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 Over the course of Mexican history, culture and heritage have been used in multiple ways by the state. During the Porfiriato, the state tried to centralize heritage to fan the flames of nationalism within Mexican borders. As a result, multiple heritage sites and artifacts were taken over by the state and taken away from the rightful indigenous owners of these places and items. During the 20th century, the installment of more democratic institutions and (the spread of neo-liberalism into the fields of culture and heritage) was intended to benefit historically oppressed groups like the indigenous population of southern Mexico. From these massive institutional changes, global institutions like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and state ran heritage agents like the Mexican National Institute of History and Anthropology (INAH) used tourism and other arms of capitalism to justify the exploitation of these sites. In contemporary Chiapas, Mexico we are seeing the complete subversion of this common form of the neoliberal heritage and cultural preservation model. With the presence of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN) occupying various autonomous zones in the region, the preservation of culture is done through the preservation of these communities’ ability to be autonomous and control over their land. Some would attribute this sense of culture preservation to these communities shared indigenousness, however as this paper explores, this model of heritage creation and preservation is tied to a shared class struggle, which has resulted in the use of indigenous institutions for things like governance within these autonomous zones. On January 1st, 1994 the Mexican state of Chiapas witnessed a military insurrection from the EZLN, a left-wing indigenous organization that views the Mexican state and its president as illegitimate. The EZLN embraces indigenous and Maya culture as a guiding light for how they build society within their autonomous zones, with the organization having a decentralized structure representing people from many different Maya communities like the Tzeltal, Chol, Tzozil, and Zoque among many other groups.[1] However, the roots of this movement within Chiapas are seen in the constant indigenous uprisings in the region for the last four hundred years, marked by thirteen different ethnic groups that now make up the landless peasant families and day-laborers in contemporary Chiapas.[2] These socio-economic problems are relevant in many other states in Mexico however these problems were exacerbated by the lack of land reform in the state after the revolution from 1910-1917. While the majority of Mexicans saw a revolution marked by Zapatism, Chiapas saw an internal civil war between two different groups of elites that eventually prevailed over the peasant class agraristas which resulted in a lack of land reform leaving many families landless and powerless.[3] This lack of land and autonomy had massive effects on the mindset of the indigenous people of Chiapas. One reason that may immediately come to mind is Karl Marx’s Theory of Alienation. Although the worker or peasant is an autonomous, self-realized being, because their goals, activities, and duties are dictated by the bourgeoisie due to economic centralization they lose their ability to determine life and destiny.[4] Due to outside forces, like the elite cattle farmers and planters, owning the majority of arable land, these indigenous workers have had their freedom and autonomy taken away as they now rely on the landowners to provide for them their food and wages. On top of this, to the indigenous population a lot of culture and heritage is tied to the land itself. This lack of land reform disenfranchised a majority of the population, making Chiapas a fertile area for uprisings and unrest throughout the 20th century. Even policy reforms made to benefit the laborers like the creation of Confederacion Nacional Campesina, which was meant to represent small-scale farmers and ejidatarios, failed since land reform was absent in Chiapas.[5] This organization, along with every other political and state institution, fell back on the pre-revolutionary alliances between the local elites, like the cattle farmers. [6] As more reform and neo-liberal policies were enacted over the course of the 20th century, the EZLN embraces class struggle and their tie to the land to subvert the national government’s attempts to centralize power. This eventually led to the beginning of the Chiapas conflict in 1994 when the North American Free Trade Agreement was set to begin, a treaty that the EZLN claims as a death sentence for the indigenous ethnicities of Mexico.[7] This is because NAFTA would require Mexican agriculture laws to align with that of the United States and Canada which would allow for privatization and big transnational companies to dominate the agricultural sector.[8] As seen throughout Mexican history, indigenous culture and heritage has been used as a rallying point to supplement and support the status quo as the people of Mexico should rally around their inherent “Mexicaness.” Leaders of the EZLN subvert this centralization of culture by embracing class struggle, thus creating a rallying point for these indigenous groups to gather around by embracing their disenfranchisement from their land that would result from policies like NAFTA. This disenfranchisement materialized itself in a peasant, agrarian resistance movement that prides itself on taking back land and stopping the commercialization of indigenous culture. The EZLN after rising to prominence in the 1990’s did a lot of groundwork for the future success of the indigenous people in Mexico. This became clearly apparent in 2001 when the Mexican Congress, under EZLN pressure, passed a law that recognized the rights of indigenous people giving them the ability to practice autonomy within the united nation of Mexico.