WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, FdCA, Il Cantiere #16: Popular self-government and autonomy of ways of life. Zapatista autonomy. - Jérôme Baschet * (First part) (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Initiated more than a quarter of a century ago, the Zapatista experience is often

invoked, parallel to that of the Kurds of Rojava, as an inspiring example of the
construction of a collective organization that allows one to escape both the
norms of capitalist commodification and the logics of politics state. In fact,
what the Zapatistas managed to bring out in the rebel territories of Chiapas, not
without difficulties or limitations, can be considered one of the liberated
spaces - or, if you prefer, one of the true utopias - the most remarkable that
can be observed today on a planetary scale; and this, at the same time, for its
geographical extension, its longevity and its radical nature[1].
To the extent that this experience breaks away from state institutions and is
part of a general movement to relocate politics, it can easily be compared to the
currently booming movement of communalism (or municipalism). However, it should
be noted that this terminology, as well as the references commonly associated
with it, starting with the work of Murray Bookchin, are singularly absent from
Zapatista discourse. This experience fits into another cultural horizon which is
largely, but not exclusively, that of the Amerindian peoples. It seeks fewer
referents in the historical lineage of urban communes than concretely taking root
in a tradition that is still alive, that of Indian peasant communities. There
are, in fact, significant resources also for developing another way of thinking
about politics,

In Mexico, this Indian and popular tradition was expressed in an exemplary way in
the struggle of Emiliano Zapata and in the revolutionary construction, in the
state of Morelos, of an organization centered on free municipalities[3]. More
recently, it has given rise to a conceptualization articulated around the
"community" (comunalidad)[4]. But not even the Zapatistas resort to it; and it is
rather through the notion of autonomy, broader and less tied to a specific scale
of organization, that they synthesize their experience. This term can lead to
many misunderstandings, it should be noted that it does not refer, in the
Zapatista experience, either to the autonomy of the single subject, or to
regional autonomy understood as the decentralization of state powers, nor even
less to the right of autonomy that international treaties recognize to indigenous
peoples (even if this right may have been a point of support in the Zapatista
approach)[5]. Autonomy is understood here in a much broader sense: it designates
an emancipatory project which involves a form of popular self-government, but
also, to use the same words of the actors in this adventure, «the construction of
a new life»[6].

After having briefly described the main aspects of the Zapatista experience, we
will try to draw some lessons on what a politics of autonomy can be. Three
theoretical propositions will emerge in the course of the analysis. First of all,
if the delocalization of the political organization is decisive, the question is
not only a question of scale but is more deeply linked to the need to trace the
contours of a politics without the state. Then, it is in the way of articulating
assemblies and elected bodies, but also of preserving non-dissociative modalities
of delegation, that we can identify the criteria that allow us to differentiate
state and non-state forms of politics. Finally, it will be argued that it would
be harmful to isolate the issue of political organization and separate it from a
broader perspective involving the transformation of ways of life. For this reason
it will be considered that Zapatista autonomy rests jointly on the creation of
forms of popular self-government and on the collective self-determination of ways
of life.

The Zapatista Experience and the Construction of Autonomy

Of Zapatismo, we must first recall the audacity of the armed insurrection of
January 1, 1994, which shattered the illusions of a Mexico that entered the club
of modernity thanks to the North American free trade agreement, while challenging
at the same time the apparent omnipotence of neoliberalism and denying the
self-proclaimed myth of the end of history[7]. We have also sometimes underlined
the role of Zapatismo as an antecedent and reference of the anti-globalization
movement that started with the Seattle mobilizations in 1999. And we gladly
praised its inventive, poetic words, nourished by concrete stories and humour.
Stopping here, however, would mean neglecting the essential: the construction of
a territorialized experience of autonomy, which began in 1994 and deepened
starting from 2003, with the creation of five councils of good governance, which
bring together 27 "Zapatista rebel autonomous municipalities" (it should be added
that a further extension of autonomy was announced, in August 2019, with the
creation of four new autonomous municipalities and seven new councils of good
governance)[8]. In total, the Zapatista zone of influence extends over a
territory whose extension is equivalent to that of Brittany (although it should
be noted that Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas coexist there).

