Neozapatismo

For the early 1900s movement during the Mexican revolution, see Zapatismo.
Flag of the Neozapatista movement.

Neozapatismo or neozapatism (sometimes simply Zapatismo) is the political philosophy and practice devised and employed by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Spanish: Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), who have instituted governments in a number of communities in Chiapas, Mexico, since the beginning of the Chiapas conflict. According to its adherents, it is not an ideology: "Zapatismo is not a new political ideology or a rehash of old ideologies . . . There are no universal recipes, lines, strategies, tactics, laws, rules or slogans. There is only a desire: to build a better world, that is, a new world."

Observers have described the EZLN as having libertarian socialist and Marxist influences.[1]

As UCL media studies lecturer Anthony Faramelli has written, "Zapatismo is not attempting to inaugurate and/or lead any kind of resistance to neoliberalism, but rather facilitate the meeting of resistance, and allow it to organically form worlds outside of exploitation."[2]

Others have proposed a broader conception of neozapatismo that extends beyond the confines of political philosophy and practice. For example, according to Richard Stahler-Sholk, a political science professor at Eastern Michigan University, “[t]here are, in effect, at least three Zapatismos: One is the armed insurgency . . . a second is the project of autonomous government being constructed in Zapatista ‘support base communities’ . . . [and the] third is the (national and) international network of solidarity inspired by Zapatista ideology and discourse.”[3]

  1. ^
    • Woodman, Stephen (December 2018). "From armed rebellion to radical radio". Index on Censorship. 47 (4): 73. doi:10.1177/0306422018819354. ISSN 0306-4220. Zapatistas ... widely defined as libertarian-socialist.
    • Cardozo, Mario Hurtado (September 23, 2017). "Crisis de la forma jurídica y el despertar antisistémico: una mirada desde el pluralismo jurídico de las Juntas de Buen Gobierno (jbg)" [Crisis of the legal form and the anti-systemic awakening: a look from the legal pluralism of the Good Government Councils (GGC)]. IUSTA (in Spanish). 2 (47): 28. doi:10.15332/s1900-0448.2017.0047.04. ISSN 2500-5286. EZLN ... Su inspiración política es el zapatismo, el marxismo y el socialismo libertario.
    • Univision. "El gobierno de Salinas de Gortari buscó una salida militar para acabar con los zapatistas" [The Salinas de Gortari government sought a military solution to finish off the Zapatistas]. Univision (in Spanish). Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved July 23, 2023. La inspiración política del EZLN es el zapatismo, el marxismo y el socialismo libertario.
  2. ^ Faramelli, Anthony (2018). Resistance, Revolution and Fascism: Zapatismo and Assemblage Politics. London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 106. ISBN 978-1-3501-6170-2.
  3. ^ Stahler-Sholk, Richard (Winter 2007). "A World in Which Many Rebellions Fit: Review of Thomas Olesen, "International Zapatismo: The Construction of Solidarity in the Age of Globalization." (London & New York: Zed Books, 2005)" (PDF). A Contracorriente. 4 (2). North Carolina State University: 187–198. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 3, 2020.