A-Infos (en) Sicilia Libertaria 2-24: Relativism: Legal rebels: the Zapatista case in Mexico (4) (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

The research path that led me from Italy to Bolivia and then, among 
other nations, to Mexico, chasing the traces of a possible legal 
pluralism within societies with indigenous populations, nations with 
their own languages, cultures and norms, finally arrives , in Chiapas, 
where the rebellion of a people has produced spaces of self-managed 
freedom, without fetishizing the past and looking to the future. Some 
essential facts: In 1994, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, organized 
indigenous groups rebelled against the domination and control of the 
Mexican state, creating a local resistance movement and also inspiring 
other indigenous groups to organize themselves. As Subcomandante Marcos 
declared, it was not about the seizure of power, but "just something 
more difficult: a new world". Thirty years later, the Lacandon region 
has seen the development of new forms of sociality, based largely on 
indigenous tradition, including the organization of its own forms of 
administering justice. All this was possible, thanks to multiple 
strategies of struggle and communication, managing to have the support 
of part of the non-indigenous Mexican population and, even more, in the 
Western world, especially the one that saw in the Zapatista struggle, an 
example to follow . One of the most important characteristics of the 
social and political system that has been built over the last thirty 
years concerns the management of power, which tends to be horizontal, 
where those in charge of managing public life, who hold office for three 
years, do not decide but, in as representatives, they carry out the 
decisions that the local community has taken and whose execution they 
control: "Command by obeying" is the key rule of this system.

The complete exclusion of the state from community life, sometimes even 
defended with weapons, was the condition for the production of a new 
model of society, even if it was not easy, given that the original 
indigenous societies were transformed over the centuries of colonial and 
republican domination, so much so that current cultures are the result 
of mixtures and syncretisms, of impositions but also of resistance and 
appropriations of foreign cultural elements implanted, more or less 
consciously, on the fabric of traditional cultures, managing to largely 
maintain part of their basic identities, languages and cultures. For 
this reason, when thinking about the future, the Zapatistas found 
themselves in need of producing alternative management models which, 
without betraying the past, could be used to manage the new realities. 
The contribution of subcomandante Marcos in this process is undeniable, 
as he personified the different utopian traditions, both indigenous and 
libertarian-derived.

As regards the administration of justice, the Zapatista system that has 
been refined during these thirty years is structured into three 
overlapping levels of internal functioning, even if it is open to 
comparison and even clash with the Mexican national system. The most 
basic level concerns minor crimes, such as thefts or offenses, arguments 
between neighbors and even between spouses, scandalous drunks, etc. The 
elected municipal authorities are in charge of these problems, even if, 
in complicated cases, the municipal assembly is used, which 
fundamentally defends the good functioning of the life of the local 
community. Problems are not always resolved satisfactorily by the 
assembly, so a specifically appointed Honor and Justice Commission may 
be called upon. This is also used when problems involve more than one 
community, even if the last instance is represented by the Good 
Government Council, the general organization of the communities. This is 
the level that also deals with cases involving non-Zapatista individuals 
or other political organizations and, of course, the non-indigenous 
government of the region (political issues, active conflicts and land 
disputes). Finally, it is important to highlight that, when it comes to 
domestic problems or problems that, in general, involve women, these are 
dealt with only by the women who make up the various justice bodies.

 In general, the function that these institutions perform is to mediate 
conflicts, pushing the actors involved to reach an agreement on 
disputes. If convicted, the penalties are rarely imprisonment and, in 
these cases, it involves an open room or hut for the few days of 
punishment. In most cases the punishment consists of work to be done for 
the community or paying a quantity of money to compensate those who were 
the victim of the transgressive action. Even in the case of being 
sentenced to long periods of community work, if necessary, the condemned 
person is allowed to return to their fields so as not to harm their 
family. Even if it seems secondary, it should be noted that all these 
proceedings are carried out in the local indigenous language, this being 
one of the major problems that indigenous people face when they end up, 
with or without reason, in the national justice system. And it is free, 
another important element, given that, as in many countries, it is the 
poor who mostly end up in state prisons. Finally, the difference between 
the state system of justice and the Zapatista system is so evident that, 
often, even non-indigenous peasants turn to the latter, obtaining, in 
cases where the state system intervenes or is already intervening, 
support and assistance. , particularly when they fall victim to state or 
regional police. The reference to the Mexican police is necessary, 
considering that they are historically violent bodies and symbols of 
state repression for the poorest social and ethnic sectors of the 
population. In fact, a struggle to limit their powers has been underway 
for years in all indigenous territories. In Chiapas it has literally 
been abolished, replaced by indigenous "patrols" of community members 
who provide this service in a voluntary and rotating manner.

Evidently, all this was possible thanks to the political conquests that 
the Zapatistas carried out, managing to maintain their territory and 
ensuring that the state ended, certainly not with enthusiasm, by 
recognizing the value of their autonomous legal system. This condition 
of autonomy, also defended with weapons, proves necessary to be able to 
produce and maintain one's own rules of coexistence, as the Syrian case 
of Rojava has also demonstrated. These cases show us that the struggle 
for legal and, in general, political and social autonomy is also 
possible in the face of the state, which can be bent to accept 
differences, clearly group and not individual; while in regional or 
municipal terms, once a sufficient degree of autonomy has been achieved, 
this possibility would be an anthropological contradiction, given that 
every social structure, even new and libertarian ones, needs a minimum 
of cohesion and common rules.

(For further information: Rebrii, Anne (2020): "Zapatistas: lessons of 
community auto-organisation" (https://www.opendemocracy.net); 
Gasparello, Giovanna (2017): "Nuestra justicia es la alegría del 
corazón. Justicias indigenous and intercultural people in southern 
Mexico". Revista de Paz y Conflictos, X-2: 143-164).

Emanuele Amodio

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en