The construction of autonomy is the fruit of a specific history, which made it
possible and also explains its distinctive features. The creation of such a vast
and lasting liberated space would not have been possible without the rebellious
energy and determination of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who, for
ten years, organized themselves clandestinely, then carrying out the uprising of
January 1st, 1994. But even this would not have been enough: it was still
necessary that this collective force, not having caused the immediate collapse of
the regime embodied by the Institutional Revolutionary Party and having then
collided with the treachery of the federal government with which it had signed an
initial Agreement which it provided for constitutional recognition of Indian
rights, avoid crumbling without tangible results.

On the contrary, it has known how to exploit its considerable impact in Mexican
society and its planetary echo, inventively renewing itself to create and defend
the territorial and political space of autonomy, despite the brutality of the
counterinsurgency attacks launched. We can insist on the Zapatista movement's
capacity for self-transformation, a characteristic that asserted itself from the
beginning, when the first militants, trained in Guevarist Marxism-Leninism, saw
their avant-garde certainties widely questioned in contact with the Indian
communities that had already a long experience of struggle. This ability,
demonstrated again later[9], was certainly decisive in allowing the collective
strength born of the 1994 revolt to be exploited and paving the way for autonomy
in the space thus opened.

Defending your own lifestyle

As we have indicated from the beginning, we cannot approach the forms of
political organization in isolation. We will therefore first discuss the ways of
life that the Zapatistas try to defend and which it can be argued that they
escape, at least in large part, the fundamental categories of capitalism. Of
course, they are well aware that they are under the constant pressure of the
capitalist synthesis, which hinders their ability to act, multiplies attacks of
all kinds and permeates their ways of life. In this adverse context and with the
resulting limitations, the effort to get rid of capitalist heteronomy and
strengthen self-determined forms of life is all the more remarkable.

Community, land and territory: these three terms can guide a first approach to
their forms of life which, to a large extent, concern all the Mayas of Chiapas
and, more generally, the Amerindian peoples of Mexico - except that some of them
are resigned to see them gradually destroyed by the advance of market domination,
while others, including the Zapatistas, strive to defend and reinvent them in a
perspective of radical emancipation. The community, as a mode of organization of
the Amerindian peoples, must in no case be taken for a timeless essence,
presumably immutable since pre-Hispanic times. On the contrary, it has never
stopped changing and today it joins, in the case of the Zapatistas, both to an
appreciation of tradition and to a critical distancing from it - promoted with
particular vivacity by the Zapatista women who, even before the 1994 revolt,
began their struggle for an emancipatory transformation of tradition[10].
However, community organization has this specific feature - and so incompatible
with the capitalist logic that all liberal and neoliberal reforms have tried to
liquidate it - that it gives life to a presumed collective anchor, built starting
from reciprocity. This specific ethos is witnessed by the practice of the
community assembly as a place for speaking and making decisions, the extensive
recourse to mutual aid and collective work for many tasks related to the common
good, the importance of festivals and rituals, as well as, in decisive way, the
different forms of collective land ownership[11]. The territory, with its
inhabited and cultivated parts, but also its forests and mountains (understood as
water reservoirs, essential for all life cycles), is the very place that gives
consistency and uniqueness to the community, and without which it could not
exist. As for the earth, it is the field (milpa) that we cultivate, but also,
more fundamentally, this enveloping and inappropriate force of life to which we
can give the name of Mother Earth: "for us Zapatistas, the earth is the mother,
the life, the memory and rest of our elders, the home of our culture and our way
of being (...) The earth is not a commodity for us. The earth does not belong to
us, we belong to it"[12]. but also its forests and mountains (understood as water
reservoirs, essential for all life cycles), is the very place that gives
consistency and uniqueness to the community, and without which it could not
exist. As for the earth, it is the field (milpa) that we cultivate, but also,
more fundamentally, this enveloping and inappropriate force of life to which we
can give the name of Mother Earth: "for us Zapatistas, the earth is the mother,
the life, the memory and rest of our elders, the home of our culture and our way
of being (...) The earth is not a commodity for us. The earth does not belong to
us, we belong to it"[12]. but also its forests and mountains (understood as water
reservoirs, essential for all life cycles), is the very place that gives
consistency and uniqueness to the community, and without which it could not
exist. As for the earth, it is the field (milpa) that we cultivate, but also,
more fundamentally, this enveloping and inappropriate force of life to which we
can give the name of Mother Earth: "for us Zapatistas, the earth is the mother,
the life, the memory and rest of our elders, the home of our culture and our way
of being (...) The earth is not a commodity for us. The earth does not belong to
us, we belong to it"[12].

