Democracy Ateneo Announcement 9-21-13

Compañer@s,

As many of you are already aware, a handful of us active in Universidad de la Tierra Califas and UT Califas del Sur attended the Zapatista Escuelita from August 12-17. (see, Zapatista Little School Preparation <http://www.elkilombo.org/special-section-the-zapatista-little-school-preparation-pdfs-of-ezln-communiques/>) Our jornada began a week before the actual escuelita when we arrived at the Universidad de la Tierra Oaxaca campus in Oaxaca <http://unitierra.blogspot.com/>. At UT Oaxaca we spent a short amount of time with comrades reflecting on the history of the Zapatista struggle and the significance of key turning points in their praxis. Not long afterwards a significant number of us boarded a bus and after a day long trip we arrived at the Centro Indígena de Capacitación Integral (CIDECI)/Universidad de la Tierra Chiapas in San Cristóbal de las Casas. (see, <http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/rsb_int_eng.html>) For two days folks gathered at CIDECI in order to register for the escuelita. Arriving comrades brought with them an intense level of anticipation and a number of questions about the process. As is typical of the Zapatistas, many, if not all, of our questions were addressed in the series of communiques that at first announced the escuelita and followed with important information of what to expect and what not to expect up to the final moment of "classes." (see, <http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/>).

In what was our initial reflection of what transpired during the escuelita, we marveled at the level of organization needed to accommodate approximately 1,700 "students" from all parts of the world. The Zapatista escuelita follows a unique intervention by the Zapatista base communities --a mobilization marked by a peaceful occupation by over 40,000 Zapatistas of 5 municipalities in the wee hours of the morning on December 21. We were in awe of the level of generosity exhibited by the EZLN and the Zapatista base communities as they hosted so many visitors in their homes scattered throughout the number of communities attached to one of the five caracoles (Oventic, Roberto Barrios, La Garucha, Morelia, and La Realidad). Those of us not fortunate enough to travel to the communities who stayed and attended classes at CIDECI relished our unique educational experience in a luxurious campus built entirely from the ground-up by the communities. Many of us were struck by the sophistication of the escuelita project and the uniqueness of its emergence. Of course, we all found time to discuss what this moment means for those of us who remain committed to the Zapatistas and active in the Zapatista solidarity community. Not surprisingly, we all left with the singular obligation, or cargo, to share what we learned together during the few days of the escuelita. (For a discussion of cargos, see B. Maldanado, Comunalidad and the Education of the Indigenous Peoples" in New World Indigenous Resistance <https://app.box.com/s/1mp960ie2nrfcrje3l21>) Not unlike many Zapatista hosted encounters, or encuentros, the task before us is to "circulate struggle," that is to share the insights we gleaned and questions we struggled with during the few days we learned together and from the base communities about the many advances of autonomy. But, the cargo is also an obligation to re-connect struggles already engaged in strategies of autonomy and these wherever we might find ourselves. (For mention of circulation of struggles, see Cleaver, "From operaismo to ‘autonomist Marxism’" <https://app.box.com/s/nouq91vls242ng4st112>).

While many of us agree that the Zapatista escuelita marks a critical turning point in the unfolding of Zapatismo, both in Chiapas and beyond, we are not necessarily in agreement what that turning point might be all about. For some, the escuelita embodies a new phase of Zapatismo and by extension autonomy with the Zapatista base communities increasingly at the center of the struggle. Its not many guerrillas that have been successful in removing the military leadership and structure from the center of power in relation to the base community. (For more information on the Zapatistas and to access collections, or dossiers, of the most recent communiques see, <http://cril.mitotedigital.org/zapatismo>) Put another way, Subcomandante Marcos asks, "if anyone out there can find a school that assigns each individual their own teacher, 24 hours a day, a school that is laicized and free of cost, that provides lodging and meals during the teaching and learning, well good luck." (see, SCI Marcos, " Votán IV: D-day Minus 7," <http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/08/06/votan-iv-d-day-minus-7/>) For others, the escuelita continues a longer process of insurgent learning and convivial research, that is, a process whereby the Zapatistas have convened comrades from all over the world to "think together" about the exercise of autonomy. Of course, in this particular conjuncture the Zapatistas have insisted that they host everyone in the Autonomous Rebel Zapatista Municipalities (MAREZ) so that they can directly share vital lessons learned over almost twenty years of autonomous struggle.

Zapatista generosity has made it possible for the EZLN and base communities to host "us" before. In fact, the escuelita must be read as part of a much larger, more complex trajectory of encuentros in which the Zapatistas have convened those of us from around the world to gather as part of a larger convivial effort, that is to say, to work collectively to pose shared questions in order to find new tools of struggle that make sense for us in our own locales and as a community of struggles. (For a discussion of a politics of encounter, see Callahan, "Why Not Share a Dream" <http://www.squiggyrubio.net/documents/hjsr/Callahanwhynotshareadream.pdf>

) The convivial approach to struggle has taken place over the years in a number of encuentros beginning with the CND in '94 continuing with the Continental and Intercontinentals Encuentros from '96 to '98 and the number of gatherings specific to various struggles with particular "sectors" such as teachers, health workers, Indigenous communities. These encuentros include the prominent consultas in '95 and '97 as well as the marchas such as the one that brought Comandante Ramona to DF and 21 Comandantes across Mexico during the March of People of the Color of the Earth in 2001. This collective effort at convivial research has been executed in other strategic moments of knowledge production, including 1,111 Zapatistas and Elias Contreras sent out as "researchers" across the land.

