Esteva_The Oaxaca Commune and Mexico's Autonomous Movement's

The Oaxaca Commune and Mexico’sComing Insurrection1

Gustavo EstevaAzucenas 610, Colonia Reforma, Oaxaca, Oax., C.P., 68050, Mexico;

[email protected]

Abstract: Was the “Oaxaca Commune” an ephemeral insurrection, an explosion of popularrage, without enduring consequences? Was it a specific expression of autonomous movements,an experiment anticipating the direction some of them are taking? Or was it an isolated, singularepisode of people’s struggles? As yet we do not have enough of an historical perspective tofully appreciate the nature and impact of the events of 2006 in Oaxaca that attracted the world’sattention. But it is worth exploring them and discussing a tentative hypothesis about theirnature and meaning for autonomous movements in Mexico and beyond, when the gap betweenmeans and ends is closed and the shape of the struggle is also the shape of the society thestruggle attempts to create. These provisional notes can thus be seen as an introduction to aresearch agenda.

Keywords: Oaxaca Commune, autonomy, radical democracy, state of exception

IntroductionFrom June to October 2006, there were no police in the city of Oaxaca(population 600,000), not even to direct traffic. The governor and hisfunctionaries met secretly in hotels or private homes; none of themdared to show up at their offices. The Popular Assembly of the Peoplesof Oaxaca (APPO) had posted 24-hour guards in all the public buildingsand radio and TV stations that it controlled. When the governor begansending out his goons to launch nocturnal guerrilla attacks against theseguards, the people responded by putting up barricades. More than athousand barricades were put up every night at 11 pm, around theencampments or at critical intersections. They would be taken downevery morning at 6 am to restore normal traffic. Despite the attacks, therewas less violence in those months (fewer assaults, deaths and injuriesor traffic accidents) than in any similar period in the previous 10 years.Unionized workers belonging to APPO performed basic services likegarbage collection.

Some observers began speaking of the Oaxaca Commune, evokingthe Paris Commune of 1871. Oaxacans responded, smiling: “Yes, butthe Paris Commune lasted only 50 days and we’ve already lastedmore than 100.” The analogy is pertinent but exaggerated, exceptAntipode Vol. 42 No. 4 2010 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 978–993doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00784.xC© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.

The Oaxaca Commune and Mexico’s Coming Insurrection 979

in terms of the reaction that these two popular insurrections elicitedin the centers of power. Like the European armies that crushed thecommunards who had taken over all the functions of government, theFederal Preventive Police of Mexico, backed by the army and the navy,were sent to Oaxaca on 28 October 2006 to try to control the situation.On 25 November those forces conducted a terrible repression, the worstin many years, with massive violation of human rights and an approachthat can be legitimately described as state terrorism. The operation,which included imprisonment of the supposed leaders of the movementand hundreds of others, was described by the International Commissionfor the Observation of Human Rights (which visited Oaxaca in January2007) as “a juridical and military strategy . . . whose ultimate purposeis to achieve control and intimidation of civil population”.2 For theauthorities, this strategy would dissolve APPO and send a warning tothe social movements in the whole country.

This same strategy has been employed since then and has had aprofound impact in Oaxaca. The results increased and exacerbatedpolarization. Some activists are in jail and others exiled out of Oaxacaor even Mexico. It has been impossible to identify all the disappeared;their families are afraid of revealing their names. Many professionalsare now joining the usual migrants, out of fear or for lack of economicopportunities. Some people are afraid of exhibiting any support to APPOor participating in autonomous initiatives. People of different sectors ofthe society blame APPO for whatever economic difficulties they areconfronting. Some others take for granted that the movement is overand the tyrannical governor will remain in office for the rest of his term,and are thus trying to accommodate themselves to that prospect. Allthis is true; there exist many symptoms of intimidation. However, theopposite is increasingly predominating. Marches are growing, as are sit-ins. Everywhere there is intense effervescence. Oaxaca is boiling. Thereis an increasing risk of violent confrontations in this highly polarizedsociety, which may be used as a pretext for more authoritarianism.Many factors, however, may block this option and nourish the hopethat the movement will be able to peacefully evolve and consolidate.The impulse for a profound transformation is very deep and strong andperhaps inevitable.

On 23 November 2006, a week before Felipe Calderon took office asthe new, rightist and contested President, subcomandante Marcos, thespeaker of the Zapatistas, declared that he “is going to start to fall fromhis first day” and that “we’re on the eve of a great uprising or civil war”.When asked who would lead that uprising, he replied: “the people, eachin their place, in a network of mutual support. If we don’t accomplish itthat way, there will be spontaneous uprisings, explosions all over, civilwar . . .”

C© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.