Preventing the destruction of what appears to be a complete anomaly in the era of
globalized neoliberal capitalism is an arduous task, one that Zapatista
communities and many others across Mexico are working on. This implies refusing
the implementation of the neoliberal reforms aimed at liquidating the social
ownership of the land (the reform of Article 27 of the Constitution, in 1992,
marked the end of the agrarian reform and initiated a transformation of the
ejidal lands into private property), but also resist the effects of the North
American Free Trade Agreement which, since its entry into force in 1994, has led
to an acceleration of the destruction of Mexican peasants, inundated with imports
from the United States. Finally, this presupposes a fierce defense of territories
against mining projects, energy, tourism or infrastructure - a struggle which, in
Chiapas as in all of Mexico, mobilizes the Zapatistas as well as the other Indian
peoples gathered in the National Congress.[13]

In the Zapatista territories, contrary to the development-oriented models of
agro-industry that are advancing at great speed everywhere, it is also a question
of promoting a revitalized peasant agriculture (polyculture, agroecological
practices, elimination of commercial pesticides, defense of native seeds, etc.) .
With the aim of both family self-subsistence[14]and collective (ie the ability to
materially support the construction of autonomy), this peasant agriculture must
not only be defended; it is gaining in extension, developing on the tens of
thousands of hectares of arable land recovered in the momentum of the 1994
revolt. These lands have made it possible, where they are particularly abundant,
to create new villages; but above all they are the support of new forms of
collective work. These are crops or livestock developed at the community level,
but also of municipalities or areas, in order to support the various autonomy
projects. As the Zapatistas themselves constantly insist, the massive recovery of
land - their primary means of production - is the material basis that makes the
construction of autonomy possible[15]. Finally, in a context traditionally based
on self-production (not only food, but also for the manufacture of clothing or
for the construction of houses), it is necessary to give space to the effort to
multiply the self-production capacity, with the development of cooperatives in
many sectors (baking, weaving, shoemaking, carpentry, iron working, building
materials, etc.). but also of municipalities or areas, in order to support the
various autonomy projects. As the Zapatistas themselves constantly insist, the
massive recovery of land - their primary means of production - is the material
basis that makes the construction of autonomy possible[15]. Finally, in a context
traditionally based on self-production (not only food, but also for the
manufacture of clothing or for the construction of houses), it is necessary to
give space to the effort to multiply the self-production capacity, with the
development of cooperatives in many sectors (baking, weaving, shoemaking,
carpentry, iron working, building materials, etc.). but also of municipalities or
areas, in order to support the various autonomy projects. As the Zapatistas
themselves constantly insist, the massive recovery of land - their primary means
of production - is the material basis that makes the construction of autonomy
possible[15]. Finally, in a context traditionally based on self-production (not
only food, but also for the manufacture of clothing or for the construction of
houses), it is necessary to give space to the effort to multiply the
self-production capacity, with the development of cooperatives in many sectors
(baking, weaving, shoemaking, carpentry, iron working, building materials, etc.).
the massive recovery of the land - their main means of production - is the
material basis which makes possible the construction of autonomy[15]. Finally, in
a context traditionally based on self-production (not only food, but also for the
manufacture of clothing or for the construction of houses), it is necessary to
give space to the effort to multiply the self-production capacity, with the
development of cooperatives in many sectors (baking, weaving, shoemaking,
carpentry, iron working, building materials, etc.). the massive recovery of the
land - their main means of production - is the material basis which makes
possible the construction of autonomy[15]. Finally, in a context traditionally
based on self-production (not only food, but also for the manufacture of clothing
or for the construction of houses), it is necessary to give space to the effort
to multiply the self-production capacity, with the development of cooperatives in
many sectors (baking, weaving, shoemaking, carpentry, iron working, building
materials, etc.).

