#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #BULGARIA #ANARCHISM #LIBRARY #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Bulgaria, FAB: History - Zómia (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Even today there is a place on Earth where a society has been built that is in

many ways suitable for anarchism. ---- According to the concept developed by the
Dutch historian Willem van Schendel and developed by the American anthropologist
James Scott, Zomia is a vast region of Asia whose population is characterized by
a rejection of state institutions and a conscious refusal to build communities
with a developed hierarchical system. ---- To determine the territory of Zomia,
both ethnographic and social, as well as physical-geographical criteria are used,
which makes the concept related to the ideas of geographical determinism. The
authors of the concept include in its scope only mountainous areas with an
altitude of at least 300 meters.
Zomia includes parts of at least three macroregions - Southeast, South and
Central Asia. Its geographical boundaries are adjusted as the concept evolves.
Van Schendel originally included in it the mountainous regions of Indochina, the
territories of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. Zomia was later expanded to
include the mountainous regions of eastern China, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, bringing its area to more than 2.5 million km² and a
total population of 100 million.
The concept received a noticeable response in the world scientific community.
Critics accuse its authors of an insufficiently thorough study of the history and
social structure of the many peoples living in this territory, and accordingly
consider their conclusions too generalized and strained.
In social journalism, the term has been given an expanded interpretation that is
not only tied to Southeast Asia, but is a community or settlement that has become
alienated from a territorial state for one reason or another and lives by its own
laws. Van Schendel singled out Zomia as a separate region, noting in a 2002
publication that "anyone interested in detailed modern maps of the region
covering Burma, northeastern India, Bangladesh, and adjacent areas of China knows
that such maps do not exist ..." because regional cartographers, as a rule, do
not include these territories in geographical maps, which is why they remain
"invisible" for a long time. The term "Zomia" is related to the word "zomi",
which in the Kuki-Chin languages means "mountaineer". Arguing with western
Himalayan scientists on the subject of his 2002 paper, van Schendel extended
Zomia west and north to include parts of China's Xinjiang and Qinghai, the
mountains of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
This term was popularized and charged with political content by James Scott in
his book "The Art of Being Uncontrollable", as the object of study is not
individuals, but the whole field. Scott sees the primary significance of Zomia in
the fact that its inhabitants have consciously chosen such a life, routinely
resisting attempts by states to subjugate them. The preservation of their freedom
and independence is facilitated by the egalitarian system, hostility to
statehood, lack of literacy, and constant rebellions against attempts at subjugation.
Edward Stringham and Caleb J. Miles analyzed the historical and anthropological
features of Southeast Asian societies and came to the same conclusion that the
inhabitants of these places avoided interaction with states for millennia.
Stringham concludes that stateless societies like Zomia successfully resisted
states using their geographic location and special modes of self-government and
culture.
The population of Zomia is made up of various peoples - Akhra, Karen, Lahu, Mien,
Wa, Hmong and others. Its territory is characterized by low population density,
historical self-isolation, removed political dominance of neighboring countries,
marginality of all kinds, great linguistic and religious diversity.
Zomia is ethnically and religiously diverse: there are animists, Buddhists,
Christians, many share Taoist and Confucian values, the Hui are Muslim, while
most societies adhere to a complex syncretism. Throughout history, frequent feuds
between local groups speak to multiple cultures[15].
Risky but active caravan trade routes have been established in the area, which
contribute to the preservation of economic ties between spontaneous formations
located at a great distance from each other. The region was never united
politically, never had an empire; it did not exist as a space divided between
several warring kingdoms. Peoples are united in settlements on the basis of
origin and kinship, due to distance from regional centers of power, a sense of
difference from the majority and geographical remoteness, a state of marginality
associated with political and economic problems.

