Addressing Revolution: The Zapatistas and Paradigms of Analysis
The Zapatista revolution was an armed struggle started by the indigenous people of the state of Chiapas, Mexico. It was a fight for social justice, and liberty from the tyranny of the Mexican Federal government. Although the basis of the Zapatista population was indigenous Mayans, there were many peoples who participated in the revolution. It was a struggle based on a common cause, not on one’s ethnic background. Post-positivist Realists and Critical Race Theorists analyze the origin of the Zapatista identity utilizing separate paradigms, but both can aid in making sense of and offering suggestions concerning this struggle.
The revolution did not begin with the explosion of struggle on January 1st 1994; the Zapatista movement was first organized in 1983 in the Lacandón Jungle in Chiapas Mexico. There the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) was established (Ramírez, 2008). The EZLN was established because of terrible injustices of structural violence endured by the indigenous people of Chiapas as a result of the neoliberal policies and actions of the Mexican Federal government. At the time of the EZLN’s formation, the indigenous villages of Chiapas were rife with poverty (Barmeyer, 2008), this is mostly due to the indifference of the government towards indigenous health and wellness. The people of Chiapas harvest the rich natural resources that are there, but they receive none of the benefits and the government does not provide any services (Farmer 2005). Thus the revolution was a call for basic rights among the indigenous people of Chiapas: food, shelter, healthcare, education, and other basic necessities, but most important was liberty, justice, equality, and a world in which many worlds can exist. The revolution started with a bang on January 1st 1994; the Zapatistas captured seven municipal districts, striking a devastating initial blow in order to arrest a great amount of attention (Ramírez, 2008). Their plan worked perfectly. Not only did they strike a huge first blow, but within days reporters had flooded in from all over the world to document the struggle. In the interest of how to analyze this struggle my interest is not in understanding the war but the movement itself. There are two paradigms by which this struggle that will be used for this purpose. The first is Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the second is Post-Positivist Realism (PPR).
The first question one might ask is, “How is it possible to use a theory that addresses race in the context of the Zapatista revolution, since it is a movement that has no particular ethnic basis?” It is quite simple really: the paradigm remains the same, except one only need to replace the word “race” with a more inclusive term such as “identity”. Delgado (2001) explains that CRT is an approach to understanding prejudicial tension that is divided into to two schools. The first of these is composed of people called “idealists”, and their ideology is that race is a social construct of psychology, a prejudice associated with mental categorization and stereotyping. Therefore, one only needs to get rid of the societal influences that sponsor views that delineate people into groups like race, such as words and attitudes. In other words, since race is socially constructed, the mindset of race only needs to be removed from our every day social interaction, eventually causing our prejudice to cease. The other school of thought within CRT composed “realists”. These individuals take the Idealist ideology a step further because they also hold that getting rid of the socially constructed idea of race is important, they also claim, however, that race is constructed in order to delineate status and privilege. Realists are quick to point out that racism began with the exploitation of slave labor, and every case of discrimination since then has been on due to the part of the party that has a desire to gain status in society. Therefore, according to the realists, in order to overcome discrimination and prejudice society must take on a utilitarian and political approach in leveling out the stratification of groups. We can fit this paradigm into the context of the Zapatista from several angles. First, CRT theorists, particularly the idealists, would suggest that the indigenous people of Chiapas suffer based on societal constructions that delineate between indigenous and otherwise normal citizens of Mexico. This includes their identity as Mayans, but because of their inter-ethnic identity as Zapatistas it is because other people view them as rebels, socialists, radicals or other discriminatory terms that oppose the neo-liberal the orientation of Mexican federal interests. Secondly, the realist point of view would suggest that the EZLN’s struggle against discrimination is due to the neoliberal of the Mexican government interests in that the Chiapan people’s identity as “indigenous” serves as a means to relocate privileges and opportunities to those of the Federal government. In other words, labeling people as indigenous gives the government the ability to delineate rights and privileges separately instead of as one