Re: AUT: Sylvie DeNeuve and Charles Reeve on EZLN

["Shawn P. Wilbur" <swilbur@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, Katha Pollitt wrote:

> I thought their long essay on the Zapatistas was very interesting. I >
don't know anything about Mexico , so I can't judge the history, but to >
me their analysis has the terrible ring of truth. > I'd be very interested
to hear what other people think.  Theirs is by > far the most concrete and
critical (in both senses) post we've had about > Chiapas so far -- the one
which has the most information about who the > zaps are, what their
politics, strategies and goals are, what their > relation is to different
sectors of the Chiapan population and to the > current mexican
economic-political landscape. > So what do people think about what they
are arguing? >

It's certainly nice to have the translation available, and
i've read it a couple of times now - but i have to say i'm decidedly
underwhelmed. I'll try to find some time work through the specific
arguments soon, but, generally speaking, it seems to rely on the same sort
of typology that i was criticizing when Paul presented his reading of the
piece -and, in some ways, i think Paul was much clearer. It all seems to
come down to whether or not you believe that the link between the Maoist
cadres and the EZLN is, in fact, undeniable (however difficult it may be
to prove), and then whether or not you're willing to see that link as
enough to support the rest of the criticism of the EZLN. The extent to
which the 'criticism of the EZLN' is actually a criticism of Zapata's
forces, the Aztecs, Incas, Shining Path, Proletarian Line, etc, and only
'of the EZLN' through the application of the all-important typology, seems
to me like a serious shortcoming. To say - as has been said so many times
now - that an unwillingness to buy this potentially very weak argument is
a matter of 'an uncritical embrace' or some such is quite simply ad
hominem and a cop-out. It functions nicely, of course, as a defense
against counterarguments which would appeal to the actual words and
actions of the zapatistas, which are not - in case it actually needs to
be said again - all of a piece.

To my ear, the piece has the ring of cynicism - a sort of hollow sound...

Anyway, more when i get a chance to work on this more systematically.

-shawn
 swilbur@xxxxxxxxx




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