Community and the EZLN

The concept of community has played an integral role in the history of all political movements. Each political movement has composed and constructed their own idea of community which involves a process of internal and external construction. One of the best examples of community construction was the struggle of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico of the 1990's. To the Zapatistas, their movement was more than just political. Its implications stemmed well beyond the realm of established politics and transcended traditional ideals of western polity and culture. My objective here is to analyze the construction of an imagined community within the Zapatista movement and extract its strategic and political implications.

The concept of community, along with the nation, are often misconstrued and established on dubious grounds which require questioning. There is a tendency in Western culture to view these terms (community and nation) as having natural origins, rather than socially constructed ones. This view has been widely contested by a number of social theorists which have pointed out serious flaws in this presupposed belief. This presupposed belief ignores the very narrative of the construction process explaining how such a community/nation came to be. Thus, it's important to look beyond our traditional notions of these ideas (community/nation) and find within them a common structure relevant in their construction. The Zapatista's derived their concept of community in opposition to traditionally held beliefs of the structure of community. The concept has largely been used as a definitive means of characterizing the internal members, and distinguishing them from those outside. This method of inclusion/exclusion has a number of consequences. First, the stricter the principles of inclusion/exclusion, the more one tends to belief that one's community is a justified, real one. By real, I simply mean that members of a particular community take their membership to be something that exists as a fact of nature, rather than their own social construction. This applies to nations as well; strict guidelines for nationality and what constitutes the boundaries of a national community have a similar effect. This model of national construction denies its own development and growth, and finds legitimacy elsewhere (in other constructed realms). Thus, the nation itself is not something that can be said to exist in reality (since the modern nation-state is a relatively recent development to begin with). By moving away from the belief that nation/community exist as facts of nature and recognize the process of their social construction, we can understand far more about our own communities and how real they actually are.

If we look beyond the Western model for nationalism and its narration, we're able to extract important factors that make such narrations possible to begin with. This means of analyzing nationalism and community building opposes the orthodoxy of the Western model and relieves us of the problem in trying to understand the concept (nation/community) in its standardized modular form (Chatterjee 6). The internal construction of narrating the community is perhaps best observed in the anti-colonial movements of the 20^th century (although the same could be said for other developments of nationalism as well). This predisposition, according to Chatterjee, is the first onset of nationalist tendencies and attitudes that precedes any political movement assuming a platform for national or community recognition. Nationalism thus becomes a process. Starting with the internal, or spiritual, there exists a subtle yet potent conflict between oppressor and oppressed. The spiritual construction of nationalism is the antecedent that makes political nationalism possible. This internalized construction is a process of inclusion/exclusion (Chatterjee 7). Like any other construction, there exist restrictions, guidelines, and circumstances that govern it. These, which could best be understood as rules of exclusion (or external delimitation) form a complex web of ideas that inevitably find their way into the external world. How a community perceives itself in contrast to the "others" will then play a significant role in that community's political solutions. However, when viewed through the restrictive lens of nationalist models imposed through Western though, it appears nationalism only begins when it asserts itself in the external, political, or material realm (Chatterjee 9, 10).

When applying these principles of nationalism to the Zapatista movement, we're presented with important strategic and political implications for an imagined community. In the case of the Zapatistas, the imagined community can be understood as encompassing an internalized construction of community with significant consequences for the external (political, material) realm. To understand these strategic and political implications, one must look deep within the community itself to finds its foundation and ideals which make it so drastically different then our traditional concepts of community, nation, and eventually political institutions.

One of the most significant components in constructing their own community (for the Zapatistas) was referencing ties to the past. The historical experience of Chiapan injustice was crucial in formulating a viable, palatable, and revolutionary community of indigenous people who defined themselves in contrast to the conditions imposed upon them. This idea of community incorporated an internal worth that was denied them in the external realm. Furthermore, these historical experiences provided the Zapatista movement with a different understanding of the traditional notions of democracy, equality, and justice. Although it is not the only foundation, it is perhaps one of the most important, with significant strategic and political implications manifested in the political objectives laid out through the EZLN's communiqués. Through means of incorporating the historical experiences of the Chiapan people we can observe how the EZLN was able to arrive at its political, social, and economic conclusions.

It would be false and presumptuous to assume the EZLN was simply a political movement arising in response to mere conditions as they existed in the 1990's. It is even clearly stated in one (of several) communiqués: "We are the product of five hundred years of struggle" (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 62). This construction of community does not extend solely to those that existed in Chiapas, Mexico 1994. Rather, the Zapatistas had in mind a community that transcended the limitations of temporal distance. The genealogy of the Chiapan community traced its routes back to the earliest struggles against the first colonial powers, the Spanish (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 51). This link to the past not only represents an appeal for strategic purposes of legitimacy (although indeed this helps), rather it is part of the foundation for the community in general. This conception of community then absorbs the historical experiences of the oppressed Chiapans as a common link, not only to their present conditions but their past. This means, community is not fixed in temporal remoteness - but rather finds its groundings in the long series of events that have culminated into the present situation (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 53).

The strategic implications indeed provide legitimacy. This serves as a strategic counter-point to any claim that could be labeled against them that their resistance and armed struggle is unjustified and uncalled for. By invoking the past as a foundation for building a community the Zapatistas are able to provide centuries of continuing experiences of degradation, alienation, exploitation, oppression, and murder to their external political ideology. To make use of this distinctive characteristic of an indigenous community the Zapatistas can appeal to a long-series of unjustified oppression in the minds of their intended constituency. This identifying with the past not only provides legitimacy for the community, but pressure to accept as well. Though the EZLN might deny that they ever constructed their community on grounds that it pressures those whom it appeals to considers themselves a part of it, the historical reality of Chiapas and its people does in fact apply such pressure. To deny membership in this community is to deny one's own (and one's peoples') history.

