The imaginary Zapatist
Recollections and commemoration
Revolutionary leaders like Emiliano Zapata have been absorbed by Mexico's Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) into a sanitised official history of the Mexican revolution which justifies the betrayal of the hopes of the poor.
But as Olga Odgers explains, the Indians of
International Viewpoint #263 February 1995
'History' draws its legitimacy from its rational character: it has to be justified by reason and by 'facts.' It is therefore necessary to iron over all contradictions between facts and arguments, so as to present a logical progression of events, defining a process of emancipation where southern Mexico have their own version of history, passed down to today's generation by the children of those who followed Zapata. This collective memory celebrates Zapata's Indian origins and culture, his radical defense of Indian interests, and his assassination by the regime which became the PRI. The romantic myth of Zapata has expressed the bitterness of the Indians of Chiapas for over 90 years. It is an important element in the creation of a new radical movement among the disposessed of 'basement Mexico'.
Reprinted from Tialticpac, Jan-Feb 1995
THE GROUP of Indians that took up arms on 1 January 1994 called themselves the Zapatist Army of National Liberation.
Why have Chiapas Indians chosen a hero born in the centre of Mexico, a principle figure in official history!
This choice is contradictory and relevant at the same time. It can't be understood in depth without analysing the process through which the image of
Zapata (and thus that of Zapatism) has emerged during the last 84 years.
The Mexican revolution (1910) left a deep scar on the population's experience of life. In the south of Mexico it is characterised by its Zapatist element.
Zapatism was the movement led by
Emiliano Zapata, a movement which took account of his helplessness in Morelos state, where the majority of the population were half-caste. Zapata was himself a half-caste peasant who spoke
Spanish as his mother tongue and who declared himself a Catholic, like the majority of Morelos peasants.
Chiapas, in contrast, has always been a much poorer state than Morelos, characterised by a high proportion of indigenous population, with the Tzeltal,
Tzotzil, and the Tojolabal the most numerous groups.
After Zapata's death, Zapatism entered a period of reinterpretation. This came about through two essentially different processes.
On the one hand the people who had
10 lived Zapatism, having kept track of their experiences, started to relate their memories. During this process the myth of Zapatism came about. On the other hand, the need to legitimise the new government implied the creation of an official history, in which Zapatism should to be included. This process of writing *The History' gave place to the concept of Zapatism. The Zapatism of 1994 reopens the question of the official concept of Zapatism and transforms the myth created in the last 84 years.
SINCE 1910 THE life experiences of Zapatism were discussed among members of the same family, village, work centre etc. The collective memory began to work taking on above all the sensitive emotional part of each experience. The emotional side of the real life experience is the real content of the accounts: the truth of the facts is less
At a popular level the aim is not to retell global events, but experiences, where 'fantasy' important role. The population of a village wants to sing the song of Emiliano Zapata, to tell the most amusing anecdote, or repeat the most heroic episode.
At the same time, the group in power starts to construct an official history. The new governors integrate all the popular leaders in the account of their own arrival in power. The construction of this all popular aspirations have been preserved.
Those at the top are trying to bask in the charisma of all the heroes they can evoke. All the institutions they control -notably the schools, museums, and the media, are orchestrated to promote this official memory'
So on the one hand we see the development of an image based on experiences, in which reasoning is less important, and where the sensitive aspect constitutes the centre of the story. On the other hand we find a rational elaboration which claims to be a true account of the story. In the first case the emotional charge is the constituent principal, in the second the concern of legitimacy, pursued through logical reasoning is the guiding principle.
THE END OF THE revolutionary process was marked by the retaliatory massacre of the revolutionary factions, the assassination of Zapata by Carranza, of Villa by Obregon and of Obregon by Calles. However the need to legitimise the new government drove its leaders to declare themselves heirs to all the regional leaders. They created the concept of the revolutionary family' and began telling a story in which everyone had been fighting for the same cause.
The creation of the official version started just after the rise to power of the last of the revolutionary leaders, Plutarco Elias Calles. The government seized a period of stability to rid itself of those ideals that it considered too revolutionary.
