Collective Reinventions

 
Click on image to read the essay The World Can't Wake about the World Can't Wait Organization and its relationship to the Revolutionary Communist Party
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Insurgent Mexico

The materials posted here are being made available as sources of information and opinion on contemporary social movements in Mexico. They form a resource that will hopefully be expanded on in the future, possibly to include texts from elsewhere in Latin America.

The three texts appear here in English translation for the first time. The anonymous comic has been posted elsewhere on the internet, but is included here since it complements the other materials.

There is no uniformity of perspective among the materials. They have been chosen for their intrinsic worth, but also for their diversity, in a deliberate attempt to provide alternative points of view on events in Mexico. For many on the anti-authoritarian left, support for social movements elsewhere resembles a kind of well-intentioned cheerleading. The nuances and contradictions of the movements themselves are often glossed over or elided completely. In the case of the recent upheaval in Oaxaca, the movement there has been presented in almost monolithic terms, with only a belated and cursory discussion of the divisions existing within APPO (the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) between its anti-authoritarian wing and a Stalinist faction centered on the FPR (Revolutionary Popular Front), and between those supporting the autonomy of the movement’s base and those seeking to use APPO as a political vehicle. The fact that some of the most radical elements of the Oaxacan movement (such as the sector asssociated with the street barricades) were located outside the formal structures of APPO has almost gone unreported.

Claudio Albertani’s article “Oaxaca One Year Later: The Mirror of Mexico” provides an overview of the Oaxacan movement, and details the repression meted out by state authorities in an effort to erase the uprising. Albertani’s synopsis of events is useful, even if at times he is overly indulgent of the movement’s weaknesses. Toward the end of the article, he describes some of the maneuvering of Stalinists within APPO, and suggests that the anti-authoritarian elements of the Oaxacan movement may have to go beyond APPO if they are to continue to develop.

The document “Our Position within APPO” comes from inside APPO, and as such provides a window on internal debates within the assembly. OIDHO (Indian Organizations for Human Rights in Oaxaca) is part of the Alianza Magonista Zapatista, which forms part of the anti-authoritarian current within APPO. The Alianza Magonista Zapatista, as its name suggests, considers itself to be both anarchist and aligned with the Other Campaign of the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation).

A different Mexican anarchist perspective, one that is highly critical of the EZLN, is elaborated in the text by the Libertarian Socialist Group, “The Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign: A Program and Project for the Continuation of Capitalism.” This text is repetitive in places and suffers from a kind of overly doctrinaire reasoning, but it makes a number of important points about the limitations of the the Other Campaign and the cult of subcomandante Marcos among the Zapatistas and their supporters.

The comic by Ana Nimo is interesting in several aspects. It presents a view of the Oaxacan movement as seen by an outsider (an “international”), but it is not merely another paean to APPO. On the contrary, she raises important questions about the role played by bureaucrats and Stalinists from the very inception of APPO. She describes how these forces sought to promote their own agendas, intruding on one of the boldest acts of the Oaxacan movement: the appropriation of official media (including a television channel) by APPO supporters, who then broadcast their own programs to the surrounding population.

Suggestions concerning other materials (or links to other texts) that might be posted here are welcome.

OIDHO Report

Oaxaca One Year Later: The Mirror of Mexico

The Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign: A Program and Project for the Continuation of Capitalism

Oaxaca Comic

Additional Translations:

APPO Tries to Return to Its Origins

The Reorganization of APPO: What Is at Stake?

With the Third State Assembly, Measuring the Forces within the APPO

New Just Published By Collective Reinventions:
Broken Barricades: The Oaxaca Rebellion in Victory, Defeat, and Beyond
.pdf version
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