980 Antipode

He cited the case of Oaxaca, where “there are no leaders, nor bosses:it’s the people themselves who are organized”. That’s how it is going tobe in the whole country; Oaxaca serves as an indicator of what’s goingto happen all over. “If there isn’t a civil and peaceful way out, whichis what we propose in the Other Campaign”, Marcos warned, “then itwill become each man for himself . . . For us, it doesn’t matter what’sabove. What matters is what’s going to arise from below. When werise up, we’re going to sweep away the entire political class, includingthose who say they’re the parliamentary left” (La Jornada 24 November2006). This is a clear definition of the challenges that lie ahead.

What APPO is NotAPPO remains a mystery, even for those who are part of it. Thedistortions introduced by the media and by some participants in APPO,who were using it to promote their own political and ideological agendas,have created extended confusion. Furthermore, its innovative characteris a challenge to understanding the nature, meaning, and implicationsof this strange political animal.

Both insiders and outsiders still view APPO as a politicalorganization. They assume that, like almost all of them, it is focusedon the state and replicates structurally the apparatus that supposedlyaspires to run. Like the state, it would be vertical and hierarchical. Itsleaders, like state officials, would routinely succumb to partisanship andcorruption. Assuming that the people cannot act on its own, someonewould be pulling the strings behind APPO. Surely, a group or a leaderwould be manipulating the masses.

Officials, parties, and commentators saw the insurrection, especiallyat the beginning, as a mere revolt. They were not altogether mistaken;it fitted well into the tradition of popular outbreaks that occur in theface of an unbearable oppressor or of a measure that constitutes “thelast straw”. It was also seen as a rebellion, because it was an uprisingof indomitable people affirming their dignity. By the thousands, by themillions, the people rebelled. “Enough!” was the cry of the rebels whosuddenly emerged from every corner.

But this insurrection was neither a mere revolt nor just a rebellion.Revolts may be volcanic and irrepressible, but also ephemeral. Theysubside as quickly as they arose. They leave a permanent imprint, likevolcanic rock, but they crumble. This is not what occurred here. Thisinsurrection did not subside. Governor Ulises Ruiz embodied the sourceof discontent and displayed the worst traits of the oppressive system, buthe was no more than the detonator of dispersed discontent. The peoplecalled for his ousting, yet his political corpse will fertilize a more lastingagenda of transformation. The process may sweep away such political



relics of a bygone era in order to build, peacefully and democratically,a new society.

Nor is APPO a “mass movement”—whatever might be said by theconventional Left and even by some of its own constituent groupings.The masses are made up of atomized individuals grouped into abstractcategories defined and controlled by others—passengers of a plane,pensioners, workers in a factory, voters, party members, demonstratorsetc. In the mass, people lose control over their capacity to moveindependently.3 The “mobilizations” of a trade union, a party, or aleader, organized and controlled from above, tend to demobilize people.Despite its overtones of radicalism, the word mass has ecclesiasticaland bourgeois origins. It reduces people to the condition they share withmaterial objects: being measured in numbers.4 The illusion that the massof consumers controls the market, or that the mass of voters controlspolitical power, serves to hide the real situation, in which people arecontinually stripped of political and economic power.

APPO’s huge marches seemed to be comprised of masses. Somegroups thought that they had succeeded in creating a “mass movement”.To be sure, certain isolated individuals, identifiable with some category,participated on their own initiative as a way of expressing their supportfor the movement. Most of those who have participated in APPO,however, have done so not as individuals but rather as members ofa group, on the basis of decisions taken within a community. They donot constitute masses in the conventional sense of the word.

Organizing a Movement of MovementsThere in an increasing consensus that APPO is a movement, not anorganization. Like any movement, it may have organizations withinit—each with its own leadership, goals, structures etc. “Fuera Ulises!”(calling for the resignation of the governor) emerged clearly as anexpression of the immense popular discontent, but it cannot be viewed asa goal. There is no proposition or goal that defines APPO; it encompassesa diversity of intentions and trajectories. There is growing convergencearound certain agendas—like producing a new Constitution or resistingcapitalism—but even on these points there is no agreement on what theymean.

Neither the 30-member Coordinadora Provisional which operatedfrom 20 June to 12 November 2006, nor the 260-member State Councilwhich was formed on the latter date can be taken to constitute orrepresent APPO; nor did they have governing authority. They carriedout important functions, especially at critical moments, in disseminatinginformation and guidelines, and also in coordinating specific actionssuch as marches. But they were never able to control the autonomousactions or initiatives of the participants. The Council was never able toC© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.

982 Antipode

assemble all its members, not even on its founding day. Far from being asource of weakness, however, this situation gives the movement a greatforce.

