Re: AUT: Re:Sylvie and George (fwd)

[pmargin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Here are some scattered thoughts prompted by recent postings:

1) I was very interested in Paul's passing comment that "Charles Reeve"
(and presumably his co-author?) had since qualified some of the assessments
of the EZLN offered in the ab irato text. Does Paul or Katha or anyone else
who may have discussed this with the text's authors have anything else to
add in this regard?

The meaning of the Zapatistas for people moving out of leninism - the
specific point raised by Paul in quoting "Reeve", and elsewhere by Rakesh -
is of particular interest to me. One of the most striking accounts of the
1st Encuentro that I read (posted to the Italian EZLN list, and published
also in the anarchist weekly _Umanita' Nova_) argued that a distinctive
"type" common at that gathering was "the leninist in crisis" (if I can find
the article, I'll endeavour to translate that section). If the (admittedly
often generic) culture of anti-authoritarianism which imbues the Zapatista
support networks in Mexicoand beyond helps to further undermine the
presence of leninism within so-called revolutionary politics in favour of
libertarian sensibilities, isn't that a positive thing in its own right?
(no, it's not meant to be a rhetorical question). Whether it is *enough* is
also worthy of discussion.

2) As Shawn argued, the limited number of sources - or at least
English-language sources - which might clarify some of the points of
contention around "what really happens in the Chiapas communities and the
Zapatista movement" continues to be one of the major problems. The
interviews posted to the list in November/December last year that Shawn
also mentioned were taken from an Italian translation of the Yvon Le Bot
book, which I hope will soon appear in English (has anyone heard
anything?). I still think they're worthy of discussion in their own right;
accepting that these are again from an interview with Marcos, they still
offer a more complex picture than is usually painted in polemic. And the
book as a whole - which is worth it alone for Le Bot's detailed
introduction, as well as the occasional discussions in it with one or two
other EZLN commanders - gave me a real sense that a great deal of what has
become the "(neo)Zapatismo" of the EZLN only developed *after* 1/1/94. One
place where the Le Bot book and a number of other recent Spanish-language
studies of Chiapas are examined is a review article by Barry Carr -
"E;B.Carr Reviews Recent Lit. on Zapatistas, Dec '97 (fwd)", which can be
found in the Chiapas95 archive at

gopher://mundo.eco.utexas.edu:70/1m/mailing/chiapas95.archive/1998.Mar.15-21

3) I was also made very curious by the ab irato reading of maoism in
Mexico. Does anyone know if there was/is in that country something akin to
the "soft maoism" (i.e. a self-defined anti-stalinist maoism) found in
parts of Europe in the late 60s/70s? Or was it all the sort of out-and-out
stalinism such as prevailed in this country (Australia)? Please correct me
if I'm wrong, but wasn't at least some of the *practice* of a few European
soft maoists - for example, that of some members of groups like Lotta
Continua, VLR, Big Flame, or within autonomia, or of the author of "A
Worker in A Worker's State" in Hungary, for that matter (Haraztsi? can't
find my copy right now to check the spelling) - important contributions to
the practice and understanding of working class self-organisation, however
confused their *ideological* self-definition? (oh no, another seemingly
rhetorical question).

4) Does anyone have any further comments concerning what Rakesh called "the
*possible* symbolic significance of Chiapas" not only for "post-Leninist
forms of action", but indigenous people in the Americas and elsewhere?


Steve (please note my new e-mail address)




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