The Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico got worldwide attention on January 1, 1994, when they marched to Mexico City against the signing of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The free trade agreement was intended to facilitate trading between Canada, United States, and Mexico. The Zapatista claimed that this agreement would affect the indigenous people of Chiapas by further widening the gap between the poor and the rich. In this paper I will examine the NAFTA agreement and the Zapatista’s ideology and claims against the NAFTA agreement to see whether or not any real effects have risen within the indigenous people of Chiapas Mexico and in Mexico as a whole. The goal of North American Free Trade agreement was to eliminate barriers of trade and investment between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The implementation of the agreement brought the immediate removal of tariffs on more than one-half of U.S. imports from Mexico and more than one-third of U.S. exports to Mexico. Within ten years of the implementation of the NAFTA agreement, all United States and Mexico tariffs would be gone. The only tariffs that would remain would be those that deal with U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico. However, these were to be slowly phased out within fifteen years of the initial implementation of the program. NAFTA also seeks to eliminate all non-tariff trade barriers. The ideology of the Zapatista movement, also known as Zapatismo or Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) integrates traditional Mayan practices with elements of Marxism, libertarian socialism, and anarchism. Zapatismo opposes economic globalization, arguing that it severely and negatively affects the indigenous way of life. The North American F... ... middle of paper ... ...Liberation Army (EZLN)." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 23 Nov. 2011. . "North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 23 Nov. 2011. . Dellacioppa, Kara Zugman. The Bridge Called Zapatismo: building alternative political cultures in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Beyond. Lexington Books, 2009. Lowery, George Allen Collier and Elizbeth. Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas. Okaland, CA: Food First Books, 1999. Rondefeldt, David F. and Arroyo Center. The Zapatista “social netwar” in Mexico. Rand Corporation, 1998
Models for post-revolutionary Latin American government are born of the complex economic and social realities of 17th and 18th century Europe. From the momentum of the Enlightenment came major political rebellions of the elite class against entrenched national monarchies and systems of power. Within this time period of elitist revolt and intensive political restructuring, the fundamental basis for both liberal and conservative ideology was driven deep into Latin American soil. However, as neither ideology sought to fulfill or even recognize the needs or rights of mestizo people under government rule, the initial liberal doctrine pervading Latin American nations perpetuated racism and economic exploitation, and paved the way for all-consuming, cultural wars in the centuries to come.
The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly captures a Mexico in its true light.
8. Meyer, Michael C., et al. The Course of Mexican History, 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Mexico’s problems originally began upon the arrival of the Spanish in 1492, as illustrated in Major Problems in Mexican American History by Zaragosa Vargas as well as in the video documentary, Chicano!. The sequence of events which date back to the precolonial Spanish days and take place in Mexico’s history eventually provoke the national movement that called for social justice and equality, especially after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Then came the question of group and individual identity. Those of Mexican heritage were broken up into the groups "Chicanos," which were the ‘Americanized’ Mexicans or the Mexicans born in the United States, and the actual "Mexicans," who were the native born people which were discriminated against the most.
Walker, Thomas W. Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle. Westview Press, 2003. Boulder, CO.
*Vargas, Zaragosa . "Major Problems in Mexican American History.." Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.. (2011): n. page. Print. .
For the 71 years that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was in power, Mexico saw great political, social and economic upheaval. This can be seen in the evolution of the PRI party, whose reign over Mexican society came at the expense of true democracy. “A party designed for power, the PRI's mechanisms for success involved a combination of repressive measures. The party professed no specific ideology, enabling it to adapt to changing social, economic and political forces over time. It attached itself virtually all aspects of civil society, and in this way, it become the political extension and tool of the government.” In 2000, however, the PRI’s loss of its monopoly on political power and institutional corruption gave rise to inter-cartel violence that was created in the political void left after the PAN won the national presidential election. These conditions gave rise to the Zetas: a new type of cartel that changed the operational structure of previous drug cartels. The Zetas operate in a new militant structure associated with a higher brand of violence, which has led it to branch out beyond a traditional drug smuggling enterprise common under the PRI government. Simply put, the electoral defeat of the PRI in 2000 was supposed to usher in a more democratic era in Mexican politics. Instead, the PRI party’s defeat created a state of chaos that gave rise to inter-cartel violence and the birth of the Zetas cartel.
