Following is the summary of the first class given yesterday at
Zapatista Little school. Classes are in Spanish and I couldn't follow
it. Would ba great to build solidairty. If 15M or Yo soy people could
provide a spanish translation via mumble thaout would be great? could
any one do that. Classes will bestreamed on 15. GMT and 22 GMT twice a
day to make it accesible for working people.
Communicate to OWS Zapatista, SupMalu here: owszapatista@... to
get access info for the live streaming.

If any one could do the simultaneous translation on mumble let me
know, we make a short call for all who like to listen the calsses in
english.

viva Zapatismo mundial!


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: OWS Zapatista <owszapatista@...>
Date: 13 August 2013 09:02
Subject: "There is no recipe for autonomy and no limits" - Zapatistas
in their first class on autonomy
To:


The Zapatista Freedom School online got started this Monday!  The
first session was on autonomy. “We know that autonomy is a dream, an
utopia for some people, but in here it is a reality for us. We are
already exercising autonomy, and what we can tell about autonomy is
that there is no recipe for it. You should not ask for freedom to the
government, you should exercise your freedom. We have seen that it is
possible.”

Seven Zapatistas talked to the participants online for two hours.
Then, after a 15 mins break, they answered questions.

They first talked about the seven principles of their government:

1. To lead by obeying

2. To represent; not to impersonate

3. To work from below and not seeking to rise

4. To serve; not to self-serve

5. To persuade; not to conquer

6. To construct; not to destroy

7. To propose; not to impose

“To us, the government is a body that provides a service to the
people, not a way to make money for yourself.”

Following these principles, they have a governing board which rules by
representing the people, not by conquering their will. They talked
about how they organize themselves by obeying the people, listening to
the people. “In the capitalistic system all the government officers
take office to serve themselves and become rich,” they explained.
“For us, ruling is about providing a service. We think that life is
healthier in an autonomous community. An autonomous community is a
community with future.”

They say that no one will give you freedom, the freedom that the
government "gives" you is deceiving, because in the end the government
tells you what to do. The real freedom is an autonomous, collective
government.

 The collective government is at every level, every instance. They
have three main instances: the Good Government Boards, the Watching
Committee and the Reporting Committees.

With a rotating positions system, each member of the board serves for
three years. “We don’t call them ‘Good Government Boards’ just because
they say so,” our Zapatista teachers explained, but because they have
a structure to make sure the board represents the community. Each
board is monitored by the other committees (the Watching Committee and
the Reporting Committee). For example, regarding the financial
resources (which belong to the community), “not only each good
governing board informs about the financial status but we also have
financial watching committees on all the money and resources that come
in and how they are administered, because we don’t want to repeat the
experience on how we were before 1994, with bad governments”.

So it not just the board saying "we did this and this" but they have
another committee supervising them. There is a connection and constant
communication between all the committees.

“ The other principle is that we do not order or win over the people.
We persuade, never defeat the people. If one of our authorities is not
complying with our seven principles, the people bring that to his/her
attention. He/she has the opportunity to correct it because we are
humans and people make mistakes, but if that person do not correct the
mistake, then he/she is demoted…that's how we have conquered our
freedom. Conquering freedom is about exercising our autonomy. Our
autonomy comes from ourselves.”

They also talked about the duties, responsibilities and rights of each
government board. member.  They must listen to the people’s proposals,
they should propose necessary proposals and explain to the people why
they think a proposal is necessary, and each proposal must be
discussed by all the committees and consulting with the people. “The
capitalistic system does not respect the people’s opinion, they think
they don’t know how to think, so they don’t ask. The capitalistic
government officers think they are above us, so they don’t want to
listen. We don’t think like that. Each officer serves the people and
when their term is over they go back to their community activities. So
for us our principle is about going below, not above the people to
rule.”

They explained they have developed this autonomous structure over the
years. First the War of 1810, then the Mexican Revolution in 1910
(Zapata’s), and then the Zapatista Uprising in 1994, each period
learning something better, adding up. When someone asked them if there
have been military confrontations lately in response to the
paramilitary attacks, they said the way they are defending themselves
right now is just “bearing and resisting, because we know that in the
future these people will realize that this is the better way of
living, - some of them have already realized it, and we are not
confronting them with weapons. We don’t respond to the attacks because
we know it is not them, but the government strategy so that Indians
kill each other. We are not going to do that.”

After a 2-hour talk and a 15-min break, there was a 2-hour session
answering the questions that participants made via chat.

They also said that another Government Board duty is to take care of
all the property “because they must know what natural resources and
material goods we have”.

All their property. resources and money belongs to everybody. There is
no such thing as “inheriting” the land in one family as private
property.

Regarding the “ejidos” the coop systems in land, they said that
“unfortunately these systems are not valid in terms of representing
the people because they still require government officers’ permission
and authority, which we don’t recognize. For us, after the Zapatista
Army National Liberation, the life of the community changed
dramatically. The Good Government Boards must administer the lands
that were repossessed by us after the 1994 revolution. The Good
Government administers them so that everything we have is for all the
people:  the land, the water, all the resources.”

They provided a detailed explanation on their government structure.

This is the agenda for the next sessions:

Tuesday – Women’s Government

Wednesday – Resistance (financial resistance against a capitalistic
system and resistance from paramilitary attacks)

Thursday – Justice

Friday – Democracy.

During the Q&A session there were interesting questions, like how they
managed to eradicate alcoholism in their communities.



These sessions are in Spanish with limited English translation online
at 10 pm, but we will try to keep you updated, we will get the School
materials and DVD’s and get them translated into English for our OWS
fellows. If you have questions and/or messages to them, you may send
them to us and I’ll translate them.

For a world where many worlds fit!

Malú

OWSZapatista.

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