Zibechi: Red-hot interest in Fanon

Raúl Zibechi, Chiapas Support Committee

Frantz Fanon’s thinking has returned. Five decades after his death, his books are being read again in universities and in spaces of the organized popular sectors. Some of his central reflections enlighten aspects of the new realities and they contribute to the comprehension of capitalism in this stage of blood and pain for those below.

Decolonizing critical thought and rebellions II

Gilberto López y Rivas, Chiapas Support Committee

The construction of another world in Latin America, according to Raúl Zibechi, is being carried out by means of organizations not state-centric nor hierarchical, which at times don’t even have permanent leadership teams and, as a consequence, tend to overcome bureaucracy, a traditional, elemental and very old form of domination. Women and youth play a new role in these new “modes of doing.”

Decolonizing Critical Thought And Rebellions

Gilberto López y Rivas, Chiapas Support Committee

Raúl Zibechi’s most recent book, Decolonizing critical thought and rebellions, autonomies and emancipations in the era of progressivism, recently published in our country (Mexico) by Bajo Tierra Ediciones(2015), constitutes a solid and profound contribution to the debate about ideas within the ambit of resistances and the anti-capitalist autonomic processes, as well as a large-scale critique of the progressivisms of the so-called institutionalized lefts, considered by the author as even a “new form of domination.”

Raúl Zibechi: Latin America Today, Seen From Below

Original interview published in the June 2013 issue MU Magazine, from the La Vaca popular media collective in Buenos Aires. Translated by Margi Clarke.  Reprinted with permission. Upside Down Word

1- ECUADOR

In Ecuador there is a government that proclaims a “citizen revolution” and that has a constitution with explicit environmental values that speaks of Well Being and the rights of Nature.  At the same time, there are 179 or 180 indigenous leaders and activists accused of sabotage and terrorism for doing what they always have done: blocking roads and occupying public land to protest and stop the mining projects that threaten their livelihood and communities.  The greatest struggle of the social movements right now is to defend water and to halt open-pit mining.  President Correa calls them “full-bellies” (‘pancitas llenas’) who have plenty to eat and can dedicate themselves to criticizing the government and the mining industry alongside their imperialist NGO allies (non-governmental organizations).

The New Brazil: Regional Imperialism and the New Democracy

The New Brazil

Reviewed by Levi Gahman, ROAR Magazine 

Raúl Zibechi, The New Brazil: Regional Imperialism and the New Democracy (translated by Ramor Ryan), Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2014.

Brazil is bleeding, and in his book, The New Brazil: Regional Imperialism and the New Democracy, author Raúl Zibechi demonstrates how neoliberalism is responsible for inflicting the wounds. The latest offering from the Uruguayan journalist, militant and political theorist is a perceptive and incisive dressing-down of the capitalist world system, the multinational corporate cartels that drive it, and the ongoing colonial domination that is currently plaguing the masses of Brazil. The book forcefully exhibits how the insatiable drive for capital accumulation continues to dispossess, exploit, and repress the disempowered and voiceless. Zibechi also demonstrates how the historical trajectories of imperialism continue to operate within Brazil during contemporary times, thereby preserving privilege and power for a select minority elite at the expense of both the environment and the majority of Brazilian society.

Zapatismo and the Latin American cycle of struggles

by Raúl Zibechi, Roar Magazine

Translated from Spanish by Tamara van der Putten

For the past twenty years since the Zapatista uprising on January 1st, 1994, social movements in Latin America have championed one of the most intense and extensive cycles of struggle in the world. Ever since the 1989 Caracazo, uprisings, insurrections and mobilizations have encompassed the whole region, delegitimized the neoliberal model, and recognized those from below — organized into movements — as central actors of social change.

Autonomy in Brazil: towards a new political culture

By Raúl Zibechi, Roar Magazine

This is the second part of an article by Raul Zibechi on the recent Brazilian uprisings (read part one here). The full piece was originally published by the Observatorio Social de América Latina (OSAL Nº 34). English translation by Ramor Ryan for Upside Down World.

The Pan-American Games as a Rehearsal

“People have the illusion that they will profit from the World Cup events, but the truth is that they will be brutally suppressed,” said Roberto Morales, deputy adviser to Marcelo Freixo of the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), a year and a half before the Confederations Cup. (Zibechi, 2012b) Morales participates in the Comitê Popular da Copa (Popular Committee for the World Cup) that was created during the Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, when local people began to resist forced relocation to make way for games’ facilities.

