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Ironically the Mexican State surrounding them on all sides is the only thing preventing them being crushed, else they would be long gone, and they reject being associated with anarchism or communism, publicly denouncing vanguard parties or their support.
It will eventually collapse, they fail to provide even the most basic of infrastructure for themselves.
I think people who downvote things they disagree with are nerds haha just so you know that I didn’t downvote you. I know they identify as explicitly Neozapatismo in philosophy, but various Zapatistas have talked about their influences and they borrow from all branches of marxism. They’re, basically, explicitly non-sectarian haha but I think it’s hard to argue they don’t lean pretty firmly towards anarchism
I also think it’s hard to argue they will inevitably collapse because they don’t provide for themselves. They’ve been running for decades and decades, and seemingly only gaining ground. But I’m admittedly not that familiar with the movement.
The smug eurocentrism here is palpable. This paternalist instinct to dismiss indigenous movements for not adhering to a brand of leftism and thus doomed to failure is really gross tbh.
Its a material fact. Mexico doesnt want to kill or erase indigenous movements and lets them do their thing, an Euro state or Anglos would have put them in a reservation or worse
What are the collective farms, coffee plantations, schools, and armies then?
I know very little about the internal workings of their organization, but AFAIK they are comfined to the most backwater and isolated parts of Mexico’s rural periphery. But they are a military organization with someone who appears to be a visible and recognized leader, have taken actual, existing action and achieved tangible material gains. It’s only of very limited success, but that’s not really the point of what I was trying to imply.
I support organizations like EZLN unconditionally just as much as I support the Naxalite movement, the People’s Republic of China, FARC, or the Peruvian Communist Party. The vast majority of my ire in this issue is directed at the Western left, which is still utterly obsessed with “movementism” (as J Moufawad-Paul dubbed it in The Communist Necessity) that is wholly reliant on spontaneity and primarily influenced by anarchism. This results in liberal entryism, incoherence or outright lack of a program, lack of leadership, and fragmentary decentralization to the point of non-existence, or at least a total disappearance once the latest wave of spontaneous outrage has subsided. For god’s sake, even after the ruthless suppression of the Sanders insurgency by the Democratic Party leadership and countless clear and unmistakable signals that they do not want the left in their party and will never even cede an inch of ground to their demands, it is somehow still treated as a debate that we should continue working with, supporting, and “boring within” that party instead of breaking with them definitively and working towards destroying and consuming their position with a real working-class party.
They were founded by Maoists and use a synthesis of Maoism and Maya. Anti-colonial politics (which are in general radically democratic.)
If anarchists recognize ourselves in the EZLN, It’s because of the Mayan influence, the libertarian turn of N. American socialism in the 60s, and the generally pro democracy bent in Latin socialism.
I mean, their economics and governance do look pretty dang anarchist. Like, the EZLN rejects all external labels besides Zapatismo, but if we’re going to project, it seems at least as fair to call them anarchist as it is to call them Maoist because of their Guevarist roots.
Explain the libertarian element however you will, but I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s there
