>Subject: Re: Neoliberal Zaps (was Re: a healthy and lucid disgust)
>... At any rate the observation
>just seemed like odd evidence for the conclusion that "the Zaps have
>almost no connection to actual village life as it's lived on the
>ground."
Actually when the women quoted (Zeynep) was in Chiapas she was traveling with me. I forwarded Doug's post of last week to her and she replied in part
>I do remember having a conversation
>with Doug Henwood about the Zaps -- but the conversation was many years
>ago. I did not say that the Zaps have no connection to the actual village
>life, I said that most of the Zapatista supporters in the West have no
>connection with the village life and they idealize something that they have
>no idea of -- people do work from dawn to dusk, including kids from the age
>of five and up, and although the EZLN has improved the lot of women, it is
>hardly the best life ever.....
> My impression of our trip was clearly that the EZLN had done
>what a lot of other groups in the third world, such as the FMLN and the
>URNG which are not idealized by the tech-heads, have done; good solid
>community organizing. Not much technology in that. And the Zapatista
>demands are work, health care, equality, dignity....
I'd add to this that a number of critiques of the Zaps, including Hellman's are quite dishonest in that they are written so the unsuspecting reader might think the writer is putting new information out or discussing an area that has been ignored. In fact much of the more intelligent discussion in Zapatista solidarity circles has covered the same points. The 'movement' that Hellman and co rain against is actually just the section of the movement on the start of the learning curve IMHO. In general people move on from the necessary early simplifications to a greater and greater understanding of the complexity of the situation.
We need also to distinguish between what the EZLN is doing on the ground (and in a lot of areas, including the status of women they are perhaps moving as fast as possable) and how their international supporters interprete this. It's hardly surprizing coming from western countries where women have acheived a certain degree of freedom that the reality of the indigenous women in Chiapas can be quite shocking. The bottom line on this is are things improving or not, comparisons between Chiapas and Sweden are pretty meaningless otherwise
Andrew
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