Them and Us. VII. – The Smallest of them All 2: How is it done?
Them and Us.
VII. – The Smallest of them All 2:
How is it done?
February 2013
Note: Compas, at another time (that is, if there is one) I will explain to you how our EZLN is organized. For now, we don’t want to distract you from the “Sharing.” We only want to clarify that you will see something about an “Information Commission.” This commission is made up of compañeras andcompañeros, comandantes and comandantas, (the CCRI, or Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee), who are watching over the work of autonomy, supporting the Juntas de Buen Gobierno (Good Government Councils), and who keep the Zapatista bases of support informed as to how everything is going.
For now, then, more fragments from the Zapatista “sharing”:
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(…)
This is how we work, then. The last question here asks: How do you resolve problems? Yes there have been problems in the municipality. Land problems, threats, problems with electricity, yes they exist, and I think that these problems exist in all of the communities because it isn’t just bases of support who live together, we have even more problems where we live in the official [ruling party] pueblos where our enemies are, where those who govern are, where there are paramilitaries, that’s where we have these problems. But we have to figure out how to govern ourselves, even though it is difficult to learn this because, as other compañeros have said, there is no instruction manual. There is no a guide for this, there isn’t anything written down anywhere that tells us what to do; rather, we have to remember that this is how our ancestors served when they weren’t named by officials but rather by the people, and they served the people, and they didn’t get a salary. Corruption and bad service began when salaries entered into the equation.
It is in this way, in the little that I have done in my pueblo and in my municipality, that I have been able to serve, although as I said, we continue to learn, we do not just know how to do things because we are older. We continue learning with everyone [male and female]. I think this is the purpose of the distinct levels [of government], and the commissioners and agents, they each have a function but they lack a way to resolve problems. In our case, we have to learn how to govern because we are not trained in this, because we as campesinos are more focused on the countryside, our law is the machete, the file, and the pozol[i] that we carry with us. So, I don’t know if I’m wrong compañeros, but this is what I have to share with you.
(…)
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We have had a lot of meetings and made many agreements, more than just once we had to arrive at an agreement. We learned that this is difficult work; it isn’t easy to do. Why? Because as I said a little while ago, we don’t have a guide, there is no manual that we can look at to see what to do, a guide we can follow; we learned through our work with our people.
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(…)
Compañeros, this is what we have been talking about and I won’t add much more about the way we want to work. Many times the Junta cannot do the work alone, even though that idea crosses our minds; rather, the work must be based on coordination with the councils, and the committees [CCRI], so that we can carry out this idea of how we think things should work, this is what we have seen in some cases.
For example, with respect to the cargos,[ii] the responsibilities, we see the difficulty of having lots of work to do. When I had my cargo, we saw that sometimes there was work that the Junta didn’t have the capacity to cover. For example, at that time there weren’t drivers for the clinic, the Junta had to be the driver, it had to be the cook, it had to fetch firewood; there were a lot of tasks and on top of that we had all of the office work to do, like studying the pending issues, pending tasks or municipal issues that hadn’t been resolved, and there just wasn’t time for everything. Now I see, and this crossed our minds then, that we needed support, another driver in that case, because sometimes in the middle of the night we would have to go and get someone who was seriously ill, and it was the Junta that had to go, and would get back at three or four in the morning. This problem crossed our minds but we couldn’t find a solution, the situation presented itself, but we couldn’t resolve it.
One example during my turn as Junta was that we wanted to diagnose which illnesses were the most frequent in the municipalities. We couldn’t define this in the Junta, not even with the information we had. I had to ask the mando [local Zapatista authority], as is required, as to whether or not I could go to the municipalities for this information. So I asked the municipalities and some of the municipalities again did not act, some gave this response – they had consulted the people regarding which illness was most frequent and it was typhoid, there had been a typhoid breakout, but they hadn’t formed the councils [we asked for]. So work gets done when the process functions well, like a machine. When a machine doesn’t function, or a piston or a cylinder doesn’t work, the car can’t go up the hill; it doesn’t have the force. This is what happened with our authority, although the Junta thinks or wants to make a proposal for approval in the assembly, sometimes, many times, it doesn’t get approval and doesn’t go anywhere.