Another essential point concerns the fact that the achievements of autonomy are
implemented in a largely demonetized way and without recourse to the salary
form[16]. This is the case for all the authorities of autonomous governments, as
well as for justice, whose operation is completely free and also excludes
recourse to fines: the will to demonstrate that there is always a better solution
than those which involve the use some money. Likewise, the promotores de
educación (teachers) carry out their tasks without receiving monetary
compensation, relying on the commitment of the community to cover their material
needs or to work their plots for them, for those who have them. Furthermore, the
schools operate without administrative or maintenance personnel, tasks which are
assumed, in a logic of despecialization, by teachers and students. As for
healthcare, there are various solutions, but it is often the collective work
already mentioned (agricultural or other, for example a regional warehouse where
the town's shops are supplied) which makes it possible to satisfy the needs of
those who provide their services in healthcare centers and clinics, such as
covering the costs of materials and medicines.

In short, the collective making that constitutes the autonomous way of life is
ensured thanks to different methods of exchange, mainly in "work", and without
resorting to the characteristic forms of the capitalist system, starting with the
wage. Basically escaping the productivist injunctions, quantitative evaluations
and generalization of ways of being competitive that are so many norms of the
world of economics, the Zapatista rebels struggle to preserve an ethic of good
living, which they gladly call vida digna (rather than buen vivir , a notion
developed in the context of the Indian struggles of the Andean world). An ethic
that favors the quality of life, which considers individual existence in its
intrinsic relationship with its collective dimension and with its non-human
environment,

Instances of self-government and realization of autonomy

We can now describe the political organization established in the rebel
territories of Chiapas[17]. It should be specified from the outset that, despite
being strictly civilian, the Zapatista autonomy owes its existence to the impetus
and protection of an organization that is itself political-military in nature:
even if the separation is clearly established, in particular by forbidding the
leaders of the EZLN from assuming positions in the demands for autonomy, one
cannot ignore the inevitable interactions that derive from the close interweaving
of these two dimensions of the Zapatista experience[18]. To return to the civil
organization of autonomy, it unfolds on three levels: community (village); common
(comparable, by extension, to a French canton[to get an idea, France is divided
into 2050 cantons]); area (group that allows the coordination of several
municipalities and whose size corresponds to that of a department). At each of
these levels there are assemblies and authorities elected for a period of two or
three years (municipal officer at the community level, autonomous municipal
council, good governance council for each area). One of the nodes of this
political organization is the way of articulating the role of the assemblies -
which is very important, without it being possible to say that everything is
decided horizontally - and that of the elected authorities, of which it is said
that "govern by obeying" (mandar obeying). But what are the concrete modalities
for the exercise of government tasks that make it possible to render the
principle according to which "the people command and the government obeys" - as
indicated by the placards planted in the

A first characteristic concerns the very structure of the mandates. They are
conceived as "assignments" (cargos), performed without compensation or any kind
of material benefit. No one "offers" for these functions; it is the communities
themselves that solicit from among their members those they deem capable of
exercising them. Above all, these responsibilities are assumed on the basis of an
ethic of service rendered to the community actually lived[19]. This is expressed
in the seven principles of mandar obedeciendo (including "to serve and not to
serve", "to propose and not to impose", "to convince and not to command").
Furthermore, the functions are always performed in a collegial manner, without
much specialization within the bodies and under the permanent control, on the one
hand by a commission responsible for verifying the accounts of the various
councils and, on the

