Wednesday, August 31, 2005
in search of the elusive permission
Sunday night my housemates T. and L. got back from the marathon "encounter." They said it ended in the late afternoon of the second day. By then many people had already left to get back to their jobs and it was about to start pouring, so Marcos skipped the usual summing-up and said he would distribute it in writing later. As anticipated, a couple of the feminist groups had weighed in with criticism. One of the groups had been working in Zapatista communities, and was then "disinvited." The group still supported the Zapatistas despite criticism of their lack of attention to gender issues, but pointed out that they had never been given an explanation or opportunity to discuss what might be objectionable about their workshops with indigenous women.
As we were discussing the meeting, R. came in. We told him about Marcos' opening remarks, in which he recounted the history of how the community that hosted the meeting had once been a finca of 6,000 hectares owned by a rich man who paid the workers 70 cents for a 12 hour day and policed them with a private armed force of "white guards." Marcos also told of the clandestine Zapatista recruiting efforts in that canyon by a Tzeltal organizer who was known as "Señor Ik'" (the word for black or wind), leading up to the decision of the communities in 1992 to prepare for war. It turns out R. not only knew Ik' but was present at the meeting where the communities voted to take up armed struggle. It was a moment when the Mexican government had just canceled the historic agrarian reform that dated from the time of the Mexican Revolution. As R. tells it, people gathered from several different regions to analyze the situation, and they simply saw no alternative, they were dying of hunger. He got quiet as he remembered Ik' and other fallen comrades, saying "sometimes we have to leave behind compañeros in the struggle."
Monday evening there was a little gathering over tacos and beer with some of the academics and NGO folks who had been at the meeting, or wished they had and wanted a report. Then I set my alarm for a 4:00 a.m. departure for the more distant Caracol where I've been told to come back at the end of the month for a response from the Junta of Good Government to my request to work in that region.
The 10-hour trip on multiple conveyances is becoming familiar, the last five hours being a rattling ride on a Zapatista truck packed with people and cargo over a dirt road through the jungle canyons. With rainy season well underway, the lush green vegetation seems to grow before your eyes, and the road is broken by mudslides and washouts and huge puddles to ford. A Mexican Army troop transport truck and a hummer pass by on their way out of the canyon. We stop periodically to pick up or drop off passengers, often in the middle of nowhere in a straight stretch of road, where a relative with a horse or burro ferries the passenger to and from their home deep in the hills.
Upon arrival, I see the vigilance committee has a new sign asking visitors to check in. Two earnest teenagers take my data, then return to say the Junta is at lunch. They show me to a wooden shack with a dirt floor where I can rest in the meantime. I make an avocado, tomato and cheese sandwich from the provisions I've brought, then stretch out on a wooden bench and fall fast asleep. Two hours later, they wake me up and bring me back to the vigilance office. What exactly was the nature of my business? I explain again that this was a return visit to get permission for the project that I had discussed with the Junta a few weeks ago, and I hand them another copy of the written proposal to give the Junta (in case it had gotten lost or hadn't been passed along to the next shift in the rotating Junta). Word comes back that the Junta will send for me at 7:00 a.m. the next morning to give me a response.
Meanwhile the blazing sun has given way to a thick bank of roiling gray rain clouds advancing over the mountain ridge. One of the boys quickly escorts me to one of the little guest cabins by the schoolhouse, which we reach just as the skies open up into a huge thunderstorm. I greet a couple of the teachers I had met on the last trip, then scurry inside and try to move the bed out of range of the leaks in the roof, but it's no use, there are too many holes.
It turns out the Junta sends for me at 5:00 p.m. that same day. The news is, there isn't any news. They haven't had a chance to consult with the community where I would be working, but they think they'll be able to do that at a meeting scheduled for September 8, so could I please come back after that. Oh well, more practice in being patient. It's all part of the process; consultation and consensus take time. And maybe in part it's a test to see if I'm serious enough to persevere.
I head back to my cabin, and stop to chat with two Tojolabal young men hanging out by the schoolhouse. They're 16 and 19, both long out of school and tending their milpas (cornfields). We have the obligatory discussion about the U.S.--how far away is it by bus, and what crops do you grow there?--and then they want to know if there are a lot of Mexicans in Michigan and what life is like for them. We talk about migration, and they tell me 10 men from their community have gone to the U.S. to work. There are about 800 people in the village, so that's probably about 100 families, which would mean about one in ten families has someone working in the U.S. From what I hear, migration is even more common in pro-government communities. These guys tell me the migrants don't have permission from the Zapatista authorities, but there is no punishment in this Caracol and they are allowed to rejoin the community if they return. These two are well aware of the dangers and hardships of migration and are not interested, but they are curious about the rest of the world. They tell me they take the 5-hour truck ride to town once or twice a year, to buy supplies but also just to walk around and watch people in the city. They bemoan the shortage of eligible women in their village. I wonder if there really is a demographic imbalance, or if they're referring to the limited numbers due to the small size of the community, or if what they really mean is that Zapatista women are now more educated and self-confident and the guys feel threatened.
