Oaxaca: The path of radical democracy

Socialism and Democracy

Volumn 21, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 74-96

  Esteva, Gustavo ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34447577909     PISSN: 08854300     EISSN: 17452635     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/08854300701388146     Document Type: Article

References (9)

1. "When I say mobilize I mean mobilize," observes Hans Magnus Enzensberger ("La irresistibilidad de la pequenĩa burguesýa," in Opciones, no. 8, supplement to El Nacio- na i ], April 30, 1992); "I mean that a people must be more mobile than it is - that it have the freedom of a dancer, the purposefulness of a soccer-player, the surprise-factor of a guerrilla warrior. One who treats the masses as a political object will not be able to mobilize them; he only wants to give them orders. A package, for example, has no mobility; it is merely sent from one place to another. Mass rallies and marches immobilize people. Propaganda which paralyzes rather than giving free rein to their autonomy has the same effect; it leads to depoliticization."
2. "One can say that the concept of mass, which is purely quantitative, applies to people in the same way that it applies to anything that occupies space. True enough; but in this case it has no qualitative value. We should not forget that in order to arrive at the concept of human masses, we have abstracted out all the traits of people except for what they share with material things: The possibility of being measured in numbers. And thus, logically, the human masses cannot be saved or educated. But it will always be possible to mow them down with machine-guns". Antonio Machado, Prosas (Havana: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1975), 239f.
3. On the significance of this slogan, see Pablo González Casanova, "The Zapatista 'Caracoles': Networks of Resistance and Autonomy," S&D, vol. 19, no. 3 (November 2005), p. 79.
4. "Cargo" refers to the "burden" of communal or public office. Cargos usually fit into a hierarchy ranked by age and experience, and are taken on by adult males as part of their civic and religious responsibility to the community. Before occupying higher cargos, such as community president, men must pass through the lower ranks. The key features of a cargo system, differentiating it from liberal notions of representative democracy, are (a) the blend of religious and secular responsibilities (cargos include responsibility for organizing fiestas as well as for running community business) and (b) the fact that the cargo -holder can act only in consultation with the community. In other words, unlike in liberal representative democracies where an elected officeholder is given the power to represent or speak for his or her electorate, the cargoholder does not embody or represent the community, and as an individual is not authorized to make decisions on behalf of the community without previous consultation. This gives a different quality to notions of leadership in cargo-based systems, as the cargo -holder lacks authority to speak for the community. The cargo system is derived historically from Spanish/ Iberian municipal structures, but has become identified with indigenous communities in Meso America and the Andes.
5. Murat led an aggressive offensive against the popular movement. Now a representative in the Federal Congress, he is under indictment for financial irregularities.
6. His administration carried out a number of urban renewal projects in the historical downtown of the capital city of Oaxaca. Programmed to benefit the construction company of his cronies and relatives, monies allotted to these projects were also siphoned to the war chest of the PRI's failed presidential campaign managed by Ulises Ruiz. The shoddy and rushed reconstruction affected mostly the main plaza- considpride one of the most beautiful in all Mexico and source of regional pride for Oaxaqueños - where several centennial trees were felled. The replacement of the traditional cobblestone and stonework around the main plaza and other streets and public spaces in the capital city angered Oaxaqueños of all social classes. The construction of a four-lane highway cutting across a hill overlooking the city of Oaxaca negatively affected the landscape and environment. Another source of discontent was Ruiz's privatization of the state-sponsored yearly two-week folkloric and cultural festival of the Guelaguetza, to the exclusive benefit of the tourism industry.
7. The amuzgo, chatino, chinanteco, chontal, chocholteco, cuicatecoi, huave, mazateco, mixe, mixteco, tacuate, trique, zapoteco and zoque peoples.
8. See Harry Cleaver, "Socialism," in Wolfgang Sachs (ed.) The Development Dictionary (London: Zed Books, 1992). This broader current appears not to have much interest in such socialist experiments as that of Venezuela, seeming instead to share the view of Ivan Illich, who argued that if socialism ever arrives in Latin America, it will do so by bicycle. The overall tendency, grounded in indigenous traditions, is to leave behind socialism as well as capitalism.
9. Carlos Monsiváis, in La Jornada, 21 January 2007.