Looking more closely at APPO, it becomes evident that it is aconvergence of movements and organizations of very distinct types.Some of the movements are longstanding, like the indigenous movementand the movements of peasants, feminists, environmentalists, anddefenders of human rights or of cultural traditions etc. Other movementswere formed or became more sharply defined with the emergence ofAPPO, particularly in the city of Oaxaca and in some other regions. Inaddition, APPO embraces a number of types of organizations. What hasbeen called the “civic space” of APPO is made up of a large numberof civic organizations and non-profits dedicated to the most diverseactivities and closely linked to existing groups and communities. Thereare also political associations and organizations, some of them strictlylocal and others linked to national organizations and parties.

This great diversity implies disagreements and contradictions.5

Decisions of the coordinating bodies, which in principle must be byconsensus, tend to be slow and difficult, often resulting in a lowestcommon denominator that is not always the best response to rapidlydeveloping events. The underlying diversity, however, is at the sametime an immense source of strength. APPO did not depend on a leader.Its strength did not come from any momentary episode but rather frompowerful historical forces impelling people to strive for change.

APPO softly mutated from the condition of a mere event: an assemblyto support Local 22 of the teachers union (after the repression theysuffered during their strike), to a coalition of leaders of around 300organizations that came to the meeting convened by Local 22. Verysoon it fluidly mutated again to become an articulated convergenceof political and social movements. However, when the issue was toevolve from the form revolt/rebellion to the structured organicity ofa movement of movements many divergences emerged. There was anactive promotion of a front of political organizations, to adopt the verticalstructure of the latter. This proposal found continuous resistance, butAPPO has not yet discovered the pertinent organizational form, as aweb or network of social and political movements and autonomousorganizations, collectives and communities, and even less the structurethat originally defined it: an assembly of assemblies, a political projectemerging from the grassroots and not from leaders, organizations orsocial engineering.

Participation of Indian PeoplesThe state of Oaxaca has more natural and cultural diversity than anyother Mexican state, and it is the only one with an indigenous majority.C© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.


With 5% of the national population, it contains one-fifth of all thecountry’s municipalities or municipios. The municipal fragmentation ofOaxaca is maintained from two directions. The authorities imposed itto overcome resistance on the part of the indigenous peoples, but theindigenous peoples transformed the municipio into a political expressionof their autonomy. Four out of five municipios are governed on the basisof “usos y costumbres”—a euphemism to emphasize that the peopleas a whole exercise authority without electoral processes, arrivingat decisions in communal assemblies. The indigenous struggle alsoaccounts for Oaxaca’s existence as the state with the highest proportionof communally owned land; more than 80%. Upon recovering theirlands, the communities were able to express through them their ownapproaches to relations among people and with nature.

For many years, the federal and state authorities allowed the Indianpeoples of Oaxaca to practice their own forms of government in mostof the state’s municipios, beyond the reach of the Constitution, the law,and partisan politics—but not without overlaying these forms with anelaborate system of simulation.

The commemoration in 1992 of 500 years since the European invasiongave indigenous peoples throughout the Americas the opportunity toshow the vigor and vitality of their initiatives. The governor who tookoffice in Oaxaca at the end of that year found the indigenous peoplein full effervescence. On 21 March 1994, fearful that the Zapatistainsurrection of 1 January would spread to Oaxaca, he offered the Indianpeoples a “New Accord” giving them certain shared authority in thestate government. Although the “Accord” was blocked by bureaucraticand cacique-type structures and remained mostly at the level of rhetoric,it had some important legislative consequences. On 30 August 1995, thereform of Oaxaca’s electoral law gave Indian communities the power todecide whether to choose their authorities through party-competition orthrough the traditional system of usos y costumbres. On 12 Novemberof that year, when the reform was applied for the first time, 412 ofOaxaca’s 570 municipios opted for the traditional approach. None ofthem experienced the post-electoral clashes that were common in thosethat opted for the party regime.

The change had implications beyond any electoral outcome; it wasunderstood as a strong expression of autonomy, involving many otheraspects of the relationship between Indian peoples and the state. In somevillages there began to appear graffiti declaring: “Here we do not allowpolitical parties, least of all the PRI [Partiac Revolucionario Institutionalor Institutional Revolutionary Party].” (They were thus expressing a newform of resistance to a party which has dominated Oaxaca for 70 years.)The new law, instead of enhancing state intervention, served to restrainit, by requiring that the authorities respect the will of the community.


984 Antipode

On 6 June 1998 changes in Oaxaca’s constitution were promulgated,and on 17 June a new law on the Rights of the Peoples and theIndigenous Communities of Oaxaca was passed. The reforms grantedself-determination, in the form of autonomy, to the indigenous peoplesand communities. They also recognized them as juridical entities underpublic law. Many analysts consider the resulting regime the mostadvanced in the Americas in relation to concerns of the indigenouspopulation. However, in action it is almost useless: the three branchesof government ignore or openly violate it.