people. This, in turn, affects the political process in providing the essential liberty, equality, goods and services that the indigenous people of Chiapas receive. Therefore, CRT theorists would suggest that to end the struggle there must be a stripping of the socially constructed view of the Zapatistas as being indigenous and instead view them as fellow human beings, and then there would also be a need to balance out the inequality that exists between these two groups, which is, in summary, what the Zapatistas are fighting for. But idealists of CRT assume that if we deconstruct the psychology of race then the problems will disappear, but the poor will always be marginalized from equality. Human rights are respected only when the poor are provided with the necessities due to them (Farmer 2005), and this is the struggle of the Zapatistas
Post-Positivist Realism is a theoretical framework that can shed some light on the Zapatista movement. Moya (2000), addressing PPR, explains that groups are constructed merely to maintain boundaries between groups, but they don’t have any meaning, they are strictly utilitarian and provide no definition. This is because no matter how many people make up a group, it would be impossible to say that everyone in that group is ontologically the same. However, PPR theorists would argue that identities, though they have no meaning and provide no definition, are very real and, although it’s impossible to shove everyone into the same category, they can be used to enable movements and causes as a tool. This is a reaction to the post-modern mindset, whose ideology is that no identity is valid because no one person within a group can speak on behalf of another person in the group without compromising that person’s personal ontology. PPR theorists would state that we can and should use identities not as definitive, but as tools to cause change. This makes perfect sense in light of the Zapatista movement. The EZLN was formed, for the most part, by indigenous Mayans, but their movement involves a diverse group of people from all over the world with different ideologies and backgrounds. Their movement was for anyone who stood by the changes that the Zapatistas wanted in the government of Mexico, and they fostered a completely democratic structure. For example, there are no specific “leaders” within the Zapatista movement: Subcomandante Marcos is certainly a figure that speaks out for the Zapatistas, but he is a Subcomandante because he serves the people. The role of government, they believe, is to obey, not to rule (Glendhill 2008). The PPR perspective seems to play into the Zapatista movement perfectly. This shared identity as Zapatistas is due the fact that these people are a victim of circumstance, which seems to be the case according to PPR theorists.
The Zapatista movement continues today, though it has undergone changes and faced many challenges. Ramírez (2008) tells of how the EZLN, with much reluctance from the Mexican government, has gotten some of the things that they are still fighting for, although many setbacks arise with the unjust retaliation from the government. The two paradigms of Post-Positivist Realism and Critical Race Theory that analyze the process of discrimination shed light on how the Zapatistas were formed and why they still struggle today. Critical Race Theory claims that what ought to be done is to level out the field of equality through a utilitarian approach. If this is done then the power will be equally distributed and exploitation will no longer be needed, thus there will no longer be a need for creating groups and discrimination will cease. Post Positivist-Realists argue that groups cannot have any real definition, and thus are only a tool that enables. Therefore, the discrimination will cease as soon as the need for the Zapatista identity will cease. The struggle must be overcome with the Mexican federal government before the indigenous Chiapans will be able to live self-sufficiently in a peaceful, non-discriminatory society.
Barmeyer, Niels
2008 Taking on the State: Resistance, Education, and other Challenges Facing the Zapatista Autonomy Project. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 15:506-527
Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic
2001 Hallmark Critical Race Theory Themes. In Critical Race Theory: And Introduction. New York: New York University Press.
Farmer, Paul
2005 Lessons from Chiapas. In Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Pp. 92-114. University of California Press.
Glendhill, John
2008 Introduction: Anthropological Perspectives on Indigenous Resurgence in Chiapas. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 15:483-505
Moya, Paula
2000 Introduction: Reclaiming Identity. Cultural Logic 3(2) http://clogic.eserver.org/3-1&2/moya.html, accessed January 10, 2007.
Ramírez, Gloria Muñoz
2008 1983-1993: Pieces of the Puzzle. In The Fire & the Word: A History of the Zapatista Movement. Pp. 47-96. City Lights Books, San Francisco.
Ramírez, Gloria Muñoz
2008 The Armed Uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation: The War. In The Fire & the Word: A History of the Zapatista Movement. Pp. 105-113. City Lights Books, San Francisco.