“Our Word Is Our Weapon,” by Subcomandante Marcos discusses how Mexican Capitalism and neoliberalism is destroying the values and traditions of the indigenous people of Chiapas. Throughout this text, Marcos cites many examples about how the government and business owners take many useful resources from Chiapas in order to export them to other countries to benefit the elitists. Marcos elaborates that this Capitalist approach severely damages the community of Chiapas by taking these resources away from the people living there, or making them too expensive for them to afford with their very low wages (EXAMPLE). With a background as a militant, Marcos has a passion for inspiring indigenous people to fight back against the repressive ways of the
In every field of endeavor, in every activity known to Man, whether sailboarding or physics, hairdressing or chipmunk catching, there are people who excel, people who go far beyond the rest. They reach the epitome while we mere mortals look up from below and marvel. So, when you have read the 526 pages of Womack Jr.'s book [not counting the appendices], you can tell yourself that you have read THE book on Zapata and his role in the Mexican Revolution. The author used every source available, he interviewed all those who were left alive to talk. I wonder if any new printed sources will ever be found ? Certainly everyone who played a role, however insignificant, in those long ago days of 1909-1920 is now dead, making new interviews extremely unlikely. This is a work of art, a work of love, and a vast labor that surely took a few years off the life of the author, not to mention breaking some relationships. It is the definitive work so far on the subject. If you want to know the story of why and how Emiliano Zapata, a once insignificant small town horse trader and farmer, became a legendary rebel whose name resounds throughout Mexico today---a man who fought unwaveringly for the rights of small farmers and villagers to the land they worked---then you have no choice but to read this volume. This is the epitome, this is the story in unbelievable detail; political, economic, social, military. And yet, Zapata himself almost disappears in the vast bulk of detailed historical and interpretive observations. It is not so much a work on an individual as on the whole period in a small area of Mexico.
When we hear discussions or read articles about drug wars, killings, and illegal immigration into the United States, many of us immediately think of Mexico. As a nation, Mexico is a much greater country than these commonly referred to issues. Mexico is a country with a broad history, deep family culture, and an economy fueled by oil and tourism. The United States Department of State (USDS) offers a broad range of information on countries outside the US, including Mexico. I found a wealth of information about Mexico through the USDS Background Note provided on their website located at www.state.gov. I will outline for you the key information found in this report, and others, related to the Mexican economy, culture, and more.
In this sense, the film tests the resiliency of good human nature. The modern world is becoming increasingly set in its extremes, as the lifestyle of the poor vastly contrasts that of the wealthy. The implementation of NAFTA reflects this movement toward separation, despite the fact that it was intended to boost trade between regions and create more prosperity on both sides of the United States-Mexico border. The Mexican elites saw it as their salvation. Others saw it as “ a death sentence.” The Chiapas region itself exemplifies this gap, as well. The region was split between the relatively prosperous west, which was fertile and characterized by commercial development, and the poor, subsistence-oriented east. It was not by accident that the Zapatista movement began in Chiapas as the struggle between ranchers, landowners, and subsistence farmers was intensified by NAFTA.
The Mexican Revolution. N.p., n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 09 Nov. 2013.
The Chicano history is a history of transformation based on conquest and struggle under a racial hierarchy. The Anglo-Americans’ intentions of creation of this racial foundation and segregating culture was to justify their act of assigning socio-economic functions to Mexican-Americans, limiting them to a cycle of exploitation and poverty. The meaning behind the contradiction of double aims was identified in El Plan de Santa Barbara’s manifesto and Menchaca’s Recovering History, which emphasized the neglect and distortion of Mexican-American history as a political act by Anglo-Americans to generate a negative, inferior image of these minorities, in comparison to their progressive “American” culture. This ultimately kept the two cultures unreconciled,
The Zapatista movement began on New Year’s Day in 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was to go into...
The goal of NAFTA was to systematically eliminate most tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and investment between the countries. NAFTA has allowed U.S., Mexico, and Canada to import and export to other at a lower cost, which has increased the profit of goods and services annually. Because the increase in the trade marketplace, NAFTA reduces inflation, creates agreements on intern...