The men and women who exercise a mandate come from the communities and remain
ordinary members of them. They do not claim to be elected for special gifts or
extraordinary personal gifts. If there is one trait that characterizes Zapatista
autonomy, it is that it implements a despecialization of political tasks[20].
This leads us to admit that the exercise of authority is accomplished from a
position of not knowing. Autonomous council members insist on the initial feeling
of being helpless in the face of the task that falls to them ("no one is an
expert in politics and we all have to learn"). And it is precisely to the extent
that he assumes that he does not know that someone with an authority function can
be "a good authority", that he makes an effort to listen to and learn from
everyone, he knows how to recognize his mistakes and let himself be guided by the
community in making decisions[21]. In the Zapatista experience, entrusting the
tasks of government to those who do not have particular skills to exercise them
constitutes the concrete ground from which mandar obedeciendo can grow and a
solid defense against the risk of separation between the governors and the governed.

Finally, the way decisions are made is decisive. To remain at the broader level,
the good governance council submits to the zone assembly the major decisions it
deems necessary; if we are dealing with major projects or if no clear agreement
is reached, it is up to the representatives of all the communities in the area to
carry out a consultation in their respective villages to inform the next assembly
of either an agreement, or a refusal or amendments. If necessary, these are
discussed and the assembly draws up a new proposal, which is again submitted to
the communities. Sometimes it takes a lot of back-and-forth between the council,
the area assembly and the villages before the proposal can be considered adopted.
The procedure can be cumbersome but it is still necessary: "a project that is not
analyzed and discussed by the communities is doomed to failure. It happened to
us. Now we are discussing all the projects"[22].

The Good Governance Councils are permanently open to requests from Zapatistas and
non-Zapatistas and welcome visitors who want to learn more about this experience.
They strive to work for coexistence between Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas, but
they also address conflict situations that the official authorities never fail to
arouse, in a context of permanent counterinsurgency interventions. In addition,
the autonomous authorities keep their own civil register and exercise justice,
both at the community and municipal council and good governance levels[23]. While
the various projects that give substance to autonomy (health, education,
production) are developed under the guidance of the groups concerned, the
municipal and good governance councils ensure that they support their efforts and
contribute to the search for the adaptations and improvements that are always
necessary. They have the task of proposing and developing, in interaction with
the assemblies, new projects that contribute to overcoming the difficulties of
collective life, to favor the equal participation of women and to concretely
remedy what may hinder it, to defend the territories and to preserve the
'environment.

It should be emphasized that the Zapatistas have created - in very precarious
material conditions and completely outside the state structures - their own
health system and their own education system. Combining Western medicine and
traditional knowledge, the first includes area clinics, municipal microclinics,
as well as the presence of health workers in the communities. As for education,
it is the object of a notable collective mobilization, perhaps the most intense
of all those implied by autonomy[24]. Thus, the Zapatistas built and maintained
primary and secondary schools, developed pedagogical guidelines and programs, and
trained the young people who teach there. In these schools, learning makes sense
because education is rooted in

[*]Historian, Jérôme Baschet was a long-time professor-researcher at EHESS
(Paris); he is currently a professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas
(Mexico). After dedicating himself to the study of the Western Middle Ages, he
became interested in the current struggle movements, particularly in Mexico. He
is the author of fifteen books, including Corps et âmes. A history of the person
in the Middle Ages (Flammarion, 2016), Undoing the tyranny of the present.
Emerging temporalities and unpublished futures (La Découverte, 2018) and Cambi.
Emerging worlds, desirable possibilities (La Découverte, 2021). The article we
publish is the translation of Jérôme Baschet, «Auto-gouvernement populaire et
auto-determination des manières de vivre», Terrains/Théories[En ligne], 13 |
2021, mis en ligne le 03 juin 2021, consulté le 05 mars 2023. URL:
http://journals.openedition. org/teth/3519; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/teth.3519

