Resistance and rebellion, according to the Zapatistas

Notes on Critical thought in the face of the capitalist hydra
2016

Below is an attempt at summarizing material concerning resistance and rebellion that I pulled together from various passages throughout the book. I admit I’ve also editorialized a wee bit.

Rebellion and resistance – a collective No! and Yes!

To rebel – to stand up to power and say “Enough is enough!,” To resist – to live in the way we dream of. We rebel against exploitation and resist by forming cooperatives. We rebel against dispossession and resist by taking back the land. We rebel against discrimination and resist by celebrating our dignity and diversity. We rebel against repression and resist by building healthy, self-protected communities.

All these processes are about building: transforming pain into rage, rage into rebelliousness, and rebelliousness into a future.

And as adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, our duty to rebel and resist specifically means being anticapitalist, committing to struggle, and organizing from below with the people where we are. Above all, it’s a commitment to collectivity, because anything that is worth doing should be done collectively. Collectively with NADIE: the no-ones who work the land and run the machines, the no-ones who makes the wheels of history turn, the no-ones who the Zapatistas owe their freedom to, the no-ones who will survive the gathering storm.

Rebellion – waking from the nightmare

The system the Zapatistas have said No! to and rebelled against has changed over the generations. Twenty years ago, the indigenous communities of Chiapas were still peripheral to capitalism – forgotten by it – and the corporations didn’t care to force them to work in their factories or buy their products. People were living in slavery and feudalism as much as they were within capitalism. Plantation owners and cattle ranchers had their own private police forces, they traded servants like slaves, they raped every young woman before she could marry, and they held generation after generation of indigenous peoples in perpetual debt at the plantation store.

Then, with the disembowelment of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution and the end of land reform, capitalism became more dominant in Chiapas. The government began offering more charitable projects to counteract Zapatismo, and also to trick people into signing contracts so they could steal their land and water, mineral, timber, and biological resources.

As capitalism changed – and as the means of dispossession, exploitation, discrimination, and repression changed – the means of rebellion had to change too. One Zapatista woman said people used to know who the slave owner was, but now they’re programmed by culture and the media not to know who exploits them. We have been put to sleep, which is why the Zapatistas call their clandestine period, when support for the rebellion spread like wildfire, “the awakening.” Making ourselves more rebellious means opening our eyes to see who exploits us and how. It’s the difference between the “poor-poor” – who don’t have money and don’t know who to rebel against – and the “rich-poor” who may lack money, but are rich in their rebelliousness and thinking.

For the rich-poor, rebellion can take many forms. SupMoises reminds us that the Zapatistas are still armed; this continues to be a tool of struggle for them; and it’s a tool used by soldiers who lead by obeying the communities’ orders. Marching and protest are also a tool of rebellion, although the Zapatistas prefer to confront the tyrant through resistance and march to embrace their allies. News media can also be a tool of rebellion, but the Zapatistas aren’t content to leave this work to the whims of the corrupt, paid media, preferring instead to organize their own compañerxs to tell their story through their own “internal gaze.”

Metaphors for moving from rebellion to resistance

But saying No! only goes so far. With Ayotzinapa the collective No! rang out powerfully for months, but then the streets emptied and people either went home or moved on to denouncing the next outrage. The families of the 43 are forgotten, and the collective wound caused by Ayotzinapa closes itself. Our outrage made a crack in the wall; our rebellion began to break the system; but this crack can quickly close up when we drop the hammer of solidarity. The system reacts quickly to genuine rebellion. So, instead of leaving the families behind once there are no more protests, we must organize our rebellion, take turns pounding the wall, and maintain our solidarity. Because it’s not just about having a lot of anger – it’s about organizing with a lot of dignity for the long haul. And for our rebellion to last longer than a year, a decade, or a generation we need organization. We need long term resistance.

The Hydra is another metaphor for why we must organize our rebellion. If we don’t cut off the Hydra’s heads, it will devour us. If we don’t seal up its severed necks then new, more vicious heads will regrow. And if we don’t sever the mother-head, the Hydra will never die.

Private property is the Hydra’s mother-head

What is the Hydra’s mother-head? It’s the private ownership of the means of dispossession, production, circulation, and consumption. It is the relationship between the few people who own these means and the many billions who do not. We all need food, homes, transportation, information, clothing, and medicines to survive, and under capitalism we have to go through the few people who own these things if we’re to survive. A few people privately own the land they stole for their farms, and they own the armies they used to steal it. They privately own the machines for making tractors and bricks. They privately surveil and control the internet. They make it so that there’s no other way to get clothing than to buy it from them.

