Without a doubt, Zapatismo expands the anti-capitalist horizon beyond our borders. Since 1994, its experience has garnered support outside the country from social sectors who saw its uprising as a just cause that needed to be embraced. Today, 31 years later, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) advances, step by step, weaving networks that focus on the day after capitalist collapse. From the Declaration for Life to the Journey for Life, Europe Chapter, it has engaged in dialogue with resistance movements and has transitioned to the proposal of the common, as a strategy that recovers and reclaims ancestral practices that have been annulled by a logic of power that peoples have confronted to reclaim them and build and strengthen their autonomy. In this process, it has forged strategic alliances. Proof of this can be found in the response to the call issued last March by the Assemblies of Collectives of Autonomous Zapatista Governments (ACEGAZ), Zapatista communities, and the EZLN, addressed to theater, dance, graphic arts, music, sculpture, and literary artists from Mexico and around the world for a meeting with Zapatista artists entitled: (Rebel and Revel) Art: Art, Rebellion, and Resistance Toward the Day After. They stated that “anyone with a background in one or more of the arts, who is against the capitalist, patriarchal, racist, discriminatory, and criminal system, and, of course, who feels invited, could participate.”
Approximately 480 artist groups and individuals attended, with more than 37 art forms, from 28 geographical areas: Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, England, France, Germany, Galicia, Greece, Guatemala, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Scotland, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States, and Venezuela. The meeting was held from April 13th to 17th at the Jacinto Canek caracol, and on April 18th and 19th at CIDECI in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
At the meeting’s opening, Sub-commander Moisés called to “think about the new world we want, because capitalism was born badly and that’s why it’s going to die. We want an art for life, different from the art of death for the people of the countryside and the city, and also for nature, to which the system has accustomed us and dominated us. But after it dies, we won’t have anything if we don’t prepare ourselves. We have to think about what will allow us to survive. That is the art for which we are here. That is the task. So we all have to think about the new world we want, not the one those in power want, as they say. The power lies with the people.”
That goal was fulfilled, with nearly 2,000 participants, mostly young people—in the Zapatista case, who were not even born in 1994. They displayed their music, poetry, theater, and other activities. The proposals of several Zapatista caracoles focused on the Commons and, most notably, the defense of nature.
All the topics addressed were expressions of the people’s problems, which must be addressed in order to build alternatives. The collectives shared the work they had done and on which they had been trained. These were not trivial occurrences or improvisations to get by.
The activities proceeded peacefully. We know very well that the EZLN is very strict in upholding its norms, which it emphasized in the call to the meeting: “You are reminded that in Zapatista territory, the production, sale, trafficking, and consumption of alcohol and drugs are prohibited. Likewise, human trafficking, sexism, discrimination, racism, the buying and selling of dignity, and surrender are prohibited.” However, at the end of April 19th, Sub-commander Moisés of the EZLN interrupted the session for a few minutes to report that armed National Guard (GN) and Pakal Immediate Reaction Force personnel had appeared outside the CIDECI-Unitierra facilities.
After a few minutes, they turned around and left. He asked everyone to be alert. He asked: “What do they want? I don’t know. What are they looking for? I don’t know. What is their intention? We’ll find out.” No official public statement, either federal or state, was issued regarding the activity that took place in Chiapas in recent days. This does not imply any sympathy. It has already been pointed out how the national political class, of various stripes, at different times, has rushed, without success, to declare the extinction of the EZLN.
In short, the EZLN achieved a successful and hopeful meeting and a new advance in its anti-capitalist strategy. Seeds continue to be sown that depend on the care and organizational work, their own in their own territory and, above all, the commitment of those who attended the meeting, always insisting on the call to organize according to their own forms and in their own way, taking care not to get carried away.
Original article by Magdelena Gómez at La Jornada, April 22, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas