Another Kind Of Politics: Autonomy, Community Power, and Zapatismo in the US
The Snails Pace Collective, returning from Mexico and inspired by recent actions taken by the indigenous Zapatistas, brings with them a
workshop that seeks to unite and mobilize people who share the common goals of obtaining true democracy, community power,
and a new politcal model that caters to the desires and demands of the people.
We are a collective made up of people from all over the United
States of America, students and anti-capitalist organizers with
diverse experiences and origins. We are musicians, dancers,
muralists, writers, photographers, cooks, friends, compañeros who
came together in September of 2005 under the ideals of the Mexico
Solidarity Network to study Mexican social movements. In our four
months in Mexico, we created relationships with indigenous
communities in rebellion, displaced peoples in rebel refugee camps,
empowered campesinos, maquila workers, ex-braceros, families of the
disappeared, and urban resistance movements, with whom we now stand
in firm solidarity. At each encounter and exchange we have been
asked pointedly and also implicitly to return to our communities and
share what we have seen and apply the lessons to our own forms of
struggle. This workshop is our response.
Proposal:
On January 1, 1994 the EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion
Nacional) rose up in arms in the name of democracy, liberty and
justice. They have since been organizing internally to create
participatory governing structures and autonomous health and
education services for the indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico. On
the 19th of June 2005 the EZLN declared a Red Alert throughout
Zapatista territory and mobilized to protect meetings held in
Zapatista communities. Out of these meetings came the Sexta
Declaracion de la Selva Lacandona. This declaration called for all
anti-capitalist groups in Mexico to come together to create a
national project called La Otra Campaña (The Other Campaign). This
campaign directly challenges the foundations of the presidential
election to be held in 2006 by creating a national network of
permanently mobilized
groups that exists independent of any state structure and offers an
alternative to the party/electoral system.
The Sexta Declaracion provides inspiration for international
communities to evaluate their own forms of resistance moving towards
international networks of anti-capitalist struggle. As US organizers
we respond to the Sexta by recognizing our responsibility to create our own sustainable and accountable alternatives to electoral
politics. We will begin this process by facilitating an info
session and conversation about the Sexta Declaracion and the Otra Campaña and their meanings for us as organizers. We hope to open dialogues about building community and creating autonomous spaces in the US. Because the homogenizing political system of the US disregards the diverse needs of those that exist within it, we propose this workshop as a conversation about another kind of politics, which reaches across our diverse range of struggles,
looking specifically at the Otra Campana as an example of how we can begin this process. We hope to demonstrate how our work complements the work of those around us, to reaffirm and build networks of political actors who share this vision of a system which invites direct participation.
- The Snail's Pace Collective (Gianna Rodr?guez, Tessa Landreau-Grasmuck, Aaron Samsel, Monica Gomery, Erica Bratz, Alie Huxta, Diane Amdor)
Particapatory presentation followed by open discussion.