Fortino Domínguez Rueda*
From our experience we know that the colonial relations of oppression were not challenged after the processes of independence built the Mexican nation-state. The Colony culminated in formal and juridical terms and obtained international recognition, however, colonialism has persisted to this day. In this way, the State is revealed as one of the best-organized instruments of domination for sustaining the world capitalist system. A characteristic that stands out in the case of Mexico and its last six-year term is the active participation of members of indigenous peoples who seek to build the indigenous face of the current state administration, and who, together with the ruling white elite, are the “new” overseers of the plantation called Mexico. Local histories and global patterns configure the experience of subjugation and oppression, as has the resistance that each people has mounted to persist against the onslaught of the State across the planet.
In Mexico 30 years ago (1994) a new cycle of indigenous struggles and resistance was born. The armed uprising of the EZLN shook the entire planet and showed the Mayan civilization project that, as thousands of moons ago, continues today, affirming life and creating options in times of death and destruction caused by the civilizational crisis we face as humanity.
Throughout these three decades we have witnessed the emergence of discourses, public policies, educational models and the discussion on ethnic difference in Mexico, which underwent a radical transformation after the armed uprising of the EZLN. This historical bifurcation transformed the ways of naming, visualizing and thinking about indigenous peoples, which inevitably led to the unfolding of a renewed State indigenism with colonial roots, but with a multicultural and intercultural discourse, with a gender, intersectional and decolonizing perspective; however, the discourses from the State have not been able to stop the war of conquest and extermination that plagues our peoples and the whole country.
In the geographies of Mexico from below, it has long been recognized that the exercise of autonomy and the comprehensive reconstitution of our peoples are a good start to challenge historical colonialism. For its part, the calendars of power from above sought to include diversity in the language. Thus, in the light of neoliberalism, ethnic difference, multiculturalism and interculturalism became part of the discursive package of politicians, social scientists, NGOs, universities and indigenous people who support the political parties and the rulers in office. During the last six years, a new consensus was consolidated around the State in Mexico. There was a readjustment in the relationship between the State and citizens. The series of reforms articulated in the current administration are intended to hegemonize this change in the Mexican State. In other words, the machine that perpetuates death in the country needs a modification, since capitalism “cannot stop.”
To this, we must add the situation of co-optation, intertwined with the power interests of indigenous characters, which has resulted not only in the creation of “permitted indigenous”, as we named it in 2019, but has also consolidated a class of indigenous professional politicians who seek to corporatize and have chips to negotiate in the new rearrangement of forces. Yes, just as in the past with the INI, CDI and now the INPI of the “4D”, that is, the Fourth Destruction.
Although the State and its institutions are always in a constant rhetorical subordination to the demands of the people, we can now observe how during this six-year term, the adoption of a technical language and attire by the members of the “enlightened and institutional left” that now serve the governments in office has been registered. We observe a politically correct use of the historical demands of the dispossessed, the demands and emblematic phrases of the indigenous movements are brandished. Outside their palaces and the morning addresses, the reality is different from the one perceived by the ethnic rulers in office.
Therefore, in the face of the constant co-optation of language and the narrative dispute it is worth pointing out that one thing is the creation of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples (CNPI) promoted by the INPI with its current director Adelfo Regino, who is described as a traitor to the indigenous movement; and another thing is the Indigenous Council of Government (CIG), yes, just like that with a C, and which was born in mid-2017 as an initiative of the EZLN – CNI presented in 2016. The first runs on the rails of the train of progress heading for catastrophe and the other weaves life from below and to the left.
Hence, we are not surprised by the limitations of today’s “controversial” Constitutional and Legal Reform on the rights of indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples, since it was stillborn. It is enough to remember the year 2001 to be clear that the State had an opportunity to comply with the San Andres Accords signed in 1996 and was not up to the task. For this reason, the indigenous movement from the forum of the National Indigenous Congress CNI and the EZLN decided to break off the dialogue and focus on what was next for their peoples. This led to the exercise of autonomy through deeds, a paradigmatic example was the creation of the caracoles in 2003 by the EZLN, as well as the recovery of lands of the Nahua community of Ostula, on the coast of Michoacán in 2009. Many argue from the pulpit of power that now the State has complied and that is why the reform is going ahead. They forget that life cannot come from the death machine that is the State and we see this teaching every day in our towns and in the madres buscadores. On the other hand, it is necessary to point out that in 2001, some people decided to accept the offer of power and thus participate in the political parties. It is from that time that the betrayal of Adelfo Regino comes.
In addition to the above, remember that since 2019, when the INPI and its current director Adelfo Regino convened regional forums throughout the Mexican Republic, they did so under the banner that this initiative would fulfill the issues that were pending in the San Andres Accords, and paradoxically they continued to legitimize a policy of militarization in Chiapas and throughout the country. With the right hand they create “new laws” -stretching and profiting from the demands-, with the left hand they repress those who organize and with both they applaud the feast of the ruling elite.
But even before it was “decaffeinated,” already since 2019 in the national forum the point referring to Lands, territories, resources, biodiversity and environment of Indigenous Peoples was debated, given that one of its principles openly marked the subordination of the peoples: To recognize the right of indigenous peoples and communities to possess, use, develop and control their lands, territories and resources or natural assets, except those considered strategic for the Nation, to be stipulated in the modification of section VI of paragraph A. of Article 2° and in the addition of a second paragraph to the same. A not insignificant point considering that the strategic resources for the nation are: oil, minerals, nuclear energy, railroads and basic petrochemicals.
On the other hand, the institutions of the Mexican State confirmed once again that they are late, out of date and unwilling to recognize the forms that the peoples deploy to ensure life day by day. In other words, we are in the presence of a mixture of a S.A. de C.V.1 ethnicity in service of the Mexican State and dressed in the enlightened progressivism of the last century, which is perfectly combined with participation in public office, and with all of this, they want us to believe that the demands of the peoples in struggle have been met and that now everything has changed. A year ago the CNI pointed out:
Mexico, despite the disguises and lies that sprout from the government of the Fourth Transformation, is not the exception and the figures that describe violence and war are telling: more than 156 thousand intentional homicides, more than 43 thousand missing and unlocated people, more than 4 thousand femicides, 75 journalists and 104 people defending land and territory, indigenous peoples, human rights and the environment murdered in this six-year term, almost half of the latter participants in the space that is the National Indigenous Congress CNI (CNI, 2023).
The figures of collapse and destruction are clear. In the face of the darkness that the storm is acquiring, it is again necessary to continue with the grassroots work, listening to the word, recognizing and linking sorrows; that is, to take the organizing to our lives, with our families, neighbors, friends, members of the community.
Finally, we must not forget that it is necessary to leave a record in history of those who decided to serve the master and those who decided to walk below and collectively.
*Zoque of Chapultenango, Chiapas, Mexico. Historian, anthropologist and member of the Zoque Language and Culture Center.
Original text published in Radio Zapatista on September 30, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.