The Zapatista Mexican Rebelion, its Revolutionary Objectives and its Tactics (Part Two)
By James Graham
In response to the Chiapas uprising the Mexican state tried to bolster
the structure of political representation in Chiapas. Through the
National Solidarity Program large amounts of money were spent in
attempts to reconstruct the apparatuses of state domination in Chiapas.
The landholding class received compensation for lands taken over
by peasants. Municipal mayors were given extra funding and efforts
were made to revive campesino and producers organisations.
However by courting independent journalists, supportive groups
and by using the internet the Zapatistas were able to circumvent
the Mexican state's stranglehold on information. Initially Marcos
directed his communiqués to sympathetic newspapers La Jornada
in Mexico City and El Tiempo of San Cristobal de las Casas among
others. La Jornada published every EZLN communiqué verbatim
and many interviews with Marcos and other spokespeople. The Zapatistas
ski masks and Marcos's ever present pipe provided good photo opportunities
and thus helped increase their newsworthiness. Combined with a welcoming
and joking attitude towards journalists the Zapatistas received
unprecedented media coverage. Marcos banned all members of the EZLN
from talking to the largest Mexican television network, Televisa
as he believed the network attempted to marginalise and subvert
the movement. This move created positive returns as other reporters
resented Televisa and enjoyed the opportunity to get one up on the
network.
The Zapatistas where possible, communicated directly with mass
organisations. Their appeals for democracy, freedom and justice
resonated with large parts of Mexican civil society and the wider
world. A vast and diverse group of "unions, neighbourhood associations,
women's, student's and ecologist's associations, of Leftist parties….
of associations of debtors, peasants and indigenous communities"
have supported the Zapatistas. All share the objective of transforming
Mexican society from the bottom up and their courting by the Zapatistas
ensured the guerrillas were never isolated in Mexican politics and
society. This mass network of activists allowed the Zapatistas to
consult straight with the Mexican people though processes of consultation
and referendum.
Connecting all these organisations is the internet. In the 1990s,
the La Neta computer network was established to link up Mexico's
numerous non-governmental organisations. La Neta arrived in Chiapas
in 1993 and subsequently played a key role in distributing information
to Mexico and the world during the Zapatista uprising. Through this
network and the wider internet government fax machines were overloaded
and large marches in Mexico City were organised in ways that completely
bypassed the state propaganda machine. Government announcements
concerning Chiapas were posted on this network and rebutted and
classified as propaganda before they were able to gain traction
and acceptance. The EZLN successfully used the internet to rally
domestic and international support for their objectives.
The world's mass media have ignored or attacked the Zapatistas.
Western governments have closed ranks behind the Mexican government
and championed NAFTA as a giant step forward towards ending poverty
in Mexico. NAFTA's numerous side effects were ignored or explained
as necessary short term costs to achieve long-term prosperity. Mass
media from the developed world accepted this argument and viewed
Mexico and the Zapatistas from a pro free trade perspective. They
have thus acted in defence of Mexico's neo-liberal project and ignored
as much as possible alternative visions like that of the EZLN. As
mass media is thoroughly interlinked with government and corporate
elites this is hardly surprising. Various experts, researchers and
think tanks also defended NAFTA and the Mexican government. These
reports were in turn cited by the mass media to reinforce the status
quo.
On the other hand, the Zapatistas successfully seduced various
smaller media outlets and interest groups as a counter to mainstream
media. In the same way as the elusive masked guerrillas appealed
to independent Mexican media, they also achieved a cult status among
Western journalists. Above all their enchanting anti-capitalist
ideology gave leftists everywhere hope of an alternative to capitalist
domination when everything else signalled the inevitable march of
capitalism and the triumph of neoliberalism.
The Zapatistas have also utilised the internet to communicate directly
and indirectly with sympathetic organisations and individuals around
the world. Audiences initially interested in the Zapatistas included
PeaceNet conferences, Usenet newsgroups, humanitarian groups, indigenous
peoples and feminists. Spontaneous and sometimes even near instantaneous
reposting and translating of EZLN communiqués became common.
As this activity has grown people have attempted to collate and
summarise the numerous sources to provide relevant information to
interested people. This mass of information encouraged many activists
and journalists to make pilgrimages to Chiapas. These pilgrimages
provided both a human shield for the Zapatistas and also a steadily
increasing flow of information back on to the internet. The effect
was a snowballing of grass roots interest in Chiapas that kept various
spotlights on Chiapas that seriously limiting the military options
available to the Mexican government.
Local support was earned over a long period of consciousness raising
and agitation to improve the lives of peasants. These efforts alone
could not shake a co-optive PRI managed state. Only by presenting
a military threat and adroitly using the worldwide interest it gained
to undermine elite interests could the Zapatistas shake the foundations
of the Mexican system of government.