The political implications for this construction play an even greater part. Using historical experiences provides greater insight into a community's own construction. This insight, unavailable to many who think solely in subjective terms of themselves as they exist in the present, provided the EZLN and the Chiapan people in general to see firsthand the devastating effects colonialism, imperialism, and hegemony had on their peoples (objectively). The political outcome for this recognition is a rejection of the values which were responsible for their historical subjugation. When the Zapatistas outlined justice and equality as the mainstays of their external (political) platform, they had in mind a particular definition of these ideals as they related to their community. Hence, when the Zapatistas discussed justice and equality they saw something different than the average Westerner may see. For the Zapatistas, justice and equality lay as universal principles to be applied to all people, regardless of their conditions or historical experiences. Only the outright denial of these basic principles, as seen in the historical narrative surrounding Chiapan oppression, could explain the emergence of such distinctions.

Other political implications of such formations are identifiable in the political values expressed by the Zapatistas in their communiqués. Politics has many definitions, but for the Zapatistas it can be best described through the historical origins of the word itself: the polis, or community. The community for the Zapatistas then is the basis for all legitimate political arrangements and institutions (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 53). The imagined community for the Zapatistas had a causal determination for their construction of political ideals. In this regard, democracy took on a different form than it was being espoused by the Mexican authorities (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 121). Thus, democracy as interpreted by the Zapatistas meant more than just collective government (over individual dictatorship) but was rested in the empowerment of the community, not their elected representatives. Political legitimacy then is dependent upon recognition by the community - not through institutions of the state. This manifests itself in an outright denial to participate or endorse any mainstream political actor or party (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 68). This resistance against participatory politics also had grounding in the lessons taught through the experiences of indigenous' betrayal on the part of the Mexican government. The betrayal of Emilio Zapata, who had made sincere efforts to benefit his people and took it upon himself to take the government's efforts to negotiate in good faith, nonetheless provided the EZLN with a precedent as to how much faith could be entrusted in the actions of the government. This historical component of the community provided essential grounds for a political program that understood that participating within the system which deprived them of dignity, justice, and equality could never really yield a viable solution.

This construction of community creates tendencies towards incorporating more communal, egalitarian economic arrangements as well. For the Zapatistas, the historical reality as it existed for them was the confiscation of resources that couldn't be claimed as property by any one individual to profit from. The poverty of the Chiapan people is caused by a denial of freedom and justice in terms of economic relations (not merely political). This account of freedom and justice is broader than the account employed in Western societies. The Zapatistas understand these concepts as existing in opposition to capitalism, rather than affirming it. Justice involves economic arrangements to the benefit of all, not just some - and especially not at the expense of the majority. It means that the land is available for the use and prosperity of the people who work it, and that legal claims of private ownership over the land for the accumulation of profit are incompatible with true justice. "Everything for everyone, and nothing for ourselves," (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 245) best exemplifies the external narrative of the internal spirit behind the Zapatista movement. Justice then has real economic and social significance - not solely political. Hence, for the Zapatistas, the connection between their external political platforms and the construction of an internalized community bear a close relationship. The historical experience of being denied the value of their labor and the material wealth derived from their resources and the land was a definitive characteristic in the construction of the Chiapan community. The Zapatistas constructed their political objectives out of their peoples' historical struggle to rightfully claim the land for which they worked. In communiqué fifty-six, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the assassination of Emilio Zapata - the CCRI-CG reminds their readers that this is a struggle born out of the struggles of the past. The two are not isolated struggles. They are mutually dependent upon one another (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 194). Whereas freedom, justice, and equality take on a particular meaning in our own national community, so too did the Zapatistas adopt their own definitions in their construction. The difference is not structural, but rather within the concepts themselves. This lends itself to the creation of an armed political struggle based on the historical experiences of an oppressed people. The tie between present and past is not only strategic but the very foundation for the Zapatista's outlook on the world (and their struggle).

The Zapatistas armed political struggle can best be understood as the culmination of centuries of historical injustice, deprivation, degradation, and oppression. Their struggle was not one fought for political power, political recognition, or charity. The armed struggle can best be understood as the last available means to claim their dignity which has been denied them by the Mexican state (Sub-Commandante Marcos, 194). The history of the Chiapan people, having been subject to centuries of below-standard material living and corresponding denial of human dignity, constructed their concept of community along lines which rested on a link between their present state of affairs and the struggles of the past. From this construction the Zapatista movement created further external objectives which traced their origins in how they defined a community. The conflict between the Mexican state, wealthy landowners, and exploiting classes over the last 500 years culminated in an internalized concept of community. This unique concept of community created particular strategic and political implications as seen throughout this essay. Its definition of itself put its political objectives at odds with the state of affairs under the Mexican government, and formulated the basis for their resistance and armed struggle for what they internalized as valuable to, and necessary for, human dignity, respect, justice, equality, and freedom.
Sources:

Chatterjee, Partha. "Whose Imagined Community." p. 4-13.

Sub-Commandante Marcos. Shadows of Tender Fury: The Letters and Communiques of Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Frank Bardcacke, Leslie Lopez, Watsonville, CA Human Rights Committee (Tr). New York: Monthly Review Press, 1995.