Re: AUT: democracy: reply on zap paper 1

["FRANCO BARCHIESI" <029FRB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 20 November Massimo De Angelis wrote:

[In reply to Monty's and Zeynep's comments on his paper]

> The substance of Zeynep's point (Zeynep posting and my quote is
> reported at the end of the message) is that I refer to indigenous
> democracy based on consensus while in reality in the villages of the
> indigenous community the reality is far from perfect
(...)
> Zeynep is right to point out all this, but I
> guess my point was of a slight different nature. I did not mean to
> claim that the indigenous communities represent a model we
> can/should/ apply in the west as it stands (...). What
> I was trying to say is that the elimination of the
> ejido represents the elimination of the opportunity for the
> indigenous community to construct their autonomous ways of lives,

I think Massimo's clarification on this point provides some very
useful hints for further list-based discussions on Zapatismo in the
context of a new internationalism. In fact, Zeynep pointed to a very
real danger in this regard: that of romanticizing "indigenous"
identities and village democracy. However, it was clear that Massimo
was not mentioning ejidal village democracy as a model ready for
implementation in any circumstance of struggle. I think the focus of
his paper was much broader, actually: it was rather an indication to
identify in concrete episodes and cases of struggle what are the
minimal conditions of existence of struggles themselves as a first
line of defence and counter-attack. Rather than organizational
formulations of a party-union derivation, then, it is important to
focus on forms of self-organised collective subjectivity that are
mobilised around people's needs and desires, and to evidence their
strengths and weaknesses. The aim should be to enucleate from
these struggles those indications of political method (e.g. around
notions of "direct democracy") that could be circulated and
generalized to even entirely different contexts of resistance.
However, the dangers of romanticization remain, unless we are able to
differentiate between these two levels in our analysis (ie. focus on
strengths and weaknesses of particular forms of struggle, and
conditions for generalization), and this must be done quite clearly.
In fact, Monty's point focuses some important potential conceptual
shortcomings:

> "2) I was going to raise the issue of
> democracy, but Zeynep did a better job of it than I would. I would
> only add that later when you note women fighting patriarchy within
> the Zapatista communities, this implies possible problems with
> consensus as practiced there and suggests more broadly that consensus
> can apparently occur in situations of inequality within the community
> in which people agree to support those with more power. "

And Massimo
> 1. Isn't the "support" of "those with more power" itself the source
> of this "more power", of social power? What else is power then? 2.

I am not quite sure about that. I rather think that models of
grassroots, participative, "direct" democracy can be absolutely
compatible with established social roles and hierarchies, unless we
opt for a clear-cut divide between "direct" and "representative"
democracy (and the danger of romanticization would resurface at this
point). But you seem aware of that when you ask:

> fundamental: Can consensus occur in situations of inequality? I don't
> even dare to suggest an answer at this point but, doesn't the answer
> depends on the kind of inequality we are talking about and the
> conditions within which it arises?

I definitely agree with this last point, and I would moreover respond
"yes" to the first question. I think that there are lots of examples
where forms of grassroots struggles based at the level of community
and locale, with weak levels of formal organization, tend to resort
(shaping and modifying them) to established forms of social and
cultural hierarchy as a vehicle to structurate and articulate popular
demands that are antagonistic and subversive for the status quo. An
example here in South Africa was given by the extraordinary
experience of the rise of the "civics" and the emergence of the
United Democratic Front in the townships in the 1980s: lots of
populist politicians that were part (or at least not overtly opposed)
of the apartheid's "black" municipalities were defined as leaders of
the struggle by extremely grassroot-democratic and
participative structures. And this took place mainly on the basis of
the "social power" of the leaders in terms of personal morality,
respectability, or of the place occupied in kin, professional,
educational hierarchies. This was true for the unions in the 1970s as
well, worker organisations with a culture of direct democracy even
stronger than that of the civics. In fact, it would have been
impossible for the black trade unions to develop the phenomenal
growth they had if it had not been for their capacity to utilize
ethnic hierarchies in the segregated worker compounds, by recruiting
"traditional" leaders and turning their discourse into a vehicle of
grassroot worker democracy. These (and I think what Zeynep and Monty
pointed at) are examples of what can be called "deferential
democracy" (I borrow this phrase, maybe a bit improperly, from some
studies on the political systems of the first settler colonies in
XVII century New England), ie. the capacity of an organisation to
combine grassroots practices and established socio-cultural
hierarchies. What this indicates to us, I think, is mainly the need,
as I wrote above of a greater conceptual clarity (for example:
how useful it is the concept of "democracy" to summarize such a
plurality and articulation of resistant practices?) and of
articulation of levels of analysis, that is: of levels of struggle.

Franco

Franco Barchiesi
Sociology of Work Unit
Dept of Sociology
University of the Witwatersrand
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