The Spanish/Mexican schoolteacher couple invite me for dinner, black beans and boiled squash and tortillas. A middle-aged man from the community stops by to visit, but he leaves in distress when word comes that a woman down the road just died from complications of childbirth. It's a reminder of how fragile life is here. We stay up late talking about the Sixth Declaration and the recent series of Zapatista meetings with civil society groups. They point out that most of the grassroots indigenous supporters of the Zapatista movement here in Chiapas are fairly disconnected from those discussions. It's not easy bridging those two worlds, and the Zapatistas are trying to continue the momentum of the autonomy movement here in the communities while also attempting (again) to reach out and mobilize other sectors of Mexican society. We talk about what makes people join or continue in resistance against the existing power structure, and what distinguishes the Zapatista villagers from their usually equally poor pro-government counterparts. There seems to be a combination of factors--specific local history, family and community loyalties, even personality differences that make some people more willing to sacrifice for a better future. Anyway, we can't figure it all out in one night, but it's an interesting discussion. Also it turns out that we're going to overlap in Mexico City in a couple of weeks, so we exchanged emails and will try to get together there.
The next morning I catch the 5:00 a.m. truck. We slowly fill up with people and stalks of bananas along the way. The mud on the truck bed makes it that much harder to stand on your feet as the truck bounces down the road, sort of like riding a wild bronco. At one point the truck lurches to a stop, and as everyone tries to peer out to see what's going on, someone says "Soldiers." There's an army truck stopped in the middle of the road. A few men finally get off and approach the soldiers, while another group takes the opportunity of the stop to go pee. I overhear a guy in the latter group say to one of his friends, "Aren't you going to go see what's going on?" To which the other man replies, "I'm not going to talk to my enemies." The army truck finishes loading up a tree trunk they've cut down and moves out of the way, and we're off again. The previous night's storm has taken a toll on the road, and there's a washed-out patch where we have to wait for a crew of a half dozen teenagers with shovels and picks to make it passable again. Around 2:00 p.m. I finally arrive in San Cristóbal, just ahead of the afternoon rains.
As we were discussing the meeting, R. came in. We told him about Marcos' opening remarks, in which he recounted the history of how the community that hosted the meeting had once been a finca of 6,000 hectares owned by a rich man who paid the workers 70 cents for a 12 hour day and policed them with a private armed force of "white guards." Marcos also told of the clandestine Zapatista recruiting efforts in that canyon by a Tzeltal organizer who was known as "Señor Ik'" (the word for black or wind), leading up to the decision of the communities in 1992 to prepare for war. It turns out R. not only knew Ik' but was present at the meeting where the communities voted to take up armed struggle. It was a moment when the Mexican government had just canceled the historic agrarian reform that dated from the time of the Mexican Revolution. As R. tells it, people gathered from several different regions to analyze the situation, and they simply saw no alternative, they were dying of hunger. He got quiet as he remembered Ik' and other fallen comrades, saying "sometimes we have to leave behind compañeros in the struggle."
Monday evening there was a little gathering over tacos and beer with some of the academics and NGO folks who had been at the meeting, or wished they had and wanted a report. Then I set my alarm for a 4:00 a.m. departure for the more distant Caracol where I've been told to come back at the end of the month for a response from the Junta of Good Government to my request to work in that region.
The 10-hour trip on multiple conveyances is becoming familiar, the last five hours being a rattling ride on a Zapatista truck packed with people and cargo over a dirt road through the jungle canyons. With rainy season well underway, the lush green vegetation seems to grow before your eyes, and the road is broken by mudslides and washouts and huge puddles to ford. A Mexican Army troop transport truck and a hummer pass by on their way out of the canyon. We stop periodically to pick up or drop off passengers, often in the middle of nowhere in a straight stretch of road, where a relative with a horse or burro ferries the passenger to and from their home deep in the hills.