But yes, this is a necessity. I saw at that time that there was a lot of work that year because we didn’t have a driver. Now I see that they are rotating drivers to tend to the clinics, and to do the related work of washing the car, checking the tires, getting gasoline, the Junta isn’t responsible for that now.
With this step, things are getting better, and I think that like this, bit by bit, it will continue to get better, as long as we are thinking and studying the necessities that arise, because the work in the zone or the municipality is also growing little by little. Little by little, more compañeras will participate because the work is growing. So we see here that what is really important is coordination among everyone, taking everything into account, in order to develop proposals and new ideas for how we can work.
It is important not to lose contact with the people. These days I hear sometimes that things for which the people were consulted at one point can now be done without consultation, that they can change a few words without the people knowing. This is a problem and can cause things to run amok, because if we teach the people and explain to them, and then all of the sudden leave them aside, they start to talk, to argue.
This can create disagreements, or cause them to speak badly of the authorities, and many times we need to go back and explain to the people. As we said earlier today, the Junta has to be very clear on the seven principles. [This refers to the 7 principles of “lead by obeying” that guide the Juntas de Buen Gobierno: Serve, not Serve yourself/ Represent, not Supplant/ Construct, not Destroy/ Obey, not Command/ Propose, not Impose/ Convince, not Defeat/ Go Below, not Climb Above.]
The point is to convince the people, not to overcome them with the force of authority, you have to explain to them the reason for modifying certain rules or accords, you have to explain this to them; because if I am an authority and I don’t explain to them why we do or don’t do something, the question arises – was this point consulted with the people? This could create a grievance even if the people understand the decision, so explanations are meant to convince them and not to overcome them by force, so that people do not get discouraged or confused. This is what I wanted to explain a little more, because that’s where dissent begins and how people get demoralized, this is how I see the problem.
You must always be close to the people so that this does not happen.
There are also people who might want to do something without majority agreement, so you have to explain to them that it can’t be done, we have had a few cases like this. There are people who come to the office and even raise their voice to the authorities, but we can’t accept their proposal because it depends on having majority approval. In these cases one has to be clear, one has to explain to the people and try to convince them, try to help them understand why we do things this way. This is what I think, compañeros, and this is what I try to explain about the seven principles, it is what I have understood, what I have learned a little about. I have not learned much because I only worked in that role for three years and little by little I realized how things needed to be. At that moment we couldn’t do the work easily because we entered as new [authorities] without support, but now there arecompañeros who have stayed on for one more year to accompany the new authorities, so they have some support.
But when we began it wasn’t like that, we had only the support of the committees [CCRI], they were there, and with that support, gradually we were able to understand things. I understood a little, and that is what I could explain to you compañeros.
(…)
How were they chosen?
They were chosen by the assembly; something like where we find ourselves now. In each municipality we convoked an assembly of the entire base and directly chose the group of compañeros to do that would do the work of autonomy.
What is their work? What work were these compañeros going to do? Because we had practically no knowledge about this, maybe a few people had some, but the majority had no knowledge about this task, what would we do? We would work on autonomy, we would govern ourselves, but “how” is the question that arose, what is it exactly that we’re going to do? Well, no one knew the answer, but with the passage of time, with these authorities in place, problems arose that they would have to handle. There really were problems in each of our pueblos, in each of our municipalities.
What were the problems that the authorities faced at that time?
At that time, the principal problems we faced were alcoholism, domestic problems, problems between neighbors, and some agrarian problems.
So what did this group of compañeros do when a problem presented itself?
What they did was discuss it: first the person with the complaint would come and they listened to that person’s problem. When they had listened, they would call in the other party, they listened to both sides. So this group of compañeros listened, first they listened to what the problem was and who was right. When they could see that the person with the complaint was right, then they had to talk with the other compañero with whom the first had the problem.
At that time, the authorities would try to give them ideas, that is, convince both sides to arrive at a peaceful solution without so much drama.
