Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

August 30, 2013

Escuela Zapatista: Resistance as a Way of Life




The stage at the “Escuelita Zapatista” in La Realidad has the images of Emiliano Zapata and the differents subcomandantes zapatistas.PHOTO DR 2013 Alex Mensing


At the Escuelita Zapatista, Students Learn Community Organizing and Civil Resistance as a Way of LifeThe Class Was Stopped Twice: The First Time to Emphasize the Importance of Discipline in Their Organization
August 29, 2013


Photo Brenda Norrell, La Realidad Chiapas 2004 Zapatistas Indigenous 
Alex Mensing reports from the Zapatistas Little School at Narco News Bulletin, Aug. 29, 2013

Excerpts:
"Another presentation was dedicated to the importance of their own communication media. They have two community radios in each of the five territories, a presenter explained, which allow them to distribute their 'voice, word and work' of everyone equally. When the government tries to trick them or sends paramilitaries, the presenter pointed out, their cameras and radios allow them to record what is going on and announce what is going on. 
"Other key lessons emerged in that first class: freedom is not something you ask for, but something you take for your own; their form of self-governance did not come from a book, but from analysis of their own society’s needs and structure; the work of civil resistance requires that people be conscientious and informed of what they are doing.
"The class was stopped twice. The first interruption was one of several moments when the Zapatistas emphasized the importance of discipline in their organization, and when the representatives of activist groups around the world were shown to lack this particular skill."

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