Upon arrival, I see the vigilance committee has a new sign asking visitors to check in. Two earnest teenagers take my data, then return to say the Junta is at lunch. They show me to a wooden shack with a dirt floor where I can rest in the meantime. I make an avocado, tomato and cheese sandwich from the provisions I've brought, then stretch out on a wooden bench and fall fast asleep. Two hours later, they wake me up and bring me back to the vigilance office. What exactly was the nature of my business? I explain again that this was a return visit to get permission for the project that I had discussed with the Junta a few weeks ago, and I hand them another copy of the written proposal to give the Junta (in case it had gotten lost or hadn't been passed along to the next shift in the rotating Junta). Word comes back that the Junta will send for me at 7:00 a.m. the next morning to give me a response.
Meanwhile the blazing sun has given way to a thick bank of roiling gray rain clouds advancing over the mountain ridge. One of the boys quickly escorts me to one of the little guest cabins by the schoolhouse, which we reach just as the skies open up into a huge thunderstorm. I greet a couple of the teachers I had met on the last trip, then scurry inside and try to move the bed out of range of the leaks in the roof, but it's no use, there are too many holes.
It turns out the Junta sends for me at 5:00 p.m. that same day. The news is, there isn't any news. They haven't had a chance to consult with the community where I would be working, but they think they'll be able to do that at a meeting scheduled for September 8, so could I please come back after that. Oh well, more practice in being patient. It's all part of the process; consultation and consensus take time. And maybe in part it's a test to see if I'm serious enough to persevere.
I head back to my cabin, and stop to chat with two Tojolabal young men hanging out by the schoolhouse. They're 16 and 19, both long out of school and tending their milpas (cornfields). We have the obligatory discussion about the U.S.--how far away is it by bus, and what crops do you grow there?--and then they want to know if there are a lot of Mexicans in Michigan and what life is like for them. We talk about migration, and they tell me 10 men from their community have gone to the U.S. to work. There are about 800 people in the village, so that's probably about 100 families, which would mean about one in ten families has someone working in the U.S. From what I hear, migration is even more common in pro-government communities. These guys tell me the migrants don't have permission from the Zapatista authorities, but there is no punishment in this Caracol and they are allowed to rejoin the community if they return. These two are well aware of the dangers and hardships of migration and are not interested, but they are curious about the rest of the world. They tell me they take the 5-hour truck ride to town once or twice a year, to buy supplies but also just to walk around and watch people in the city. They bemoan the shortage of eligible women in their village. I wonder if there really is a demographic imbalance, or if they're referring to the limited numbers due to the small size of the community, or if what they really mean is that Zapatista women are now more educated and self-confident and the guys feel threatened.
The Spanish/Mexican schoolteacher couple invite me for dinner, black beans and boiled squash and tortillas. A middle-aged man from the community stops by to visit, but he leaves in distress when word comes that a woman down the road just died from complications of childbirth. It's a reminder of how fragile life is here. We stay up late talking about the Sixth Declaration and the recent series of Zapatista meetings with civil society groups. They point out that most of the grassroots indigenous supporters of the Zapatista movement here in Chiapas are fairly disconnected from those discussions. It's not easy bridging those two worlds, and the Zapatistas are trying to continue the momentum of the autonomy movement here in the communities while also attempting (again) to reach out and mobilize other sectors of Mexican society. We talk about what makes people join or continue in resistance against the existing power structure, and what distinguishes the Zapatista villagers from their usually equally poor pro-government counterparts. There seems to be a combination of factors--specific local history, family and community loyalties, even personality differences that make some people more willing to sacrifice for a better future. Anyway, we can't figure it all out in one night, but it's an interesting discussion. Also it turns out that we're going to overlap in Mexico City in a couple of weeks, so we exchanged emails and will try to get together there.
The next morning I catch the 5:00 a.m. truck. We slowly fill up with people and stalks of bananas along the way. The mud on the truck bed makes it that much harder to stand on your feet as the truck bounces down the road, sort of like riding a wild bronco. At one point the truck lurches to a stop, and as everyone tries to peer out to see what's going on, someone says "Soldiers." There's an army truck stopped in the middle of the road. A few men finally get off and approach the soldiers, while another group takes the opportunity of the stop to go pee. I overhear a guy in the latter group say to one of his friends, "Aren't you going to go see what's going on?" To which the other man replies, "I'm not going to talk to my enemies." The army truck finishes loading up a tree trunk they've cut down and moves out of the way, and we're off again. The previous night's storm has taken a toll on the road, and there's a washed-out patch where we have to wait for a crew of a half dozen teenagers with shovels and picks to make it passable again. Around 2:00 p.m. I finally arrive in San Cristóbal, just ahead of the afternoon rains.
# posted by Richard Stahler-Sholk @ 7:30 PM 
