Zapatismo Chapter Summary

In their First Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (El Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National) when declaring that they were “a product of 500 years of struggle” made a statement whose profundity escaped nearly all who read it and may have even escaped the writers themselves. The body-as-genocide that is declared here extended well-beyond the individual bodies of Zapatista members and spoke of a profound ontological reterritorialization which remade the Mayan and Incan bodies (among others) into Indian flesh. This rebellion against suffering structured by genocide, what we might call a “grammar of suffering” in following the thought of Dr. Frank Wilderson, took place differently in different places.

Zapatismo, rather than focusing solely on the nature of class struggle, sees the alienation and exploitation of the proletariat as simply an effect of the ongoing colonial violence occurring against Indigenous Peoples in southern Mexico. Rather than focus on the ways in class differences create violence, Zapatismo understands capitalism as a violence that is a part of the larger structure of colonial violence. This struggle, then, rather than simply contain a majority of Indigenous Peoples who are united under the notion of a communist revolution, is focused on the anti-Indigenous violence that is committed and calls upon Indigenous People to lead the struggle against colonialism rather than capitalism alone. The violence of colonialism is forefronted in the “First Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle” when they write that they “are a product of 500 years of struggle.” Though Zapatismo differs from the Gonzaloist reading of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in more ways that just the focus on colonialism as opposed to capitalism, it also does not forefront revolutionary violence in its methods. While the Maoist aspects of the Shining Path necessitate violence against the government, Zapatismo does not. The Zapatistas in the “Second Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle” make clear that while revolutionary violence may, at times, be necessary, it does not always have to be. This difference, the demand for

The Shining Path has a very hierarchal structure wherein Presidente Gonzalo is the leader of the party (akin to a dictator) and all under him follow his rule without question. There is no democratic structure in which average people of the party may elect a leader or challenge his decisions. This ridge hierarchal structure where Presidente Gonzalo cannot be questioned is simply not found within the Zapatistas. Though the Zapatistas have an identifiable leader (once Subcomandante Marcos and now Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano), that leader is not a single person but rather a persona or role which can be played by multiple people. The leadership role in the Zapatistas is also highly democratic. Whereas Presidente Gonzalo cannot be questioned, multiple times throughout the “Second Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle” there is mentions of consultations with various Indigenous Peoples and what they would like to see happen and if they would like to sign for peace. This responsibility to the collective rather than dictatorial leadership marks a clear difference between the two