Twenty years ago, in June of 2005, amid a turbulent Mexico experiencing social unrest and repression throughout the country, the EZLN released an important document that provided theoretical and political guidelines for various struggles in the country and around the world: The Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.
In it, the Zapatista Mayans ratified the autonomous nature of their struggle: tired of the betrayals and repression of governments and political parties of all stripes, they focused on strengthening their autonomy, with structures such as the autonomous rebel Zapatista municipalities, the Good Government Councils, and the caracoles, also strengthening the civil aspect of Zapatismo.
With the Sixth Declaration, they also helped to characterize what was new and what remained the same in the system. They emphasized the role that wars play in capitalism, as well as the four wheels that sustain it: exploitation, dispossession, repression, and contempt. But the Zapatistas did not only provide a theoretical and conceptual framework for characterizing and criticizing the system; they also showed, through their own experience, a concrete example of how to attack it:
“We are simply saying that ours is a more humble form of anti-capitalism: it is one that targets the very heart of the system. The consumption habits of a society or the ways and means of circulating goods may change, but if the ownership of the means of production does not change, if the exploitation of labor does not disappear, capitalism will remain alive and active.”
Internationally, they proposed establishing relationships of mutual respect and support with different organizations, as well as holding intercontinental meetings. In Mexico, they proposed “going to listen and speak directly, without intermediaries or mediators, with the simple and humble individuals of the Mexican people,” in order to build a “program that is clearly leftist, that is, anti-capitalist, that is, anti-neoliberal, that is, for justice, democracy, and freedom for the Mexican people.” The anti-capitalist and internationalist leftist character of the EZLN thus helped to imagine new horizons for struggle.
Much has happened over the past 20 years. The Zapatista communities have remained committed to strengthening their project, which has now survived five presidential terms. During that time, they have not only resisted open and covert wars, attacks by paramilitary groups, and constant harassment by legal and illegal forces, local, state, and federal corporations.
Some of its members have experienced murder, imprisonment, torture… repression and contempt, as they call it. Against all odds, they have sustained their project, providing schools, hospitals, clinics, housing, food, arts, and much more to their support bases. They have even carried out self-critical exercises that led them to change their structures. In their territories, there is no organized crime, no missing persons, and no femicides. They are territories of peace in a country at war.
Better still, over the decades the EZLN has maintained its solidarity with other struggles in Mexico and around the world: with indigenous peoples, with collectives of families searching for missing relatives, with Ayotzinapa, with the rebel teachers… with Palestine, always with Palestine.
In 2021, when the world was locked down and forced into “social isolation” as a result of the pandemic, the Zapatistas, along with hundreds of communities and individuals from around the globe, launched a new call: A Declaration for Life.
There, after mentioning some of the “pains of the earth” caused by the system, which they characterized as “exploitative, patriarchal, pyramidal, racist, thieving, and criminal,” the signatories made a commitment: “to fight, everywhere and at all times—each in their own field—against this system until it is completely destroyed.
The EZLN accompanied the Declaration for Life with a new mission: to transport nearly two hundred Zapatistas by air and sea to meet with others who are fighting, initially, in Rebellious Europe.
During these rebellious days of August, the Caracol de Morelia in Zapatista Chiapas is hosting the Encuentro de Resistencias y Rebeldías (Encounter of Resistance and Rebellion). People from at least 37 different locations are attending. It is a sharing of practical experiences of anti-systemic resistance, of the new and very different world that is being born amid wars and catastrophes.
In a world where neoconservatives and neoliberals vie for control of the planet without abandoning capitalist exploitation, the emergence of a third option is becoming urgent. The anti-capitalists who are gathering in Chiapas these days can help change the map: spreading the virus of resistance throughout the world.
Meanwhile, stop the genocide in Palestine!
Original text by Raúl Romero published in La Jornada on August 9th 2025.
Photo by Juan Carlos González.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.
*Sociologist