This is what the authorities did with other types of problems as well, in agrarian issues for instance, they would convince the compañeros not to fight, not to fight over a piece of land. If one compañero’s land was being taken by somebody else, then they had to explain to the compañero who was taking the land why this shouldn’t be, what is right, is right.
(…)
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(…)
Yes, that is true, but my question then is if you need to make a rule, who proposes the idea? Where does the idea come from regarding what the rule should be? Who is it that says, ‘I propose this’? Where does the idea come from? And so on. What do you do to unite the voice of the people, if it is originally the Junta’s idea? Does the Junta take this on or do they still need the support of the compañeros of the Information Commission? Or who is it that says that we need to create a rule here?
Another compañero’s response: What you have described, where an initiative comes directly from the compañeros who are authorities, an initiative for a rule comes directly from the compañeras who are in authority, that hasn’t happened yet. It is between compañeras and compañeros.
No, compa, my question is as Junta de Buen Gobierno, not as compañeras. As Junta de Buen Gobierno, and this is just an example that I am giving, it doesn’t have to be specifically about a rule or law. When you see that there is a need or there is a problem – I use the example of a rule because it requires a relation – the Junta de Buen Gobierno isn’t going to impose a law, and so we want to discuss how it is that you handle this. Because it is here that democracy enters into play, and this is what we want to understand. Because as you told us, there won’t always be insurgent leaders present, and, as we understand, the Information Commission, or the CCRI [Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee] won’t always be there either. So you as the Juntas de Buen Gobierno, how do you approach something that needs to be handled, a law or a problem, some issue that needs to move forward, a project or whatever it may be. How do the Juntas de Buen Gobierno, the MAREZ [Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities in Rebellion],the authorities and the people relate?
That is, how is democracy made?
(…)
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To be continued…
I testify.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, February 2013
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Listen to and watch the videos that accompany this text.
Alfredo Zitarrosa, perhaps involuntary teacher of a generation, oriental who still fights with the coplas, vidalitas, and milongas. Here he is singing “Adagio en mi pais,” and by country, of course, he refers to every corner of the many worlds that abound and redound.
Arturo Meza with the song “La Rebeldía de la Luz.” In one part of the song, master Meza mentions each one of the original peoples who, in Mexico, resist and struggle.
Daniel Viglietti, our brother and compa, reads a story called “La Historia del Ruido y del Silencio,” which tries, in vain, to explain the Zapatista silences and the Zapatista gaze.
[i] Pozol is a highly nutritious drink made of the dough from ground corn mixed with water. It is commonly consumed in the Mexican countryside as a midday meal.
[ii] Cargo is like a combination of duty and task, or charge; it also refers to a position of responsibility.
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Traducción del Kilombo Intergaláctico.
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Them and Us. VII.- The Smallest of them All 1.- Learning to govern and govern ourselves, that is, to respect and respect ourselves.
Them and Us.
VII.- The Smallest of them All 1.
1.- Learning to govern and govern ourselves, that is, to respect and respect ourselves.
February 2013.
Note: the notebooks that make up the support material for the course “Freedom According to the Zapatistas,” are a product of meetings that the Zapatista bases of support in all zones have carried out to evaluate their work in the organization.
Compañeras and compañeros from the communities in resistance of the 5 caracoles,[i] tzotziles, choles, tzeltales, tojolabales, mames, zoques y mestizos, gathered to ask and answer questions among themselves, exchange experiences (which are different in each zone), and to criticize, self-criticize, and evaluate what they have done so far and what they still have to do. These meetings were coordinated by our compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, and were recorded, transcribed, and edited for the notebooks. Since during these meetings the compas shared among themselves their thoughts, histories, problems, and possible solutions, they themselves named the process: “the sharing.” These are a few loose fragments of the Zapatista sharing:
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(…)
We are here to share our experiences, and one of these is, as we Zapatistas say, that we govern together, we govern as a collective. What can we share about the way in which you govern together, collectively?
The way we work is by not separating ourselves from the people. Always, with issues of regulations, plans, activities, and work, we have to get information from the people, and the [community] authorities have to be present in making the plans, making the proposals.