Nonetheless we, the great majority of humanity, the pedestrians of history, NADIE, know enough and have enough resources to provide food, a house, free public transportation, access to information, clothes, and medicine to every single person on the entire planet. Every single one. But, as long as we can only access these things by buying them, by making these few rich people richer, the majority of humanity will always be deprived.

Billions will be hungry even though every year farmers produce enough food for every single person. The problem isn’t growing enough food, it’s that every single person doesn’t have the money to buy this food from the rich. This control and exclusion, made possible by private property, is the Hydra’s mother-head.

Fighting the many-headed Hydra is our greatest act of rebellion. We must stand up, say No!, and fight back against its mother-head of private property. And we must rebel against its means of dispossession, means of exploitation, means of discrimination, and means of repression. What are all these means? They’re the institutions the Hydra uses to attack us. It dispossesses us of our land through its courts, its evictions, its invading armies. It exploits us because a few people own all the factories, machines, universities, and laboratories, so we have to work for them if we want money to buy their houses, food, education, and medicine. It discriminates against us through the few news outlets that control information, the few movie studios that show us the same caricatures of women, Africans, indigenous people, and LGBT people over and over again. And it represses us because it controls internet surveillance, the police, and the armies. These are the institutional manifestations of the Hydra’s mother-head.

Capitalism is war

Exploitation. Dispossession. Repression. Discrimination. Private property. Means of control. Countless heads of the Hydra. This may seem confusing and complex, but at its core it’s simple: War. The Hydra gobbles up everything, grows ever stronger, and defeats its enemies through war. We can’t warm the Hydra’s heart to make it choose peace over war. We can’t ask it to be a little less violent in its war. And we surely can’t elect a new Hydra who will stop the war. Capitalism is a war everywhere, at all times, in every sense of the word.

Just ask yourself: How did the few come to own the land of the many? How does capitalism escape from its recessions? When do more people blindly follow orders and mobilize for the same effort than in war and in business? Why does war produce industry’s biggest scientific leaps? Why do both capitalism and war destroy land, destroy products, and destroy lives through a voracious consumption that creates massive debts and gives the few even more control? Because they are one and the same. Because capitalism is war.

And this capitalist war is getting more intense, just like storm clouds swirling into a hurricane. The recession that began in 2008 continues and governments defend the impunity of the banks that caused it. Or, more simply, politicians brazenly serve as little more than the banks’ receptionists. Meanwhile, prophets and saviors abound and fascist groups are recruiting millions of people who, before the recession, once considered themselves “middle class.” Families, cities, and countries hang on by taking out more and more debt, so that the amount of money owed across the world is many times greater than the amount of money in existence. With all these pending debts, capitalism must grow like a cancer if it is to pay them, or else it will die. And as the problems and debts rise, those above propose war as the only solution: war against Muslims, war against the undocumented, war against women, war against Blacks, war against the poor, war for oil, war for land, war for water. War to steal. War to repay the banks. The storm clouds of capitalism and war grow heavier.

All of us who believe in peace and life have much to rebel against. The Hydra is large and ferocious indeed, and our rebellion is not enough unless it becomes resistance. We can say No! with dignified rage, but sooner or later we can no longer advance unless we say Yes! to autonomy. The Zapatistas illustrate this with many stories. They said no to the government’s teachers acting as spies and ran them out of their communities, and this led to the yes of training their own teachers and building autonomous education. The Zapatista women said no to accepting projects from the same government that killed their husbands in 1994, they also said no to NGOs who would only give projects if they controlled the plans and the budget. And, just like this no became a yes to autonomous Zapatista projects, saying no to the Hydra and the gathering storm must become a yes to autonomy.

Resistance means everything for everyone and nothing for ourselves

We must turn rebellion into resistance by turning a No! into a Yes! – a yes affirming that everyone can have everything, for a world where many worlds fit. We know this yes is possible, necessary, and under construction, but we also know we’ll never see its full fruition. Our destiny isn’t to reach utopia; our destiny is to fight. “Everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves.”

What does this “everything” mean? All the investments and the debts? All the machine guns and the bombs? All the prisons and the banks? No. It means that everyone living should have a house, food, an education, healthcare, information, work, land, culture, independence, liberty, justice, peace, and – most importantly – democracy. And not democracy in terms of choosing your favorite venom from a menu of pre-selected poisons, but democracy in terms of creating a wholesome menu, as well as the restaurant that cooks it and the farm that feeds it. Right now, today, we have all the technology needed to produce these things for every single living person. But under capitalism none of these “products” are “productive” unless they make someone a profit. So, to have everything, we must make it everyone’s.