The timid openings that seemed to have occurred with the “NewAccord” were drastically canceled in the corrupt and authoritarianadministration of state governor Jose Murat (1998–2004).6 Thediscontent that had built up under his rule led all the opposition forcesin the state to ally themselves for the first time in 2004 against the PRI,which up to that time had maintained effective control of the ballotboxes. Ulises Ruiz, the PRI candidate, lost the election, but managed totake the governorship by means of a transparent fraud. Ruiz is notoriousas the PRI’s leading expert in electoral fraud. All the electoral organs ofOaxaca were under his control and ratified his victory. The oppositionchallenged the outcome in the Federal Tribunal, which acknowledgedthe fraud but refused to nullify it, on the pretext that it was a local matter.

Those who despite all their lack of trust in representative democracyhad taken the trouble to vote felt an enormous frustration. Three monthsafter the election for governor came the municipal elections. In fourfifths of the municipios, the people organized the elections in their ownway. In those cases where the election was organized along party lines,the rate of abstention was overwhelming. In the state capital the newmunicipal president was elected by only 11% of the registered voters.

The new governor, lacking all legitimacy, governed despotically,constantly attacking the people’s movements, the autonomousorganizations, and civil society initiatives. The destruction of thenatural and historical patrimony of the state, especially in the city ofOaxaca, produced by public works conceived with a distorted notion ofmodernization, generated immense discontent. He used federal funds tofinance all sorts of useless projects, with the dual aim of winning votesand generating resources for the presidential campaign of the PRI. Whenthe presidential election date (2 July 2006) came close, the governmentintensified its pressure on the voters. No holds were barred: intimidation,threats, imprisonment, direct violence, buying votes, illegal use of publicresources etc. Never before, despite the PRI’s long history of fraud andmanipulation, had anything similar been seen. Ruiz thus helped createthe atmosphere in which the movement would grow.

The Indian peoples were slow to join the movement. Although well-known Indian leaders were involved from the beginning and therewas visible indigenous participation even in the earliest marches,C© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.


the discussions within the communities dragged on for months. Inmany cases the debate reflected a longstanding tension between thecommunities and the teachers, which made the communities reluctantto join in what they saw as a purely trade-unionist mobilization on theteachers’ part.

In late September and early October 2006, however, major indigenousleaders, intellectuals and organizations joined in the call for a Citizens’Initiative for Peace, Democracy and Justice, which was inaugurated on12 October. Later that year, in the big march of 5 November, municipaland community leaders had a significant presence. In the inauguralCongress of the APPO, it became clear that in several regions of the stateindigenous participation had become well established, sometimes in theform of regional APPOs. In the predominantly indigenous Sierra deJuarez, for example, the Assembly of Zapotecan, Mixe and ChinantecanPeoples was formed and sent 23 delegates to the statewide APPO.Finally, the Forum of Indigenous Peoples of Oaxaca convened on28–29 November 2006 involving 14 different indigenous peoples.7

The Forum examined extensively, in a democratic way, fundamentalissues for the Indian peoples, like self-determination and autonomy;land, territories and resources; intercultural indigenous education andcommunication; and human rights violations. It called for the removalof the governor, it denounced violations of the law, and it called forstrengthening the organization and joint activity of the APPO.

Urban autonomyMore than half of the current population of the city of Oaxaca lives inpopular neighborhoods formed, in the majority of cases, by illegal landoccupations of squatters. Their struggles to regularize their situationand obtain basic services were well known, but they did not seem tohave a major presence in the social and political life of the city—exceptthrough the graffiti which could be seen everywhere.

The sudden presence in the movement of groups from the popularneighborhoods and some from the middle classes was unexpected. Itwas not known to what extent the communal social fabric also existed inthose neighborhoods. The barricades arose spontaneously as a popularresponse to the governor’s attacks on the APPO encampments, andrapidly took on a life of their own, to the extent of becoming autonomousfocal points for social and political organization. Long sleepless nightsprovided the opportunity for extensive political discussions, whichawakened in many young people a hitherto nonexistent or inchoatesocial consciousness.

On the barricades, new forms of anarchism—in both ideologicaland lifestyle applications—began to appear. The collectives on thebarricades defended their autonomy ferociously and sometimes withC© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.

986 Antipode

a level of hostility that was hard to channel. Some groups occupiedabandoned public buildings and began not only to live in them but toconvert them into centers of cultural and political activity. The childrenand youth of these groups played a significant part in the movement,especially in confrontations with the police, which many of them wereused to.

Paths of APPOAPPO is rooted in longstanding and very Oaxacan traditions of socialstruggle, but it is strictly contemporary in its outlook and its openness tothe world. It owes its radicalism to its very nature: it is at ground level,close to the roots. It acquired its insurrectionist tone after trying all thelegal and institutional methods of advancing its demands and findingthem all blocked. But it does not dance to just any tune; it composes itsown music. Where there are no markers, it blazes its own trail.