(…)
We are thinking and working through various things, and we think that part of the duty of autonomous government is to attend to whoever comes to our office with an issue. Whether or not that issue can be resolved, it must be heard. This is for whoever comes in, Zapatista or not, that is how we work. The exception to this is people from the government or people sent from the government, in which case they are not attended to. But as long as that is not the case, anyone from any social organization is heard. Also in our work we are always vigilant about honoring the seven principles of “rule by obeying.” We consider this to be necessary, to be our obligation, in order not to make the same mistakes and develop the same habits of the entities of bad government. So the seven principles are what govern us.
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The first Aguascalientes, built in Guadalupe Tepeyac, was where we took our first step toward organization and toward our own way of exercising our rights. This Aguascalientes was a cultural, political, social, economic, and ideological center. When Ernesto Zedillo[ii] betrayed us in a [military] offensive that dismantled the Aguascalientes, he thought our organizational politics would come to an end. But the opposite happened, because that same year, 1994, it was declared that we would build five more Aguascalientes.
(…)
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These municipalities decided where their municipal seat would be, and began to think about names for the municipalities, what they would be called when the Aguascalientees was ready. The first autonomous municipality, La Garrucha, was called Francisco Gómez; the municipality that is today San Manuel was before Las Tazas; Taniperlas was renamed Ricardo Flores Magón; San Salvador was named Francisco Villa. All of these names honored compañeros. Francisco Gómez, a name we all know now, was a compañero who gave his life to our cause, he died in combat in Ocosingo on January 1st. San Manuel honors the compañero Manuel, founder of our organization. Ricardo Flores Magón, we know was a warrior of social struggle in our history. And Francisco Villa was also a revolutionary that we all know. So our municipalities were formed as agreed in our community assemblies, and in the regional assembly we decided on their names. Compañeros, those are the few words that I have to say and now other compañeros or compañeras will explain what comes next.
(…)
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The principal problems that we had since the beginning of [inaudible], the problem of alcoholism, how is this problem now in your zone?
So in those days, at the beginning of 1994, a little after the war, some joined [the organization] out of fear. The war started, we all got together, we joined up for various reasons, but we joined up. Some did so consciously, but others out of fear. So those that joined out of fear, well of course they weren’t happy doing the work of the organization, so what did they do? We had the order not to drink alcohol, but they drank anyway, while trying to hide it. So what did we do? We didn’t punish them, what we did—and this is why we have the commission of elders—was have this commission explain to them why we made this rule, and explain the damage they were doing to themselves. So those who want to obey keep going, and those who don’t leave. That is our answer.
(…)
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Compañeros and compañeras, good afternoon to everyone. I come from a village called ____, which is part of the municipality Francisco Villa. I am here representing the Junta de Buen Gobierno [Good Government Council], my cargo[iii] was Consejo[“Council”], from 2006 to 2009. I am going to explain how the responsibilities we have today came about. It’s not my job yet to explain where we started in 1994, rather, I’m going to tell a little about where we started after 1994. Before, in 91, 92, what was the cause of the armed uprising? It was the domination, marginalization, humiliation, injustice, and the norms or laws of the bad governments and the landowning exploiters. In those days, our parents and grandparents were not taken into account, they suffered, and didn’t have land to work and maintain their children. So the Zapatista pueblos began to organize, we said “enough of so much humiliation.” So we rose up in arms, we weren’t bothered by having to walk at night, or by hunger.
So we trained and educated ourselves, and we saw that organized, united, we could do things, and that we would be able to do many more things. After the uprising, we began to look at how to advance the training of our autonomous authorities in each municipality. That’s why we are all gathered here, to talk and share how our autonomous governments began to function. Why do I want to explain a little about this? Because I think that from that point on we were advancing toward where we are now. On this subject the compañero ___ is going to explain how we are working in our municipalities and in the Junta de Buen Gobierno today. That’s all I have to say, compañeros.