Making everything everyone’s means having a material basis for resistance, a “means of producing resistance.” It means our resistance is about political economy: we have to have the land, resources, tools, and technology to make the stuff we need to survive (economy) and we have to make collective decisions on how to use it (politics). This is important because resistance is more than dignified rage. It’s more than really, really wanting the world to be different. As the compañeras tell us, they were already angry about patriarchy but needed their own cooperatives, land, and projects (the “material basis”) to truly build their freedom.

Zapatista resistance

The Zapatista uprising did just that when they took control of 500 plantations on January 1, 1994. Reclaiming the land made it unproductive for capitalism but productive for the compañerxs. But “making the land productive” wasn’t as simple as just kicking out the plantation owners. It involves an entire collective process of resistance – of organizing and deliberation about how to use the land, about who will do what on it when, about who decides and who implements, and about how this can all be done for the collective benefit. Every one of these points represents a thousand meetings, a thousand arguments, a thousand explanations, and a thousand small steps towards collective resistance.

The Zapatistas are the first to say there have been many, many problems during this process of resistance. Many people have let others down. Many people have dropped out. Instead of idealizing Zapatista resistance, we should be inspired to engage in our own resistance to make property unproductive for capitalism and productive for us, and we should treat the problems as our textbook, like the problems in our homework assignments on calculus and physics.

Saying that “resistance means autonomy” or “resistance is a Yes!” is too simple. SupMoi describes it in many different ways. Resistance means being strong against any kind of attack, because our autonomous health is there when they injure us, and our autonomous housing is there when they evict us. Resistance also means being bold, confident, and enthusiastic in our resistance, in not doubting the strength of the collective. Resistance means resisting inside our homes and within our relationships when there is pressure not to engage in collective work. Resistance means strengthening the collective by sanctioning authorities who don’t uphold their responsibilities. It is building autonomous health by training midwives, herbalists, and bone-setters. It’s about “neutralizing” the poor-poor (poor in thinking and in money) by allowing them to access our schools and clinics so the government can’t so easily pit them against us. Resistance is what will keep the Carranzas and Obregons from profiting from the next revolution, and resistance is what will ensure that indigenous revolutionary leaders are indeed revolutionary.

Above all, resistance means giving an inheritance to future generations and to the Sexta. It means leaving them a government that leads by obeying, leaving them resources run by and for the people, leaving them a true freedom that allows them to choose who they want to be. Resistance is the inheritance left by a cohesive community in struggle. And resistance is the million and one daily interactions, projects, dreams, and embraces that build this community.

The process of building resistance

But again, let’s not idealize community. Let’s not assume it should exist absolutely and immediately. Let’s not treat anyone who does something problematic like they’re profaning Eden and should be cast out, lest utopia be destroyed. The Zapatistas are mistakenly romanticized as an example of communalism, yet they give countless examples of disputes and disagreements in dividing up collective work: between those working as education and health promoters and those who aren’t, between those living near reclaimed land and those living a day’s journey from it, between different members of the same family. Since problems are our textbook for autonomy, these disputes showed them they couldn’t simply say, “All work will be collective,” but that there should be a slow, arduous process of deciding what get done by who, where, and how.

To build our collective resistance through countless disputes and disagreements, there must be accountability. In La Hidra and the second Escuelita the Zapatistas describe how they built their accountability since the very first clandestine days. A compañerx who had demonstrated their accountability and commitment would search for community members who were widely respected for these same characteristics. The compañerx would establish individual contact with the potential recruit, describe the EZLN’s dreams and vision to them, and if the recruit shared these dreams and wished to collaborate the compañerx would become the recruit’s responsable and assign them tasks to carry out. If the recruit demonstrated their accountability and commitment by fulfilling these tasks, the responsable would slowly introduce the recruit to other recruits. Then, little by little, the recruit would progress from carrying out tasks within the town to a municipal level, a regional level, and then to a zone level. They would go from being a recruit to recruiting others.

People who idealize the Zapatistas as an absolutely horizontal organization may be surprised at this recruitment structure. They may say that no one should be responsible for anyone else; everyone should teach, learn, and lead together; the collective should be the one and only agent. But, since we’re starting from intense alienation, from a situation where there is no community but instead a collection of individuals, it is impossible to immediately jump to absolute collectivity. Since we’re starting from a situation where some have more experiences, have given more to the struggle, and have learned from more errors than others, we can’t expect all our opinions to immediately be given the same weight. Instead, building community is a long and arduous process.

Within the Zapatistas’ process, these one-on-one relationships of accountability are combined with an assembly structure whereby the community holds all the responsables, all recruits, and all authorities of the Ejercito Zapatista – as well of the consejos, Junta members, and promotores of the good government system – accountable to the maximum principle of leading by obeying.

