Chris Arsenault asks Ross:

Chris: You mentioned the anti-globalization movement. When the Zapatistas first came on the international scene they were seen as something new, a movement that rejected the ‘free-market’, and made no attempt to seize state power. You’ve traveled a lot around Latin America covering a variety of social movements. Do you think the idea of rejecting state power is becoming a new norm for social movements, or do you think Chiapas is an isolated case?

Ross: I think it is actually a social movement, and there are a number of examples we can look at throughout Latin America. One such example is the picketero movement and other youth movements in Argentina - this kind of horizontal, non-hierarchical left. I think we see some of that within the Sin Tierras [landless workers] Movement in Brazil. Although the structures are different, we certainly see an echo of Zapatismo.

Most importantly, in Bolivia, a movement of that kind was responsible for the defence of water resources against the Bechtel Corporation, forcing Bechtel to retire. This was one of the great victories for the anti- globalization movement.

The water war was the first anti-globalization battle that was taken on as a result of Seattle, and it was won. I think amongst those people, Oscar Olivera and his committee, there is a real understanding of the Zapatismo approach of not organizing to take over state power.

I should mention that all of the political ideas that came out of the Zapatista rebellion of 1994 – wonderful ideas about communal decision making, serving the community, and organizing in a way that did not aim to take state power – all these ideas were welcomed by the left all over the world as a new model, a model to change the world.

I think we needed the Zapatistas more than they needed us. If you look at the historical moment, NAFTA had just been signed, many folks in the labour movement or the human rights movement who had been battling NAFTA for a number of years were in a sense lost. All of a sudden, here in the first hour of the North America Free Trade Agreement, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation rises up against it. We rush to their defence. We saw it as a way of helping us build our movement, and learning from them as well.

In the end, I think the Zapatistas didn’t stage their rebellion to save us. They did that to save themselves in the face of a globalization that, even as far back as 1993-94, threatened the corn of the ‘people of the corn’. After ten years they’ve done pretty well saving themselves, and that is the real purpose of the Zapatista rebellion.

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