Re: AUT: Re:Sylvie and George

[bhandari@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rakesh Bhandari)]

Well, as I remember, the critical history of the organzing strategies in
the 70s was fascinating; it is a serious piece of research from which I
learned a lot. Perhaps along with the focus on the nastiness of ancient
Aztec society or reactionary nature of contemporary indian culture, there
should have been  some recognition of how shot through with anti-Indian
racism Mexican culture is today. How else are we to understand nation- and
region-wide support for the EZLN?  I think you will find city "indians",
even proletarian Marxist economist types, who while they have no interest
in or nothing to gain from the specific land claims of the EZLN still
express caution in their evaluation of the Chiapas uprising.

Why is that?

Perhaps it is feared that  ruthless leftist critique is just  more of that
racist culture of enforced silence anytime an indian complains of social
humiliation and suffering? Does even uprising become another reason to
ridicule indians? Does the assumption that behind the uprising can only be
Leninist-Maoist militants not suggest, yet again, that the mass of indians
themselves are simply too dumb to act on their own or to change their own
culture--just as the US National Security State claimed that behind any
third world revolution could only be white Russian Leninists, organizing
and duping the backward third world peasants? In short, while the ab irato
critique is a tremendously enlightening on the reactionary nature of the
EZLN, the Chiapas uprising is more than Marcos and the EZLN, and it is
bound to have great significance in a society shot through with anti-indian
racism and in this sense it would be interesting to know of what the
uprising has meant to indians outside of chiapas. That seems a more
interesting question than the meanings Chiapas has for norteamericanos. Ha
ha...

Best,
Rakesh




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