Resistance is always a process: a process of building community, of building accountability, of overcoming problems, of building good government. The process of resistance is pushed forward by the problems we’re always looking to circumvent and overcome, mistakes we ourselves pay for, mistakes we discuss until everyone agrees on a way forward. It is pushed forward by semilleros where we can share ideas of how to prepare for the gathering storm. And it is pushed forward by creating a good government that leads by obeying. This is all incredibly hard to do, but we shouldn’t fall into the belief that whatever can’t be obtained easily can’t be obtained at all. After all, our destiny isn’t to be happy. Our destiny is to fight.

Examples of resistance

But this is all too abstract. What does resistance sound and smell like? How does it look right now?

Resistance is the Banco Autonomo Comunitario, a store where compas can buy soap and oil without giving their money to the supporters of political parties. It’s the Tercios Compas, who aren’t autonomous or independent, but who are an internal gaze that make news reports on resistance for and by the resisters. It’s an autonomous bank for Zapatista women’s projects. It’s warehouses selling Zapatista corn at a price lower than what the coyotes charge. It is the Kurdish armed self-defense of their territory. It is a piece of land that once belonged to a slave owner and now feeds a family. It is an assembly. It is a circle where people from different groups share ideas of how to improve their various resistances.

And who are the resisters? What do they look like and what do they dream of? They are the women who built the struggle by refusing to accept crumbs from the government that killed their husbands. They are the mothers who organized during the clandestine period and who supported their husbands, brothers, and children when they took on responsibilities. They are the women who gave an inheritance of struggle to the next generation. They are people like compa Galeano, people who build resistance during their entire lives yet remain anonymous, people who serve whatever role is needed of them, born philosophers who make themselves organizers, pedestrians of history who make themselves teachers.

And what are they not? People aren’t disqualified from resisting through lack of ideological development, or because there are already too many people with their characteristics, or because they’ve made a mistake (as long as they’ll accept it). No, those who are no longer resisters are those who refuse to carry out the work. And, instead of being run off, they usually leave on their own. Those who remain work, build, and resist.

Freedom according to the Zapatistas

We rebel against the Hydra. We resist by building community. But what do we do it all for?

We do it for freedom. Again, not the false freedom of deciding which party gets to steal from us for 4 or 6 years. Not the false freedom of deciding which landlord to make rich so we can have a home. Not the false freedom of deciding which boss will be the one to harass and exploit us. Not the individual freedom to decide whether I want to study postmodernism or critical thought. We rebel and resist so we can truly have the freedom to collectively be who we want to be.

What freedom do most of us have now? For those few on the top, they have the freedom to displace us from our land and literally force us to do the work of remaking the world in their image. They have the freedom to follow their dreams… I mean, follow their greed. They are free to build institutes and foundations to enlist universities and charities in building their projects.

But for most of us, who are working so hard to be paid so little, there is no freedom, especially on a collective level. We cannot choose how much of our taxes are spent on corruption and welfare for banks. We can’t choose whether schools or prisons are built. We can’t choose who to go to war with and who to make peace with. We can’t choose whether humanity should be caretakers of the planet or the gravediggers of species. We can hardly choose what the values, dreams, goals, and efforts of our own local communities will be. And we can hardly choose what we want to do with our energy, vigor, and inspiration because it all goes to working shit jobs that barely cover rising rent, let alone hospital bills and lawyers’ fees.

But we have the potential to live in a world that is every bit as beautiful as the love in our hearts. Since our destiny is to plant trees whose shade we’ll never rest under, we may never see this world. And once it arrives, it won’t be a utopia – we’ll still have to deal with jealousy, disagreement, and laziness because that’s part of collectivity. Nonetheless, it is absolutely feasible for humanity to live in a world where we’re free do decide what to study based on our interests and not what might pay just enough to survive. Where we can live in the place we want and not be forced on dangerous journeys just to find work. Where we can put our efforts into making good government better instead of just trying to keep the bad government from killing and stealing so much. Where we have the luxury of taking time off to heal. Where the only thing that stands between us and our dreams is organization, instead of having to confront a system that’s a nightmare.

We can live in a world where everyone eats, everyone can grow old in the same house they were born in, where everyone studies, where every body is cared for, where government leads by obeying, where there is no war. Where we truly have an option. Where we can create our own options. Where, instead of history being written by those on top, those on the bottom dream, create, and write our history.

This world isn’t a fantasy – we know it’s possible because there are seeds of resistance that have already flowered. It already exists here and there, in an assembly, a caracol, an embrace. But in our cities there is much pavement that needs its own flowers. And we can’t just wait for spring to arrive – we must build it now.