APPO is clearly a result of general discontent with the rule of UlisesRuiz. Beginning with very concrete experiences, like the successfulopposition to erecting a McDonald’s in Oaxaca’s central plaza, it quicklyand clearly adopted the politics of a single “No” and many “Yeses” thatcharacterizes many present-day social movements. This approach findsunity in the common rejection of an action or omission, a policy, anofficial or a regime, but allows at the same time for a plurality ofaffirmations, projects, ideals and ideologies.

The rejection of Governor Ulises Ruiz, which persists to this dayamong the majority of Oaxacans, increasingly becomes a rejection of aregime and of a whole state of affairs. Ulises Ruiz is just one embodimentof a government that is already considered unbearable. Corruption andauthoritarianism did not begin with him, but they reached extremes underhis rule that made them intolerable for the majority. For many APPOparticipants, rejection of this regime includes a rejection of capitalism.

The diversity of the innumerable movements and organizations makesit impossible to identify a single path for the APPO. There really aremany “Yeses” that are being put forward by its participants. Althoughthere are clear overlaps and convergences among them, the propositionsput forward by the indigenous movements, for example, are not identicalto those advanced by environmentalists or human rights advocates.

Convergences and divergences can be observed in the current struggle.First, there are conventional struggles to claim—from capital or theState—economic and social improvements, or to defend what hasalready been obtained whenever it is exposed to a real or perceivedthreat. But there are also struggles openly transcending that framework.

Second, there are struggles over different kinds of democracy—representative, participatory and radical democracy. Many attempt toperfect formal democratic processes by promoting legal and institutionalC© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.


reforms to improve those processes and put an end to electoral fraud.Others struggle to introduce participatory democracy, with tools likereferendum, plebiscite, recall, participatory budgeting, transparency andsocial control, in order to widen the participation of the citizens in theoperation of the government. The third and final struggle, and the mainchallenge to the APPO, is to place formal and participatory democracy atthe service of radical democracy, the democracy that has been practicedfrom time immemorial in the indigenous communities and municipiosand is usually associated with autonomy. The idea now is to extend thisway of governing to the entire society, beginning with the formation ofautonomous regional bodies. This implies a new kind of society, beyondthe design of the nation-state and as an expression of political autonomy.While the struggles around formal and participatory democracy focuson legal and institutional reforms, the struggle for radical democracyfocuses on what the people themselves can do to transform the conditionsunder which they live.

Third, in the tradition of the Latin American Left, which sees theState as the main agent of social and political transformation, manyefforts attempt to change the orientation or role of the State, withemphasis on social rights. Some groups struggle to reorient the existingpublic policies, moderating the neoliberal model, while others look for asocialist variant—from “populist Stalinism” (with verticalism, supremeleader and one party) to different forms of participatory socialism,8

after seizing power through public pressure, mass mobilization, suddenattack, democratic elections, or an armed uprising. Those with no trustin the transformation from the top down, by the State, which are perhapsthe majority, attempt to redefine the nature and operation of politicalpower and tend to adopt an autonomist and libertarian orientation.

There has been a very intense debate, inside and outside the APPO,about the character and traits of a “people’s government” (gobiernopopular). Some believe that it is necessary to seize the organs ofthe State, getting rid of the established authorities in order to installin their place “people’s representatives” who would use State powerto serve the people. This “people’s government” would be installedas a substitute for the present rulers. Others question not only thefeasibility of this approach (under present conditions) but also itsjustification. They believe that oppression and authoritarianism areinherent in the apparatuses of the State and that the supposed “people’srepresentatives”, once in control of these apparatuses, invariably becomecorrupt, regardless of how they came into that position—whether bygenuinely democratic election, by revolution, or by sudden attack (golpede mano) (as would be the case in Oaxaca). According to this view, itis not enough to change the ideology of those who run the state; all itsinstitutions should be dismantled. Moreover, this transformation mustbe carried out by the citizens themselves, through their own initiativesC© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.

988 Antipode

and actions, in order to reorganize the society from the bottom up, andnot the reverse, through social engineering.

They share with other groups the critique of the private propertyof the means of production and of capitalism, but they emphasizecommunal property, which allows for some forms of personal ownershipof some means of production, when it does not involve exploitation, asin the indigenous communities. These struggles are mainly orientedtowards the creation of new social relations, by the people themselves,in the framework of radical democracy. They see formal democracyas a political umbrella for the transition, better than a dictatorship,but they have a profound distrust for the representative system and itselectoral procedures. They appreciate participatory democracy, but onlyas training for radical democracy.