One of the most common ways of fighting power at any time was to stay out of the
field of states. Individual people and whole communities fleeing from slavery,
extortions and obligations of Asian despotism, often left their homeland and went
to hard-to-reach lands - mountains, deserts, jungles, swamps, where it was not
easy and expensive to enter law enforcement officers and tax collectors. The life
of settlements in such places takes place far from civilization with its written
history, which is why it is still poorly studied. Van Schendel notes that, due to
the lack of a strong state, Zomia is poorly mapped and explored. A significant
part of Zomia's history passed without a state system: the authorities appeared
for a short period of time, controlled almost nothing outside the gates of the
royal courts, and could not systematically extract resources from the subjects.
The exit from the spheres of influence of the flat states marked the abandonment
of complex social organization in favor of mobility. The very culture of the
peoples inhabiting Zomia is aimed at preventing the establishment of hierarchies.
The Kachin have a tradition of killing their chiefs who become too authoritarian,
and the Lahu and Lisu purposefully reject the establishment of settlements larger
than the family farm. Located on the periphery of several countries, the
inhabitants of the region are in antagonistic relations with them, as the
authorities of the neighboring countries carry out a policy of forced
resettlement, forbid the natives to teach their children their native language,
secure the right to land, the construction of dams , the protection of wildlife
and logging, which only contributes to increasing distrust of government control.
The refusal of the inhabitants of Zomia to write and their preference for
folklore is due to the fact that the letter is useful to the state for the census
and for the subsequent taxation, as a result of which the government of the
people becomes easier. Besides serving the needs of the bureaucracy, writing
contributed to the division of society into classes. The workers were not
initiated by the princes into the secrets of the written word, the knowledge was
jealously guarded by a small elite circle. Due to the rejection of writing and
non-reliance on storytellers, Zomia does not create a unified picture of the
past, partly for the safety of the inhabitants, partly because of distortions in
the oral transmission of legends.
In addition to rejecting written texts, Zomia-type societies avoided the
advancement of the state through economic methods. Nomadic agriculture was
preferred over settled agriculture, along with gathering. Lowland agriculture
makes peasants vulnerable to the state and deprives them not only of mobility but
also of identity. Due to police control, seizure of property and tax slavery, the
inhabitants of the plains lost their identity and historical memory. To avoid
this, it was necessary to cultivate crops growing on scarce soils and quickly
leave inhabited places. Such crops are for example maize, root crops and tubers
such as potatoes. Before these crops were brought to the Old World, Highlanders
grew oats, barley, millet, buckwheat, cabbage, and turnips. In addition to
farming and gathering, local people engage in hunting and fishing, which spreads
risks and provides a varied diet. In the event of an attack, mountain farming
communities retreat and disperse, taking their crops with them. Unlike potatoes,
grain is easier to tax because it is easy to count and has a long shelf life;
cereal crops are easy to destroy, plunging villagers into starvation. Communities
of tuber and root crops could be spread over large areas and required less
communication than sedentary peasants, contributing to resistance to enslavement
by states and the formation of internal hierarchies. Those who remained in the
plain to grow rice and other grains,
In addition to geographical impassability, a distinctive feature of the stateless
periphery was national and cultural diversity, the coexistence of many languages
and religions. The ethnicity of such a society is a variable because of the
specific methods of avoiding power. Many inhabitants of Zomia have the ability to
change nationality and language in a short period of time due to close
communication with other peoples. The so-called "ethnic amphibians" are
interesting: being in a different culture, ethnic amphibians learn to adapt
almost perfectly to the requirements of each type of culture. The
Monk-Khmer-speaking farmers and animists are so skilled in Thai, lowland
agriculture and Buddhism that they can move into the valley overnight and pass
themselves off as Thai. Despite their camouflage and the plethora of identities
they have in store, mountain peoples know exactly who they are and who they are
not. Another way of misleading the officials was the creation of a false supreme
authority: in Northern Thailand it was given as head to a person who actually had
no influence in the community; in the mountain villages of Laos, at the request
of the colonial administration, local fictitious officials appear, while real
respected figures decide all matters, including the appointment of fictitious
officials.
Based on the study of Zomia, James Scott concluded that the previous ideas of the
ethnic group, which supposedly created a state as the next stage of development,
were wrong. On the contrary, the state creates ethnicity: either as a forced
establishment of an identity imposed from above, or ethnicity arises as a result
of flight from the state and voluntary self-determination as a side effect. In
the latter case, ethnicity is a rather conditional identity that is obtained
through the resistance of a self-governing society to statehood. The culture of
the peoples of Zomia should not be perceived as something primitive: the people
themselves chose their lives, setting an example of an alternative to
all-consuming state subordination. The continued existence of Zomia allows us to
look at the development of humanity in a different way:
Zomia is gradually decreasing in size due to the policies of neighboring
countries, despite the fact that in many places it is difficult to control the
inhabitants, for example in Myanmar (Burma).
The evasion of offshore taxes, whose users go to the dark web, the use of
encryption and cryptocurrencies are in many ways reminiscent of the strategy of
the inhabitants of Zomia. The term "Zomia" applies not only to the region of Asia
described above, but may exist as a metaphor for a specific order without a
state. Zomia serves as an example in discussions of life in failed states, other
peoples and regions distancing themselves from the state, and some anarchist
projects.

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