The Zapatista assertion that we should not expect anything from those above is confirmed. Only the anti-capitalist, anti-racist and anti-patriarchal resistance of the peoples, coming from the territories, can make the just demands for autonomy and self-determination a reality.
By Raul Zibechi In the hegemonic political culture, the notions of triumph and failure, victory and defeat, usually allude to very concrete situations, generally linked to the final objectives of the actors at stake. The concept of victory is applied to the wide range that goes from electoral triumph to the seizure of power as a consequence of an uprising or a popular war, as happened in 1979 in Nicaragua, and before that in many other countries. However, on more than a few occasions, victories, let’s say tactical or punctual, are celebrated when certain laws are passed or important difficulties …
Hermann Bellinghausen on the phenomena of internal colonialism. “Since the 19th century, the countries of the hemisphere began a progressive dispossession that, under national rather than colonial arguments, has never been interrupted. It takes on distinct guises, changing with historical junctures.”
In a follow up to his earlier piece, Raúl Romero sketches just a few examples among so many in Mexico: Cartography of Hope and Resistance. “Moved by different causes, these organizations are building pockets of resistance and sometimes even zones free from dispossession and organized crime, and although they are not exempt from harassment and persecution by the real and formal powers, they continue to build bridges and construct a cartography of hope.”
The task of the people, in this period of capital wars, is not to take power but to preserve life and take care of Mother Earth, to avoid genocides and not to become the same as them, which would be another way of being defeated.