[9] As a result of this, multiple EZLN autonomous zones were created all over the Chiapas region. These indigenous administrative territories use a traditional way of governance, like the Calpulli (Large House) system. The calpulli is the organizational level below altepetl or city-state. At the smallest level of this organizational structure are families, who are responsible for each other’s education and food preparation. Followed by the calpulli, which is a functional community ran by the calpiulec, the main administrator of the region who designates responsibilities and duties like what crops to grow between the families.[10] This right to self-determination resulted in indigenous people being able to maintain their traditions because they did not have to change their lifestyles. The embracing of heritage is abstract in concept and can materialize in many ways such as the preservation of sites, the use of the supernatural, or the complete erasure of sites. With the EZLN we see these indigenous communities preserving culture through their use of their own governance system, living an indigenous lifestyle free of change due to things like NAFTA . This is a stark contrast to the conservation and preservation of culture through neo-liberal means. Neo-liberal celebration of culture and heritage is not for practical purposes but rather to supplement the end means of profit. As a result, this involves the inclusion of material items and places like heritage sites as seen at Palenque, Tonina, and Chichen Itza. Here we see the exploitation of indigenous sites- that indigenous communities would like to use- to help turn a profit for the private investors who are funding these projects to centralize cultural power within the Mexican state. Despite the existence and the ability to create these autonomous zones for indigenous communities, indigenous communities are still being taken advantage of by the Mexican state and neo-Liberal agents. For example, the continued existence of heritage sites like Chichen Itza and Tonina that are used to generate wealth for non-indigenous communities and are used for non-indigenous heritage events like an Elton John concert. To combat this the EZLN has implemented multiple strategies to disrupt and stop the exploitation of indigenous culture. One common occurrence of civil disobedience are the roadblock demonstrations leading to sites like Tonina, sometimes taking donations to allow cars to pass.[11] Another tactic used by the EZLN is to just create villages in unused land to expand influence. This has actually been a problem for the state in the Lacandona Jungle and the group of sixty-six families of Lacandon elites that were awarded 614, 321 hectacres of the land displacing the twenty-six indigenous communities of various other ethnic backgrounds in the 1970’s and 1980’s.[12] To combat this, the EZLN has helped re-establish and protect these villages of subsistence farmers in the unused land. The establishment of EZLN villages in the Lacandona Jungle is a part of a grander strategy to spread the influence and power of neo-zapatism to other parts of Mexico. The EZLN does this by making being a Zapatista easy to identify with, not to mention embracing anyone willing to help their movement. To quote EZLN leader Comandante Zebedeo “If they are suffering exploitation, if they are suffering intimidation, if they are not receiving a just salary, then they can be considered Zapatistas, because that is our struggle as well. This is what we want, I think many people sympathize with us, because in reality that is perhaps what the great majority of our country and the world are suffering.”[13] This brings up the important point of EZLN culture and heritage building that is vastly different from most western ideas of the two. The EZLN, while it uses indigenous culture, is at the forefront of fighting for indigenous rights, and is made up of mostly indigenous groups like Tzetal and Chol, derives its cultural power from a class view of society. This use of the dynamic between the oppressed and the oppressor has been seen throughout this paper, as many of the EZLN’s tactics are used to disrupt the norms of neo-liberal imperialism and oppression through land and wealth concentration. This is a struggle that is very apparent in Southern Mexico’s indigenous communities hence the embrace of indigenous institutions like the calpulli system. This is not to say that the EZLN is the end all and be all for the indigenous community of Mexico. While the indigenous people of Chiapas may have found freedom in autonomy and defiance of the Mexican state, one should not ignore the massive material downsides. Chiapas provides more than half of Mexico’s hydroelectricity and thirty percent of Mexico’s total water, yet around ninety percent of the indigenous population in Chiapas do not have energy or plumbing. On top of this these indigenous communities lack proper healthcare, with less than one doctor per thousand inhabitants.[14] While these may speak to the lack of material improvement for these communities, an argument can be made that the material state of these communities would be the same if not worse under the neo-liberal system that involves wage slavery and reliance on systems and people that are unaccountable. Another criticism levied at the EZLN is their inability to unite all indigenous communities, as seen with the tensions between the EZLN backed indigenous villages and the Lacandon indigenous population over the use of the Lacandona Jungle. However, this criticism misses the point of the EZLN and how they have developed their culture. The essence of EZLN does not rely on the indigeneity of the people, rather their position within the standing power structure. The Lacandon people do not fit in when observed through this lens as they view themselves through a sense of culture and reject the view of class struggle. This is due, in some part, to the Mexican Government’s attempts to preserve the Lacandon culture in the 70’s and 80’s which resulted in the disenfranchisement of the many indigenous communities that now make up the EZLN. In essence, the story of building, conserving, and preserving culture and heritage within the EZLN framework is to fill the negative spaces of neo-liberalism. Zapatistas diverge immediately from the neo-liberal model through how they preserve culture. The preservation of culture is done through the preservation of these community’s ability to be autonomous and have control over their land. This can be seen in the EZLN’s establishment of indigenous political organizational structures like the calpulli and their efforts to retake land that indigenous communities were removed from in the Lacandona Jungle. This foils the neo-liberal model of obtaining physical items or preserving places and, in essence, taking away all practicality. To put culture on display as the exotic other within the country it is supposed to represent. Another major diversion in the EZLN’s perception of culture and heritage is how they create an identity. While the EZLN is heavily associated with and often called an indigenous movement, identity within the group is not centered around ethnicity. While many may disagree due to the EZLN’s prominence in fighting for things like indigenous rights in Mexico, this evidence is purely circumstantial due to where and when the movement was created. At its core to be a Zapatista, you have to side with the oppressed, the exploited, and form solidarity to conquer their struggle. This focus on class is why the EZLN is able to rally people from multiple indigenous groups in the most ethnically diverse state of Mexico. The basis of indigenous association with the EZLN is found in this class struggle as indigenous groups have been historically oppressed. All in all, this opposition to the neo-liberal status quo, through autonomy, self-subsistence, and class solidarity is how the EZLN preserves heritage in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Bibliography [1] Godelmann, Iker Reyes. “The Zapatista Movement: The Fight for Indigenous Rights in Mexico.” [2] Dietz, Gunther. “Neozapatismo and Ethnic Movements in Chiapas, Mexico: Background Information on the Armed Uprising of the EZLN.” Pp 27 [3] Dietz, Gunther. “Neozapatismo and Ethnic Movements in Chiapas, Mexico: Background Information on the Armed Uprising of the EZLN.” Pp 27 [4] MARX, KARL. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 [5] Dietz, Gunther. “Neozapatismo and Ethnic Movements in Chiapas, Mexico: Background Information on the Armed Uprising of the EZLN.” Pp 27 [6] Dietz, Gunther. “Neozapatismo and Ethnic Movements in Chiapas, Mexico: Background Information on the Armed Uprising of the EZLN.” Pp 27 [7] Shantz, Jeff. “Understanding the Chiapas Rebellion: Modernist Visions and the Invisible Indian.” [8] Godelmann, Iker Reyes. “The Zapatista Movement: The Fight for Indigenous Rights in Mexico.” [9] Godelmann, Iker Reyes. “The Zapatista Movement: The Fight for Indigenous Rights in Mexico.” [10] Godelmann, Iker Reyes. “The Zapatista Movement: The Fight for Indigenous Rights in Mexico.” [11] Schafer, Norma “Tonina, Hidden Chiapas Archeology Gem: The Road Less Traveled.” [12] Vegara-Camus, Leandro. “The MST and the EZLN Struggle for Land: New Forms of Peasant Rebellions.” [13] Callahan, Manuel. “Why Not Share a Dream? Zapatismo As Political and Cultural Practice.” [14] Godelmann, Iker Reyes. “The Zapatista Movement: The Fight for Indigenous Rights in Mexico.” AuthorDanny Ogden is an undergraduate student of Political Science and History at Florida State University, with a primary focus on Comparative Politics and Latin American History. Danny just recently started diving into Marxist thought and is super interested in the EZLN. After school Danny wants to go to Law school and eventually work for an organization like the Equal Justice Initiative or as a Public Defender. Archives May 2021
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About the Midwestern Marx Youth LeagueThe Midwestern Marx Youth League (MMYL) was created to allow comrades in undergraduate or below to publish their work as they continue to develop both writing skills and knowledge of socialist and communist studies. Due to our unexpected popularity on Tik Tok, many young authors have approached us hoping to publish their work. We believe the most productive way to use this platform in a youth inclusive manner would be to form the youth league. This will give our young writers a platform to develop their writing and to discuss theory, history, and campus organizational affairs. The youth league will also be working with the editorial board to ensure theoretical development. If you are interested in joining the youth league please visit the submissions section for more information on how to contact us!
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