Zapatista Revolt and NAFTA Still Reminds Us Of Absolute Freedom And A Planetary War

In 1994, right after prominent neoconservatives and neoliberals in Washington wreaked havoc on the indigenous peoples of Chiapas in southern Mexico with their radical free trade schemes, Subcommandante Marcos said: “All cultures forged by nations-the noble indigenous past of America, the brilliant civilization of Europe, the wise history of Asian nations, and the ancestral wealth of Africa and Oceania are corroded by the American way of life.” Adding that they imposed the destruction of nations and groups of nations in order to reconstruct them in accordance to a single model, he moreover warned it was like a planetary war, the worst and cruelest kind waged against humanity.

Planetary War - The Cruelest Kind

Twenty-five years later, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and others like it continues to be a planetary war, the worst and cruelest kind waged against humanity. What’s more, schemes that once favored giant U.S. corporations and crushed the Zapatistas are now crushing America’s working poor and middle classes, cramming them into what security experts call “feral cities”-slums on a vast scale incapable of meeting even the most basic needs.(1) This entails a bottom-up unequal distribution of wealth and power where investors’ rights not only control public regulations, but the rich dictate the laws and standards of social responsibility are sacrificed for money.

Pre-dawn shadows of Mayan farmers in rubber boots and ski masks realized this “cruelest kind of war” as they marched to the government palace-which had been erected on the back of Indian workers. With privatization set to destroy communal agriculture and a flood of cheap U.S corn en route to destroy Indian farmers, they used sledgehammers to smash down its doors. Emptying the contents of the offices, they then climbed onto the balcony and issued the first Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. It not only detailed 500 years of cruel oppression of Indigenous peoples but declared war on the Mexican Army and NAFTA. This, since it was another death certificate for the ethnic people of Mexico.

“Theology Of Corporation” Meets “Theology of Eleven Words”
The same can be said of left- and right-wing nationalist and identity movements that are now resisting the same kind of free-market “moralism" that’s not so moral. Indeed, and to those neoconservatives and neoliberals who believed capitalism embodied the best kind of individualism, the exact opposite was true. Their “theology of the corporation,” which held up the business firm as “an expression of the social nature of humans,” failed to deliver social or income equality-let alone human rights. Nor did it increase the standard of living or access to better education and health. Instead, money was militarized through naked disposition, bringing out the worst of acquisitive individualism among the rich.

Taking over the town and other municipalities in Chiapas, Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatistas hoisted black-and-red victory flags. They also summed up their program in eleven words that NAFTA forgot: “work, land, shelter, bread, health, education, democracy, liberty, peace, independence, and justice.” Meanwhile, twelve days of fierce firefights from the Mexican Army, American military “advisors,” and swarms of Black-Hawk helicopters couldn’t crush the rebellion. The revolution rippled all over the country as others joined in protests and strikes. It’s rippled through time too, as many still demand the same basic human dignities and rights the Zapatistas did-and bled and died for.

When Existence Is An Act Of Rebellion

For now, Washington and Wall Street, with much of the Global Elite, appear to be driven by an economy that can only make a profit by increasing productivity, driving wages down, and waging wars. This includes a cruel exploitation that continues to ravage the Earth, takes over local resources and land, and conscripts thousands of unemployed men into the ranks of the armed opposition. Given their economic philosophy is still based on maintaining economic primacy even as industrial bases and public and social services erodes, their consumption of power and military might is bound to increase more rebellions like that of the Zapatistas. This includes those revolts in the U.S.

One can also assume that the only way to deal with an unfree world and unjust economic system is to become so absolutely free that one’s very existence is an act of rebellion.(2) To be sure, this is what the Zapatista Rebellion taught us, and the designers of NAFTA and the director of the most powerful Mexican business complained about. After slashing corporate taxes, lowering the minimum wage, exempting companies from labor and environmental laws, cutting spending on healthcare and education and other social services, and pushing through one of the largest transfers of wealth upwards to date, they had to admit that the Zapatista uprising was “evolving into a real crisis.”(3)

Language Of The Unheard
The U.N. and human rights organizations have chided Washington’s prominent neoconservatives and neoliberals - whether politicians or corporate heads - for maintaining a social and economic system where 13 million households to not have enough food. This includes 25 percent of children in rural America who live in poverty, one-half million people in America who are homeless on any given night, and 62 percent of U.S. jobs that do not pay enough to support a middle class lifestyle. With 25 percent of babies born in Baltimore as addicted to opioids, what’s much worse than a rebellion is what causes the rebellion-not to mention certificates of death that are imposed.

In the meantime, the Zapatistas still march and sing in the name of their mountains and rivers, of their birds and butterflies, of their most basic human dignities and rights, and of their grandparents and all the generations that were sacrificed before them. The same goes for many in America. They too are starting to see that democracy and great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few-and for the few-can’t co-exist. Neither can a system that’s been deified, that’s the only rule of law, that’s devoured everything which has stood in its way of increased profits, and that’s declared a planetary war. Though the cruelest kind of war against humanity, it’s always threatened by the existence of absolute freedom.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.

(1) Grandin, Greg. Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, The United States, And The Rise Of The New Imperialism. New York, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006., p. 207.
(2) www.azquotes.com. See Albert Camus Quote.
(3) Smith, Michael K. Smith. Portraits Of Empire: Unmasking Imperial Illusions from the ‘American Century’ to the ‘War on Terror. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2003., p. 299.