The Zapatista rebellion in the context of globalization

Abstract

This article examines how globalization both stimulated and restrained the Zapatista rebellion. Globalization and structural adjustment led Mexico to cut back social programmes while beefing up military response to social protest. But as the Zapatistas rose in rebellion, neoliberal planners had already shifted tactics to shore up the weakened state through formal ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’. Such resort to the ‘rule of law’ has helped Mexico contain the rebellion, but not to defuse it. Zapatista and government relations are currently in stalemate.

Notes

1 See Collier and Quaratiello 2005 for analysis of the background to the rebellion and developments since 1994.

2 Burbach 1994 made the first argument for the Zapatistas as postmodern. Ronfeldt et al. 1998: 9] assert that the Zapatista rebellion involved a new kind of ‘social netwar’, facilitated by the information revolution, using ‘network forms of organization’ to mobilize support from dispersed groups in an ‘internetted manner’ rather than by conventional military or guerrilla means. Castells 1997 discusses the Zapatista rebellion as the emergence of a postmodern identity in the global order.

3 Salinas's ‘reform’ of Article 27 of the Constitution ended Mexico's agrarian reform and angered peasants in Chiapas, who were responsible for 30 per cent of the country's outstanding agrarian claims. Equally important were efforts under PROCEDE (the Programa de Certificación de Derechos Ejidales y Titulación de Solares Urbanos) to complete the national cadastral registry and to document secure title to landed property [Nuijten, 2004, as urged by international advisors as a prerequisite to investment in the countryside. While some peasant groups in other areas have taken the option to privatize and individualize collective holdings, this has not happened in Chiapas. Rather, since 1994, the state government has pressed forward in binding negotiations with peasant groups to resolve the backlog of land claims, primarily by purchasing land to give to claimants as private holdings. So far, the government has ignored the Zapatista call for a restoration of the agrarian reform.

4 After the recent presidential and Chiapas gubernatorial elections, in which abstention in Chiapas was about 50 per cent, the Zapatista support group Enlace y Contacto por la Consulta Nacional Zapatista declared the elections antidemocratic and illegitimate, primarily because Fox and Salazar plan to continue neoliberal policies despite having won barely 15 per cent of the support of the voting age population (report according to Internet Bulletin of MELEL XOJOBAL, Servicio informativo al pueblo indígena, Síntesis de prensa, 26 September 2000).

5 See Keck and Sikkink 1998 for a discussion of the role of civil society in developing human rights advocacy and for the developments linking human rights to indigenous rights activism in Mexico.

6 U.N. Dec. A/6316 [Blaustein, et al., 1987: 20–27]. On the Zapatista demand for land, Article 1 Section 2 states that ‘all peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.’ On the demand for housing and nutrition, Article 11 Section 1 holds for the ‘right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing.’ On the demand for work, Article 6 Section 1 sets forth the ‘right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts.’ On health, Article 12 Section 1 concerns the ‘right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.’ On schools, Article 13 Section 1 declares the ‘right of everyone to an education.’ The demands for justice and democratic representation are covered in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (U.N. Dec. A/810) and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (U.N. Doc. A/6316).

7 See Speed and Collier 2000 for discussion of the Chiapas government's use of human rights discourses to limit indigenous autonomy.

8 While transnational investors have not expressed interest in developing the Zapatista areas of the state, they have planned projects in other areas of Chiapas. For example, a US firm, Genesee and Wyoming, and the new governor of Chiapas, Pablo Salazar, recently announced an accord in which the firm will invest $50 million in modernizing the rail lines extending down Chiapas's Pacific coast to facilitate economic development and introduction of maquiladora industry (as reported in the Internet Bulletin of MELEL XOJOBAL, Servicio informativo al pueblo indígena, Síntesis de prensa, 29 January 2001).

9 See http://www.ciepac.org/analysis/ppp1.htm (accessed 29 June 2004) ‘Plan Puebla Panamá Primera Parte’, Boletín ‘Chiapas al día’ No. 233 CIEPAC of 7 March 2001.

10 We have heard anecdotally that the growing numbers of Zapatistas are migrating, undocumented, to the United States for work and are sending remittances home to support autonomy projects. On this, see the contribution to this volume by Villafuerte Solís.

11 The demand to control administration of archeological sites was made by groups also demanding cabinet positions in Salazar's state government, according to the Internet Bulletin of MELEL XOJOBAL, Servicio informativo al pueblo indígena, Síntesis de prensa, 25 September 2000.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

George A. Collier

George A. Collier and Jane F. Collier are both Emeriti Professors of Anthropology at Stanford University, California. This article was first published in The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalization [Foran, 2003: 242–52] and is presented here, with minor updates, with permission of Zed Books. The paper draws on research by G. Collier supported in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Programme on Peace and International Cooperation, for research on ‘Differentiation, Radicalization, and the Emergence of the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas', as well on support from the National Science Foundation (grants BNS 8804607 to G. Collier for a study of ‘Agrarian Change in Southeastern Mexico’; SBR-9601370 to G. and J. Collier for ‘Monitoring Rapid Social Change in Southeastern Mexico’; and SBR 97-10396 to J. Collier for ‘Mapping Interlegality in Chiapas’. We thank the participants of the Wellesley College seminars on ‘The Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas’ and ‘Human Rights and Globalization’ for discussion contributing to the development of this article. We are grateful for advice from John Foran, Tim Harding, Jan Rus and other participants in an earlier conference on ‘The Future of Revolutions in the Context of Globalization’