These examples are only the tip of the iceberg of themes discussedcontinuously in Oaxaca, in the most diverse ways. In many casesthe debates dispense with technical terms and even with widelyused concepts (like capitalism and socialism), but their content andorientation clearly express a radical critique of the status quo, alongwith a continuous search for alternatives and a commitment to fight forthem.

The Pot and the VaporIn the midst of the daily struggle, an image that attempts to expresswhat has happened in Oaxaca has been circulating for a long time.Years of fierce corruption and overflowing authoritarianism convertedOaxaca into a pressure cooker above a slow flame. Ulises Ruiz addedfuel to the fire until the pressure hurled the lid off on 14 June 2006, withthe suppression of a teachers’ sit-in. APPO articulated the discontentbrewing inside the pot and converted it into transformative action. Theferocity of the federal forces put a new heavy lid on top of Oaxaca on25 November, but the fire continues. Small holes, which opened in thelid through people’s initiatives, alleviate the pressure, but they remaininsufficient. The pressure continues to accumulate and in any momentwill hurl the lid off once more. The experiences accumulated in theseyears might provide ways to let the pressure escape in a more organizedway, but nobody can foresee what will happen. There are too manyforces at odds with each other.

Another metaphor can contribute to an understanding of what iscoming: the one of vapor, piston and boiler. If the vapor representspeople’s energy and the piston and the boiler the organizationalapparatuses, Oaxaca’s experience seems to contradict the convictionthat without the boiler (the apparatuses) the vapor (people’s energy) willdissipate. This is usually true, but people’s energy may not dissipate,but endure transmuted in experience—invisible for those that identifyC© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.


the movement with the organizational apparatuses, but existing insubsequent aspects of daily life.9

Oaxaca is still “at full steam”. Part of what was generated in 2006 hascondensed itself into an experience and transformed into a behavior: itis in the daily attitudes of many people, who will never return to theold “normalcy”. Another portion of the “vapor” generated yesterday, orthat comes up every day, propels many initiatives. And there is “vapor”that continues to accumulate, that raises the pressure and that perhapsis trying to redefine its course once it succeeds in liberating itself fromeverything still retaining it—not a boiler with a piston, but the oppressivelid of the repression that continues: political and police mechanismsblocking off the popular initiative.

The obsession to ascertain who generates that “vapor” persists,reinforcing the prejudice that ordinary people cannot take the initiativethemselves. It is taken for granted that somebody, a person or agroup, would be throwing rocks and hiding the hand: it would havemanipulated the docile masses and would want to continue doing so.The media constructed their own leaders, presenting them as peoplewhose image would prepare public opinion for the violent liquidation ofthe movement. The authorities did the same to organize co-optation andrepression; they seem now to believe that the APPO will be paralyzedor at least disabled as long as those that supposedly lead the movementremain in prison. Similar attitudes have been observed in the left, insideand outside the movement. Those who think that what has happenedwould be inconceivable without a leading organization now see itdissolved or weakened and want to renovate it or reconstruct it. Orelse, when the absence of real leaders of the APPO is recognized,everything is transferred to the past: that absence would have provokedthe evaporation of the spontaneous popular outbreak. The popular energywould have dissipated, like vapor not contained in a boiler.

When the question is not about seizing the State apparatuses, butabout changing social reality and thus dissolving them, the vapor,which continually condenses in everyday experience, operates in itsdissipation and spills onto reality. The vapor cannot be contained in“organized apparatuses” nor be driven by “leading organizations”. Forthose apparatuses and organizations to be relevant and play a role, theyshould renounce the pyramidal structure, when a web is needed, andthey must learn to lead by obeying. Furthermore, they should operateon an appropriate scale, adapting themselves continually to conditionsand styles of the real men and women that are always the vapor, theimpulse, and those finally determining the course and reach of thewhole movement.

Mechanical metaphors always fall short of the richness of real socialprocesses. But the pot and the vapor are useful images to observe the


990 Antipode

complex present situation, in Oaxaca and greater Mexico, when what ismost important seems to be invisible.

APPO’s ProspectsIn the current conditions of social and political polarization, Ruiz’scontinuation in a position of authority—which he is less and lesscapable of exercising—has been imposing increasing political costson the dominant regime, leading to ever more intense and violentconfrontations, which may result in a kind of open civil war. Manygroups and organizations are trying to prevent such an option, in orderto follow instead peaceful and democratic paths of social transformation.

The movement will not give up. Surely the different movements thatcomprise it will differ in their vitality and in their presence on thepolitical scene, but none of them will disappear or become paralyzed.The APPO represents above all a great awakening and it has beenshowing immense resilience. Throughout the state of Oaxaca thereis the conviction that the society is on the threshold of a profoundtransformation. No sector and no aspect of Oaxaca’s reality have beenuntouched. The winds of change are blowing everywhere, in full force.

