COMMENTARY

Self-Determination and Maya Rebellion in Chiapas

In Mexico, there has long been something of a taboo against the mere discussion of Indian self-determination. The simple idea that Indian nations should have the right to control their own destinies (which does not necessarily imply secession) is viewed widely as a traitorous heresy, as well as an impossibility within the structure of the Mexican state and society. It is no great surprise, therefore, that in the flood of news and political analysis that issued out of Chiapas after the beginning of the Maya/Zapatista uprising on 1 January of this year, the specific question of Indian self-determination was notable only for its virtual absence. Given the level of international debate concerning self-determination as a central right of indigenous peoples, especially in the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, one wonders how it might be conceptualized and implemented in Chiapas and elsewhere in Mexico.

Historically, the few Mexican Indian organizations which have attempted over the years to promote self-determination have been systematically ignored (by all other major actors), denounced as having been instigated by outside forces, and eventually coopted, subverted and disbanded. It all seemed very predictable, therefore, that the Mexican government should have attempted at first to blame every possible external influence for the explosion of violence in January. Governments usually do blame their enemies, while sanctimoniously absolving themselves of responsibility, whenever indigenous peoples fight back against internal colonialism (or when any other undesirable effects of their policies emerge). Thus, non-Indian-upper-middle-class Marxist revolutionaries, Guatemalan refugees and insurgents, liberation-theologian priests and catechists, Fidelistas, Sandinistas, and incompetent local officials were all blamed in turn, while Basque ETA terrorists and Peruvian Senderistas were found lurking in the background in other regions of Mexico, waiting for their chance to overthrow the government or otherwise subvert North American imperialism. The government found blame everywhere except in the mirror; it was as if the Maya nations or Mexican underclasses never had faced enough oppression to fight in their own behalf for liberation.

In the blur of elevated emotions and inadequate information, an important question emerged: was the violence indeed an Indian insurrection, or was it a general class rebellion with a focus on a specific Indian issue area? How important could the difference be between those two possibilities? The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which stood in the forefront of media attention, ostensibly fought in reaction to oppression of the Mayas. However, the Zapatistas were (and are) not specifically an Indian-led army, and they have said little about Indian self-determination, while saying much (at least at the outset of the violence) about their goal of socialism, which presumably would offer a solution to the problems of the Indian underclass. Their orientation derives from an analysis of the stratification, discrimination and struggle among Mexican socio-economic classes. The particular focus in this case specifies the destitution and oppression of Mayas in Chiapas, but the overall concern is with "democracy" within Mexican society. How much might this reveal about the fundamental character of the uprising?

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Fourth World Bulletin • April 1994