The Zapatista praxis is not limited to convivial research or encuentros but is present in the effort to make learning a fundamental part of a democratic praxis. Insurgent learning for the Zapatistas begins, as they instructed us in the escuelita, through action, the actual doing. It is in the practical construction of spaces, activities, and relations of autonomy that the Zapatistas have been able to theorize their advances and share what they have learned. Zapatista civic pedagogy, learning by doing, organized the escuelita curriculum. In the "course-work" and "classroom" discussions we learned the importance of work and its relation to the vital tasks of community regeneration, at the level of the family, pueblo, municipality, and the region (caracole) as key sites for determining how people learn to participate in the civic life of the community through assemblies, cargos, and tequios at all levels of community life. Zapatista civic pedagogy begins as far back as their initial efforts at organizing in 1983 when they focused their efforts on learning Spanish, military drill, Marxist theory --all necessary tasks of an ambitious guerrilla. However, the early cadre was confronted by an Indigenous cosmovision and reality that also had to be learned, making it possible for them to learn how to learn early on. The learning continues to the present in the Zapatistas' success in finding new ways to minimize the role of the army and establish the base communities as the center of Zapatismo; reclaiming traditional technologies such as the sistema de tequio, sistema de cargo, and asemblea; discovering new strategies of political organization in the form of the MAREZ, juntas de buen gobierno, and caracoles; and critically engaging the role of women in horizontal democratic processes. Most importantly, they have also spent a great deal of effort reclaiming and incorporating new practices of communication, reviving the lost art of the communique and declaration, exploiting the numerous platforms available on and through the internet, and facilitating the encuentros as open, inclusive convergences to initiate a number of critical dialogues.

How we share what we learned is at the center of the work confronting us, those of us who attended the escuelita. Not surprisingly, much of what we learned is not easily shared without a similar experience of doing, or a shared context to explore the specific insights that result from the exercise of dignity, justice, and liberty through self-organization and self-determination in our own locales. Recognizing the Zapatista use of Spanish as a lingua franca between a variety of Indigenous groups with distinct languages, key words and phrases rendered into Spanish are not so easily translated. Moreover, Zapatista authoethnography not only embodies their sustained and very successful effort at representing their project against dominant discourses negotiating mainstream corporate media, torreando with "the bad government," and communicating with a diverse solidarity community, but it also results from presentations of their struggle within their own communities. The Zapatistas generously shared their "research" with us and made it available in four notebooks <http://espaciolibremexico.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/los-cuatro-textos-de-la-escuelita-zapatista/> that document their experiences with democracy, liberty, justice, autonomy, and the struggle of women. (The cuadernos and the "fees" for the Zapatista escuelita were approximately $10.) The escuelita including the preparation for the gathering, the hosting of those who arrived, and the facilitation of the actual "school," made use of the votán, or "guardian of the heart of the people." Each student was paired with a votán to rely on, to ask and answer questions about the struggle for autonomy in the communities. Many of us were able to ask a variety of questions, including questions that have been festering since 1994 and more current queries about the everyday struggle of radical democracy. In this way, our research and our learning actually enacted the democratic praxis we claim as a future in the present.

As is true of all learning, our questions and insights did not end or were not fully contained by the formal aspect of the escuelita. We took advantage of our matriculation in the Zapatista school to connect with old friends who continue to confront dams, hydroelectric projects, mining, biopiracy, and environmental destruction that violently disregards numerous communities throughout Southern Mexico and Central America. Much of this struggle impacts Indigenous communities --issues and strategies dealt with during the Cátedra Tata Juan Chávez Alonso, August 17-18. (see, <http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/06/02/organizaciones-indigenas-y-el-ezln-crean-la-catedra-tata-juan-chavez-alonso-en-el-primer-aniversario-de-su-ausencia/>).

We will convene the Universidad de la Tierra Califas' Democracy Ateneo, Saturday, September 21, from 2 - 5 p.m. at Casa de Vicky (792 E. Julian St., San Jose <http://www.casavicky.com/>) to continue our regularly scheduled reflection and action space in order to address the questions and struggles mentioned above.

South Bay Crew

NB: If you are not already signed-up and would like to stay connected with the emerging Universidad de la Tierra Califas community please feel free to subscribe to the Universidad de la Tierra Califas listserve at the following url <https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unitierracalifas>. Also, if you would like to review previous Democracy Ateneo announcements and summaries, they can be accessed from <https://www.box.com/s/liojs7y9zv1fsf19atq1>. For more information on the ateneo more generally, please see <http://ccra.mitotedigital.org/ateneo>.

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