[1]For the notion of liberated spaces, see Baschet Jérôme, Adieux au capitalisme.
Autonomy, society of good living and multiplicity of worlds, Paris, La
Découverte, rééd. paperback, 2016; and for that of real utopias see Wright Erik
Olin, Real Utopias, Paris, La Découverte, 2017 (I have proposed a critical
reading of it in "What spaces are freed up to get out of capitalism? About Real
Utopias di Erik Olin Wright", Ecorev' , n° 46, 2018, pp.

[2]On the historical genealogy of Murray Bookchin's libertarian municipalism, see
Cossart Paula, «Se référer au passé pour faire du municipalisme libertaire une
'utopie réelle'», Terrains/Théories, forthcoming.

[3]The Loi générale des libertés municipales, proclaimed on September 15, 1916
for the areas owned by the Zapatistas, stated: "Municipal freedom is the first
and most important of democratic institutions, because there is nothing more
natural and respectable of the right of the inhabitants of any place to regulate
for themselves the problems of common life and decide what suits the interests
and needs of their locality", quoted in Womack John, Zapata y la revolución
mexicana, Mexico, Siglo XXI, 1997, pp. 260-261.

[4]See in particular Díaz Floriberto, Escrito. Communalidad, living energy of
mixed thinking, Mexico, UNAM, 2007 and Maldonado Benjamin, La comunalidad como
una perspectiva antropológica india, Mexico, La Social, 2015.

[5]For a more complete analysis of this concept, see Baschet Jérôme, «Autonomie,
indianaté et anticapitalisme: l'expérience zapatiste», in Les Amériques indiennes
face au néoliberalisme, Actuel Marx, n° 56, 2014, p. 23-39.

[6]See Mora Mariana, Política kuxlejal. Indígenous Autonomía, el estado racial e
investigación decolonizante en comunidades zapatistas, Mexico, Casa Chata, 2018.

[7]For a general presentation of the Zapatista experience, its history and its
various dimensions, only hinted at here, see Baschet Jérôme, La rébellion
zapatiste. Insurrection indienne et résistance planétaire, Paris, Flammarion,
«Champs», 2019 (nouvelle édition mise à jour, with an une postface inédite).

[8]Sous-commandant Moisés, «Et nous avons brisé l'encerclement» (17 aout 2019).
URL: https://lavoiedujaguar.net/Et-nous-avons-brise-l-encerclement

[9]This is what allowed an organization like the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de
Liberación National), born out of the Latin American tradition of
Marxist-Leninist and Guevarist guerrilla warfare, to develop a critique of the
classic model of revolution and to reject the perspective of the conquest of
state power (see Baschet Jérôme, La rébellion zapatiste, op. cit., chap. 1).

[10]On the role of women in the Zapatista experience, see in particular Rovira
Guiomar, Femmes de maïs, Paris, Rue des cascades, 2014 (avec une mise à jour de
Mariana Mora), ainsi que Baschet Jérôme, La rébellion zapatiste, op . cit., p.
341-350.

[11]In addition to the communal lands, the ejidal lands are the legacy of the
revolutionary period of the 10s and the agrarian reform that followed (the ejido
is an association of producers, juridically distinct from the community, even if
it exists, at least initially, a near overlap between ejido and community).

[12]Sous-Commandant Marcos, «L'arbre ou la forêt» (juillet 2007). URL:
http://cspcl.ouvaton.org/spip.php?article497

[13]These struggles have only intensified in the face of the current Mexican
president's "modernization" policies and mega-projects, including the so-called
"Maya train" and the transoceanic corridor in the isthmus of Tehuantepec; see
Baschet Jérôme, «Au Mexique, les zapatistes s'opposent aux grands projets
nuisibles», Reporterre, 17 April 2019. URL:
https://reporterre.net/Au-Mexique-les-zapatistes-du-Chiapas-s-opposent
-aux-grands-projets-nuisibles

[14]Added to this is the cultivation of small family plots of organic coffee,
marketed through Zapatista cooperatives and international solidarity distribution
networks. The proceeds (together with the sale of other products, such as honey
or handicrafts) allow families to purchase basic necessities that the communities
do not produce (oil, sugar, etc.).