The 'Pantheon' of revolutionary heroes had to undergo a similar transformation. In particular the demands of Zapata were altered. Direct ownership of the land by those who worked on it became the establishment of an institution whose objective was to find a less polarised distribution of land ownership The inhabitants of Emiliano Zapata's home village, Anenecuilco, did not receive any land in 1927(17 years after
only one month, the peso had fallen to its level in December
1987, the date when a currency reform stripped six zeros from
Mexico is a dependent country which has increasingly opened the old peso and fixed the exchange rate against the dollar. For its economy to the world. The formation of the NAFTA common a few years, this enabled the government to suppress inflation.
market with the U.S.A. and Canada on 1 January 1994 But the cost was a revaluation of the peso, which increased 60% was the concretization of a policy begun in 1986, when against the dollar.
Mexico adhered to the GATT free trade agreements.
Twelve years ago, a financial crisis forced the
Current policies have been followed for long enough for Mexican government to devalue the peso and everyone to see what the results are. True, Mexico has adopt neo-liberal economic policies. This meant increased its capacity to export towards the United redefining the class alliance between the PRI
States dramatically. But its capacity to import from the bureaucracy and the various fragments of the bourgeoisie, and modifying the political
With oil revenues already committed to paying back regime which had been in force since the end foreign debts, this trade imbalance has led to a US$ of the Mexican revolution.
24 billion trade deficit in 1994 - representing 7% of The logic of these twelve years of neoliberalism is stark: unhealthy and unbalanced
The neo-liberal gamble to plug this gap was to attract fast economic growth, coupled with terrible massive amounts of foreign capital, by making available social regression. NAFTA to the North, the a cheap, relatively skilled work force, removing all Zapatistas to the South'!
controls on investment, guaranteeing high interest rates on The neo-liberal experiment has failed. There is deposits, and fixing the exchange rate. The events of December no solution for the Mexican bourgeoisie. They will be obliged to show that two thirds of the capital attracted was volatile and implement a massive austerity policy, to compensate for the speculative, attracted by the promise of privatisation, and by the flight of capital which has only just started, and which none of security of guaranteed interest rates. Attracting investment in their neo-liberal recipes can stop. Bleeding Mexican society dry productive capacity was much more complicated. The upturn in will provoke massive shocks to the social and political system. It the U.S. economy did not generate sufficient new orders for is high time for the Mexican left to propose a popular programme
Mexican exporters, and the NAFTA agreement did not produce based on refusing to pay the debt of a crazy policy which only enough relocation of North American production south of the Rio ever benefited the privileged layers of society, who are now
Grande. Europeans should bear all this in mind when they read hurrying their capital to safety in U.S. bank accounts.
that it is the low-wage countries of Southern Europe which cause
The fragile balance of the Mexican economy could have been overturned any time over the last couple of years, particularly since 1994 saw not only the Zapatista uprising, but violent This article was first published in the French weekly Rouge
International Viewpoint #263 February 1995 the beginning of the revolution). For the majority of Mexican peasants the revolutionary law became the promise of land and not the land itself.
In the official text book for the fourth year of elementary school Zapata and Villa are presented under the title "The Beginning of the Revolution' as peasants who followed Madero. After the assassination of Madero they were labelled (with no distinction between them) as those who wanted to 'change everything quickly'./ Following this passage, the arrival of the 'hero' Carranza is described. There is no longer any mention of the struggle of Zapata and Villa who were still very important.
In this book the second and last mention of Zapata by name is in the section 'Reconstruction and Development'. The title is revealing: in order to embark on development (modernism) it is necessary to off-load traces of the past and traditions that do not correspond to the age of Progress. The title also suggests that the revolutionary process does not constitute an element of the formation of a society, but of its destruction. So, development should be started by rejecting all destructive revolutionary elements.
In the only paragraph to mention Zapata by name, the text reads: 'the differences of opinion among the leaders and the general unrest caused by the great changes that the revolution brought about, complicated the restoration of peace to the country. Some of the great revolutionary leaders such as Carranza, Zapata and Villa were assassinated. '2 It is never stated that they assassinated each other and the assassinations are shown as the consequences of habits of a previous time that were swiftly stamped out.
After the assassination of Carranza, Villa and Zapata the official version states: 'elections were reestablished and changes of government took place peacefully.L..] In order to strengthen the sense of unity one political party in which different opinions were debated was created. In 1929 that party dubbed itself the National Revolutionary Party and some of the ideals of the revolution were