Megaprojects
[Book] Radical Democracy: Recovering the Roots of Self-Government & Autonomy
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In the face of escalating crises—climate collapse, widening economic inequities, and the entrenched power of neoliberal states—the quest for radical democracy and autonomy has never been more urgent. It is in this convulsing global terrain that the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA) emerged in 2019, as a network of grassroots groups, social movements, and communities (especially in the Global South) working together to imagine, enact, and defend alternatives to the dominant political-economic order. Through its horizontal structure, knowledge-sharing practices, and emphasis on ecological sustainability, economic democracy, indigenous rights, and participatory governance, GTA offers an evolving guide for those seeking paths beyond extraction, oppression, and hierarchy.
This compilation gathers stories of radical democracy and autonomy precisely to contribute to that lifeline. The essays and narratives collected here are not abstract theorizing—they are grounded experiments and lived realities: communities practicing self‐governance; indigenous collectives reclaiming land, culture, and decision‐making; solidarities forged across borders resisting extractivism and marginalization. Each story reflects one of the core objectives of the GTA: networking and solidarity; knowledge sharing; amplifying alternative models; and fostering systemic transformation. By drawing these diverse threads into dialogue, this book aims to strengthen the tapestry, offering both inspiration and critical reflection for practitioners, activists, scholars, and anyone yearning to reimagine democracy not merely as a form of government but as a lived, relational, morally grounded process of autonomy.
As you turn these pages, you will sense a common insistence: that autonomy is inseparable from democratic participation, that radical democracy demands more than procedural reform—it demands transformation in how power, resources, and decision‐making are organized. These stories, spanning different geographies, cultures, and challenges, together affirm the vitality and multiplicity of alternative futures already in motion. May this collection serve as a bridge—across continents, across movements, across knowledges—within the GTA, both to honour what has been achieved and to stir what remains possible.
Credits
Franco Augusto and Shrishtee Bajpai edited this booklet report.
Design, Layout & Illustrations were created by Franco Augusto using free open-source software tools.
CALL TO THE MOBILIZATION IN DEFENSE OF LIFE IN AZQUELTÁN
To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
To the collectives, organizations, and networks of resistance on all continents
To the civil society in solidarity with the life of our people
From the Autonomous Indigenous Wixárika and Tepehuana Community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, we issue an urgent call, born from the pain, the rage, and the living memory of our brother and agrarian authority Marcos Aguilar Rojas, assassinated on November 26, 2025, and of our compañero Gabriel Aguilar Rojas, gravely injured in the same attack.
Considering:
That our words arise in a dark time. The attack that took Marcos’s life was not an isolated incident: it is the direct consequence of decades of armed aggressions, invasions of our communal lands, paramilitary attacks, threats, and a full structure of complicity and impunity, as demonstrated in the document we have made public.
That the community faces extreme danger today. The caciques and their groups of aggressors —the gunmen of the past and the gunmen of the present— continue to gather, patrol our roads with total impunity, protected by judicial operators, police, and officials who block investigations, cover up crimes, and guarantee the continuation of the attacks.
That the violence is neither new nor isolated: it is a strategy of territorial dispossession, aiming to exterminate the community in order to seize thousands of hectares of communal lands that, since time immemorial, belong to our people.
WE CALL FOR
THE DAYS FOR LIFE IN AZQUELTÁN
to take place from December 6 to 10, with activities in different territories and geographies:
December 6
Press Conference
Guadalajara International Book Fair
Gathering: 12:00 p.m.
December 7
Vigil for Azqueltán
Guadalajara International Book Fair
Gathering: 6:00 p.m., bring candles
December 10
Mobilization in Mexico City
Mobilization in support of the Azqueltán community
Gathering: Torre del Caballito, 11:00 a.m.
December 10
Mobilization in the city of Guadalajara
Gathering: El Santuario, 11:00 a.m.
Call for Global Action
We call on conscious Indigenous peoples, human rights collectives and organizations, and national and international civil society to carry out decentralized actions in their territories, plazas, community centers, universities, embassies, or consulates from December 6 to 10, to amplify our fundamental demands.
Please register the actions to be carried out by writing to: cnicomunicacion@gmail.com
Justice for Marcos and Gabriel.
Punishment for the material and intellectual perpetrators, and guarantees of non-repetition.
Safety for the community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, through the permanent presence of federal security forces to prevent new armed attacks.
Urgent titling of the Communal Lands, for the federal government of Mexico to assume its historic responsibility and definitively title the communal lands of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán.
Dismantling of the network of impunity that protects the murderers, invaders, and caciques responsible for dispossession, violence, and death.
Respectfully
December 2025
Because our struggle is for life,
For memory and for the communal land.
Because Marcos lives in every step we take.
Autonomous Indigenous Community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán
National Indigenous Congress