[15]Sous-commandant Moisés, «Political economy I. Un regard depuis les
communautés zapatistes», in Commission Sexta de l'EZLN, Pistes zapatistes. La
pensée critique face à l'hydre capitaliste, Paris, Albache-Nada-Union Syndicale
Solidaires, 2018.

[16]More details in Baschet Jérôme, «En camino fuera del mundo del dinero. Notes
on the Zapatista autonomy», Herramienta, n° 57, 2015. URL:
http://www.herramienta.com.ar/revista-herramienta-n-57/en-camino-fuera-del-mundo-del-dinero
-apuntes-sobre-la-autonomy-zapatista

[17]A general presentation was made on the occasion of the Petite École
zapatiste: EZLN, Cuadernos de texto de primer grade del curso "La Libertad según
l@s zapatistas", sl, 2013, 4 volumes: Gobierno autónomo I; Autonomous Government
II; Autonomous resistance; Participation of women in the autonomous government.
French version URL: ztrad.toile-libre.org/

[18]On this question, as for other difficulties of Zapatista autonomy, see
Baschet Jérôme, La rébellion zapatiste, op. cit., p. 364-371. It should be noted
that the vertical character of the EZLN is openly recognized: it is an
organization that "is not democratic, since it is an army" (EZLN, Sixth
Declaration of the Selva Lacandona; http://cspcl.ouvaton.org/
spip.php?article204). While the commanders, members of the political leadership
body of the EZLN, cannot participate directly in the autonomous bodies, their
excessive interventions were denounced during a review carried out after one year
of functioning of the good governance councils ("Read a video" , August 2004 URL:
https://lavoiedujaguar.net/Lire-une-video). These deviations were later
corrected, but the notebooks of the Escuelita zapatista (see previous note) admit
that the commanders play a guiding role in the autonomous councils (which is
particularly linked to the fact that the political choices of the EZLN are
decided logically within its bodies). Therefore, if the affirmation of autonomy
is a process, it is also because the dynamic is underway with which the
political-military leadership of the EZLN gives back to the civilian members of
the Zapatista organization the power entrusted to it.

[19]Serving by exercising a task is part of the constitutive reciprocity of the
community; it is therefore an active way of "building community" (see, from
Bolivia, the reflection of Bautista Rafael, La descolonización de la política.
Introducción a una política comunautaire, San Cristobal de Las Casas,
Cideci-Unitierra, 2016).

[20]Of the members of the councils of good governance it can be said that "they
are specialists in nothing, much less politics"; Sous-commandant Marcos, Saisons
de la digne rage, Paris, Climats, 2009, p. 183.

[21]Autonomous Government I, op. cit.

[22]Explanation given during the Zapatista School (CIDECI, aout 2013).

[23]See Fernandez Christlieb Paulina, Justicia Autónoma Zapatista. Zona Selva
Tzeltal, Mexico, Ediciones autonom@s, 2014; ainsi que Baschet Jérôme, The
Zapatiste rebellion, op. cit., p. 352-355.

[24]In 2008, it is estimated that 500 autonomous schools were functioning, in
which 1,300 promoters welcomed about 16,000 students (Baronet Bruno, Autonomía y
educación indígena. Las escuelas zapatistas de la Selva Lacandona en Chiapas,
México, Quito, Abya-Yala editores , 2012). In 2013, the documents of the
Escuelita Zapatista mention, for only one of the five Zapatista zones (Los
Altos), 157 primary schools, 496 promoters and 4,886 students.
http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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