APPO embodies the transition from resistance to liberation initiatedin Oaxaca by Zapatismo. Groups and communities that for centuries hadresisted colonization and development, maintaining their own forms oforganization and self-government, saw clearly the new threats posedby global forces and recognized the limitations and dangers of thefragmented regionalism into which many of them had fallen, confiningresistance to their immediate spheres. As an alternative both to suchfragmented regionalism and to globalization, there is now spreadingthe notion of localization. Locally based self-affirmation is preserved,but there is an increasingly powerful opening to other groups andcommunities, to form extensive alliances and coalitions with all thosewho are discontented with the system. Not only is there an awareness ofthe threats (including devastating attacks) against resistance movements;there is also a sense that resistance itself may have reached its limit. Itcan no longer be just a question of surviving in the face of a dominantregime; it is time to create, together with other groups and sectors, aregime that can replace it.

The APPO brought a fresh breeze of renovation to Oaxaca in a darkperiod of its history. It opened a new horizon of hope, whose innovativecharacter, especially in terms of bridging cultural diversity and applyingthe assembly tradition to the present, is a source of inspiration formany other movements in Mexico and in the world. More than 30 yearsago, Ivan Illich (1996:105) observed: “The Promethean ethos has noweclipsed hope. Survival of the human race depends on its rediscovery asa social force.” Given the current situation in Oaxaca, Mexico and theC© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.


world, people are still hoping for the best but prepared for the worst. Inthis context, hope is not the conviction that something will happen, butthe conviction that something makes sense, whatever happens.

Postscript, February 2010The terrible impact of the savage repression of late 2006 is still feltwidely in Oaxaca. There are many ruined families, and there arewidespread feelings of uncertainty, fear, and economic insecurity. Thepolitical classes are supporting Ulises Ruiz to the end of his rule, inDecember 2010. They have been adopting his authoritarian style asMexico increasingly operates under an undeclared state of exception,10

which may soon be legally declared.Oaxaca’s social and political polarization continues and may deepen

even more in the electoral processes of 2010. Parties from left and rightgathered an alliance to beat the almighty PRI, weakened by internalconflicts and the resentment left by the administration of Ruiz. Butthey are not getting the attention they expected, given the profounddisenchantment with representative democracy in the state.

Nobody knows if APPO, as an emblem, will remain; some sectors ofthe society see it as the cause of their economic difficulties and thosecommitted to it are not sure what to do. Today it is perceived as anincomplete experiment. The original idea, an assembly of assemblies,was brutally interrupted at the end of 2006. The reorganization or thecreation of assemblies at the grassroots continues, at its own pace,looking for more solid ground. But it is a process unable at this point toattempt again the extension of this organizing principle to whole regionsand the state, except in specific places where the traditional struggle forland is being defended, giving autonomous initiatives new strength.

What the Invisible Committee described as “the coming insurrection”(2009) seems to be already in Oaxaca and Mexico, but it seems alsoinvisible. As Subcomandante Marcos similarly warned, if a peaceful,democratic insurrection does not constitute the political force toimplement the radical changes defining it, a very violent, viciouscivil war may start soon, with all kinds of chaotic explosions andunprecedented forms of authoritarianism. Oaxaca’s experiment in 2006could today be seen as the expression of a political antenna, the canaryin the mine for what is currently emerging in Mexico and the world.

Endnotes1 I am using in this text revised fragments from my column in La Jornada (2006–2007) and from previous essays, particularly “The Asamblea Popular de los Pueblosde Oaxaca, APPO: A chronicle of radical democracy” (2007a) and “Oaxaca: The pathto radical democracy (2007b). For a more informative and theoretical analysis, offeringadditional elements of the Mexican and Oaxacan context, see Esteva (2008).C© 2010 The AuthorAntipode C© 2010 Editorial Board of Antipode.

