the special
“extra” edition devoted to the issue at
.
[27] See the Mersey Dock workers’ webpage “The World is Our Picket
Line!” at
.
[28] The San Andres Accords are available in Spanish online at
; and, in English, in the Chiapas95 archives.
[29] There are even dedicated computer networks such as EcoNet, one part
of the Association for Progressive Communications. A description and
access to EcoNet can be found at
. The Association for Progressive Communications, a consortium of some
25 linked networks, maintains a web site at
/. For an analytical description, see Howard Frederick, “Computer
Networks and the Emergence of Global Civil Society,” in Linda M.
Harasim, ed., Global Networks: Computers and International
Communications (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993).
[30] A series of articles on the Greenpeace delegation to Chiapas in
March 1995 can be found in the Chiapas95 archives at
gopher://mundo.eco.utexas.edu:70/1m/mailing/chiapas95.archive/Chiapas95/20Archives/201995/1995.03/20/28
March/29.
[31] For example, see the directories of women’s resources available
through the webpage for WomensNet at
. Like EcoNet, WomensNet is a component of the Association for
Progressive Communications.
[32] John Deutch Foreign Policy, 108 (Fall 1997) p. 14.
[33] See John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, “Cyberwar is Coming!,”
Comparative Strategy, 12, no. 2 (1993) pp. 141–165; Arquilla and
Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar (RAND’s National Defense Research
Institute, 1996); and Arquilla and Ronfeldt, eds., In Athena’s Camp:
Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age (RAND, 1997), available
on-line at
.
[34] Bruce D. Berkowitz, “Information Age Intelligence,” Foreign Policy,
103 (Summer 1996) pp. 35–50. For an analysis of the latter see Harry
Cleaver, “Reforming the CIA in the Image of the Zapatistas?,” at
.
[35] Jessica T Mathews, “Power Shift,” Foreign Affairs, 76, no. I
(January/February 1997).
[36] Anne-Marie Slaughter, “The Real New World Order,” Foreign Affairs,
76, no. 5 (September/October 1997) pp. 183–197.
[37] Mathews, “Power Shift,” Foreign Affairs, 76, no. I
(January/February 1997) p. 53. Mathews quotes Ibrahima Fall, head of the
U.N. Center for Human Rights: “We have less money and fewer resources
than Amnesty International, and we are the arm of the U.N. for human
rights. This is ridiculous.” Mr. Fall is wrong; it is not ridiculous. It
suggests that if grassroots groups demonstrate the capacity to research
and take effective action on global problems, there is no a priori
reason why they should not supplant intergovernmental organizations.