Compañeros, as the other compa already told you, now our compañero ____ is going to try to explain a little because he was the founder of our autonomous government in Caracol III, in la Garrucha, they were the first authorities. So they are going to share how they worked, how they were, how they began, and how things have been until today.
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(…)
Ah I forgot to mention something before, about a month after we began our work, an organization called CIOAC [of PRD affiliation], kidnapped one of our compañeros along with a truck, so we had to denounce this but we didn’t have any idea how to make a denunciation. Members of the Junta de Buen Gobierno and municipal councils had to go and speak, a few words each, to make this denunciation, as a team, and that’s how we went about making the denunciation, but we got it out. And that’s why we started designating a secretary, a cook, someone who sweeps up, because we had to clean up our own office and our work area, we didn’t have anyone especially for those tasks and that’s how we still do it today.
(…)
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(…)
So we went on working like that and we reached 2003, when the Juntas de Buen Gobierno were formed. We didn’t know still, in our zone, if the leadership of the association of municipalities would one day be the authorities, the government. But in 2003, when the Juntas de Buen Gobierno were born, the people and the association of municipalities decided that those eight compañeros, members of the Leadership of the Association of Municipalities, would become the authorities of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. And those eight compañeros are those who take on the cargo of the Junta de Buen Gobierno for its first period, from 2003 to 2006.
So that’s how it happened, and under those conditions, the Junta de Buen Gobierno did not yet have an adequate space to work in. A few days before the existence of Juntas de Buen Gobierno was made public, the pueblos quickly and urgently constructed a space for the Junta de Buen Gobierno, as well as a place for each of the autonomous municipalities in the center of the Caracol. These were built with the materials that the pueblos had in that moment—used wood and used tin sheets—and that’s how we started, building those spaces, and in less than a week they were ready. So the offices were ready when we made the Juntas public in August of 2003. After they were made public the pueblos gathered together, proud of having created another entity of government as part of our autonomy. We held a party, a big celebration, to formally install the new autonomous government, and give it the office we had built and the materials with which we had supplied it.
We could say it was a bunch of stuff, but what the pueblo gave the Junta de Buen Gobierno was a table with two chairs, those were the supplies, and the space, a little smaller than this room we are in now. Those were the conditions at that time. A few days later, someone donated a very old machine [computer] and with that the work began. We received the space almost empty and that’s how we started, work initiatives arose and we got going, setting up the space.
(…)
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In this work, as you can see, in the zone where we work, there are different forms of being, different forms of dressing, different colors, different beliefs, different ways of speaking, and so in that work we respect our compañeros and compañeras, regardless of how they are. The only thing that interests us is the will and capacity to work, so all of this about how someone is doesn’t concern us.
(…)
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(To be continued…)
I testify to this.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, February 2013.
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“Poder Caracol” by Lengualerta/Cuyo, music Taxi Gang. Video of Pazyarte, images of the Caracol Zapatista in Oventik, Chiapas. At the minute 2:42 they ask 2 international compas what they learned. They respond: “to share.”
Zach de La Rocha, vocalist of Rage Against Machine, explains capital’s interest in annihilating zapatismo (with a small intervention by Noam Chomsky). Zach has been in Zapatista communities, acting like just one more among many, without boasting about who he was and who is he. He knew how to see us; we learned from seeing him. Background music: the track “People of the Sun.”
The track “Canto a la Rebelión,” from the group SKA-P, lyrics included. This track is part of their new album “99%,” which will come out this coming March 2013, courtesy of Marquitos Spoil. Oh, no reason to be presumptuous. ¡Órales con el brincolín!
[i] The Caracoles, literally “shells” or “spirals” were announced in 2003 as the homes of the Juntas de Buen Gobierno, or Good Government Councils. They replaced the five Zapatista “Aguascalientes,” one in each zone of Zapatista territory. When the EZLN first announced their existence they were described, in addition to being the seats of the self-government system, as “doors to enter into the communities” and “windows to see in and out.”
[ii] Ex-president of Mexico, 1994-2000.
[iii] Cargo is like a combination of duty and task, or charge; it also refers to a position of responsibility.