992 Antipode

2 See the full report in www.cciodh.pangea.org3 “When I say mobilize I mean mobilize, I mean that a people must be more mobilethan it is—that it have the freedom of a dancer, the purposefulness of a soccer-player,the surprise-factor of a guerrilla warrior. One who treats the masses as a political objectwill not be able to mobilize them; he only wants to give them orders. A package, forexample, has no mobility; it is merely sent from one place to another. Mass rallies andmarches immobilize people. Propaganda which paralyzes rather than giving free rein totheir autonomy has the same effect; it leads to depoliticization” (Enzensberger 1976:10).4 “One can say that the concept of mass, which is purely quantitative, applies to peoplein the same way that it applies to anything that occupies space. True enough; but inthis case it has no qualitative value. We should not forget that in order to arrive at theconcept of human masses, we have abstracted out all the traits of people except for whatthey share with material things: the possibility of being measured in numbers. And thus,logically, the human masses cannot be saved or educated. But it will always be possibleto mow them down with machine-guns” (Machado 1975:239).5 It is not possible here to give even a minimal account of all the incidents in theevolution of APPO, but one central fact stands out. Local 22 of the Teachers Unioninitiated a trade-union struggle around certain economic demands that momentarilytook on a political expression, but never lost its original aspect. Once the economicdemands were satisfied (at least on paper), its mobilization ended. APPO, on the otherhand, undertook from the very beginning a political and social struggle. It continuouslysupported the trade-unionist struggle of Local 22, but did not allow itself to be definedby it. This contrast gave rise to all kinds of tensions, which came into the open atthe end of September 2006, when the teachers decided to return to classes and endtheir mobilization while APPO was facing the arrival of the Federal Preventive Police,holding its constitutional convention, issuing its Citizens’ Dialogue Initiative for Peace,Justice and Democracy, and holding a large forum of indigenous peoples. The tensionsare also evident inside Local 22, as many teachers participate actively in APPO andare even trying to transform their trade-union struggle into a political one. Rank andfile teachers continue to be an important part of APPO. Amidst accusations of treasonthe general secretary of the union stepped down in February 2007. When a new onewas elected, more than a year later, after a very complex process, the outcome revealedan important political reorganization within Local 22 but no changes in its nature andorientation.

Apart from these tensions between APPO and Local 22, there have been othertensions within APPO. Some of these reflect the distinct styles, concerns, and strategiesof the participants. For example, the dominant opinion in APPO favors a peacefuland democratic movement, explicitly opposed to all forms of violence, whereas someorganizations and individuals consider it necessary to use violence, not only in self-defense but as part of the struggle. The most important tensions are between strictlylocal movements and organizations and those that are the expressions of nationalorganizations. The local groups, while ready to offer and receive solidarity fromoutside, and aware of the national and global ramifications of their struggle, remainprimarily concerned with local issues; they resist pressure on the part of the nationalorganizations to subordinate APPO to national or international political/ideologicalagendas (especially those of political parties).

Although these tensions have affected the functioning of APPO, especially byblocking certain agreements and decisions in its coordinating bodies, it has been possibleto limit their effects. Still, it is conceivable that the unity and coherence achieved upto now may weaken as APPO enters a new phase and as some organizations bet on itscollapse or abandon it to pursue their agendas elsewhere.



6 Murat led an aggressive offensive against the popular movement. He becamea representative in the Federal Congress, and is under indictment for financialirregularities.7 The amuzgo, chatino, chinanteco, chontal, chocholteco, cuicateco, huave, mazateco,mixe, mixteco, tacuate, trique, zapoteco and zoque peoples. The declaration has not yetbeen published.8 Some groups, small in size but highly visible and organized, maintain a Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy largely abandoned elsewhere (which includes Stalin among itsexemplars) and defend positions superficially grafted onto a socialist framework.Broader groups embrace a critical position regarding socialism, viewing it as a historicalphenomenon whose end is nearing and whose theoretical construction has importantdeficiencies as argued by Harry Cleaver (1992). This broader current appears not to havemuch interest in such socialist experiments as that of Venezuela. The overall tendency,grounded in indigenous traditions, seems to be focused in leaving behind socialism aswell as capitalism.9 Adolfo Gilly (2006), personal communication with the author.10 As Agamben (2005) observes, the state of exception traditionally defines normalcyfor whole categories of people, which in the case of Oaxaca may include the majority.What is currently happening in Mexico is that such a condition is now applied to thewhole of the society and the oppressed are applying their one notion of state of exception.

ReferencesAgamben G (2005) State of Exception. Chicago: Chicago University PressCleaver H (1992) Socialism. In W Sachs (ed) The Development Dictionary (pp 12–25).

London: ZedEnzensberger H (1976) Elementos para una teorıa de los medios de comunicacion

[Constituents of a theory of the media]. Barcelona: AnagramaEsteva G (2007a) The Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, APPO: A chronicle

of radical democracy. Latin American Perspectives 152(34):129–144Esteva G (2007b) “Oaxaca: The path to radical democracy. Socialism and Democracy

21(2):21–2Esteva G (2008) Cronica de un movimiento anunciado. In G Esteva, R Valencia and

D Venegasa (eds) Cuando hasta las piedras se levantan: Oaxaca, Mexico, 2006(pp 21–90). Buenos Aires: Editorial Antropofagia/GEMSAL

Illich I (1996) Deschooling Society. London: Marion BoyarsMachado A (1975) Prosas. Havana: Editorial Arte y CulturaThe Invisible Committee (2009) The Coming Insurrection. Los Angeles: Semiotext


Date post:	24-Oct-2014
Category:	Documents
Upload:	agata-hummel
View:	203 times
Download:	3 times

Esteva_The Oaxaca Commune and Mexico's Autonomous Movement's

Documents