4 ms·
The impression I have, coming from a host of different sources (by living here, reading newspapers, talking to people that live in those communities, etc) is th
by saganus 9y ago
The impression I have, coming from a host of different sources (by living here, reading newspapers, talking to people that live in those communities, etc) is that a lot of those towns do quite well thanks to their autonomy, but
1) it doesn't seem to scale past a certain community size
2) it leaves them vulnerable to aggression from rival groups that get in cahoots with narcos and other powerful people (caciques, etc), and when they ask for government help the response they get is along the lines of "well, you wanted to be autonomous, so now help yourself and don't ask for help". In many cases it's even been pretty well documented that the government itself funded these rival communities precisely to "punish them" and create conflict due to them "daring" to go independent.
In any case, some communities have very interesting takes on how governance should be carried out. For example, some require people to serve in the "governance body" for a short period of time (I've read about 3-6 months in some cases) so that everyone gets to participate a few times at least and thus everyone's interests are fairly represented. Also, those positions are often unpaid as they are considered to be "your duty", i.e. it's the share of the load that you get to carry for living in such society, and so on.
Unfortunately I can't link any sources since a lot of this info has been told to me in person and some I've read in obscure magazines, random blog articles or Mexican newspapers and such. I think the works of Eduardo Galeano [0], if you can find them translated, have some information on Zapatistas' government structure called "Caracoles" for example.
It's an interesting topic to say the least.
[0] https://ososabiouk.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/eduardo-galeano-and-the-zapatistas/ https://ososabiouk.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/eduardo-galeano-...
- joveian 9y agoI am curious what issues the larger communities have if you have more information on that? I read part one of EZLN's "Autonomous Governement" but had forgotten about that. IIRC, one issue they mentioned is that when they invested in services, people outside the autonomous areas wanted to use them but didn't help support them at the same level as they were using them, which increased the difficulty of providing services for the community. I should read the first one again and the rest of them. The english translations are available at: https://escuelitabooks.blogspot.co.uk/ https://escuelitabooks.blogspot.co.uk/ You link confuses the Zapatista Galeano with the writer Eduado Galeano, at least to the extent of implying that Subcomandante Galeano is named after the writer. The Zapatista Galeano was killed by paramilitary forces (that came from two rightwing parties, the Green Ecologist Party and the National Action Party, as well as the Independent Center for Agricultural Workers and Historic Peasants) who also destroyed a school and health clinic. http://radiozapatista.org/?p=12813&lang=en http://radiozapatista.org/?p=12813&lang=en https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/assassination-world-stands-solidarity-zapatistas/ https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/assassination-world-st...
- saganus 9y agoI am not really aware of specific issues with larger ones, but I've never seen mention of sizes beyond a certain point (small towns, marginalized areas in the mountains, etc). I'd love to have better references on this. No, I was trying to refer to Eduardo the writer. He's written about Zapatistas' Caracoles a bit. Can't find the specific text though :(
- joveian 9y agoI'll keep an eye out for translations of Eduado Galeano's work, thanks for the recommendation!
- saganus 9y agoI think it's going to be pretty hard to find the relevant texts among Galeano's work. Closest thing I could find with a tiny bit of information about Caracoles is the Wikipedia page translated with Google :/ https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCaracoles_y_Juntas_de_Buen_Gobierno&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev... But at least maybe you can find some pointers there in case you want to do a bit more research. In any case, my Keybase profile is in my hn profile so you can get in touch with me if you want to. Cheers!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]