Autonomy in Brazil: below and behind the June uprising

by Raúl Zibechi, Roar Magazine

This article was originally published by the Observatorio Social de América Latina (OSAL Nº 34). English translation by Ramor Ryan for Upside Down World.

The huge mobilizations in June 2013 in 353 cities and towns in Brazil came as much a surprise to the political system as to analysts and social bodies. Nobody expected so many demonstrations, so numerous, in so many cities and for so long. As happens in these cases, media analyses were quick off the mark. Initially they focused on the immediate problems highlighted by the actions: urban transport, rising fare prices and the poor quality of service for commuters. Slowly the analyses and perspectives expanded to include the day-to-day dissatisfaction felt by a large part of the population. While there was widespread acknowledgement that basic family income had risen during the last decade of economic growth, social commentators began to focus on economic inclusion through consumption as the root of the dissatisfaction, alongside the persistence of social inequality.

Zapatismo: the art of building a new world

By Raúl Zibechi, Roar Magazine

As the media stopped paying attention, many forgot about the Zapatista revolt. But quietly, away from the spotlight, they have deepened their autonomy.

 Quietly, away from the spotlight and cameras, the Zapatista communities have deepened their autonomous construction to the point that one can now speak of a different society, governed by rules, codes, and laws distinct from those of the mainstream world.

At his six-year-old height, Carlos Manuel hugs his father’s waist as if he’ll never let go. He looks up at the ceiling and smiles. Julián, his father, tries to escape. The child gives up, but stays close to his dad. Irma, his eight year-old sister, observes from the kitchen corner where their mother, Esther, is working over a wood stove, flipping the corn tortillas that are still the staple food of rural families. The three other children, including the oldest, 16 year-old Francisco, observe the scene that is repeated like a ritual at every meal.

Territories in Resistance

“Emancipation,” argues Raúl Zibechi, “is not an objective but a way of life.” For the last half century, new and emancipatory social formations have worked to carve out their own territories in Latin America, experimenting in rural and urban settings with new forms of liberatory politics that challenge neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and the very basis of the state itself. Not limited to a single path, these “societies in movement” have adopted forms of communitarian relations that allow experimentation and innovation to flourish at a riveting pace. Blending case studies and history with social theory and analysis, Zibechi opens our eyes to the new world being born just outside our gaze. With a foreword by Dawn Paley, and an epilogue that brings Zibechi into conversation with Michael Hardt and Alvaro Reyes on the continuing revolution of everyday life in Latin America.

The Revolutions by Ordinary People

by Raúl Zibechi (Translated by Cristina Cielo), Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism

 First published in La Jornada, 03 June 2011
as "Las revoluciones de la gente común".

In the most diverse corners of the planet, ordinary people are coming out onto the streets, occupying plazas, meeting up with other ordinary people who they did not know but who they immediately recognize. None of them waited to be convened, they were driven by the need to discover themselves. They do not calculate the consequences of their acts, they act based on what they feel, desire and dream. We find ourselves faced with real revolutions, profound changes and paradigmatic shifts, even if those in power believe that all will return to "normal" once the plazas and streets are cleared.

Governments and Movements: Autonomy or New Forms of Domination?

by Raúl Zibechi, The Post-Capitalist Project

The end of 2008 marked the ten-year anniversary of Hugo Chávez's first electoral victory (December 6, 1998), which initiated a new period marked by the emergence of progressive and left governments in South America. His clinching of the presidency was the result of a long process of struggles from below, beginning in February 1989 with the Caracazo—the first great popular insurrection against neoliberalism—which drove into crisis the party-system that for decades had sustained elite domination.

The Militarization of the World's Urban Peripheries

Raúl Zibechi | February 9, 2007, America's Policy Program
 
Translated from: La militarización de las periferias urbanas
Translated by: Maria Roof

Urban peripheries in Third World countries have become war zones where states attempt to maintain order based on the establishment of a sort of "sanitary cordon" to keep the poor isolated from "normal" society.
"Army sources confirmed that techniques employed in the occupation of the Morro da Providéncia favela [slum] are the ones Brazilian soldiers use in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti." This admission by Brazilian armed forces largely explains the interest of Lula da Silva's government in keeping that country's troops on the Caribbean island: to test, in the poor neighborhoods of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, containment strategies designed for application in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and other large cities.

Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces

Dispersing Power

by Raúl Zibechi, 2010

"Zibechi goes to Bolivia to learn. Like us, he goes with questions, questions that stretch far beyond the borders of Bolivia. How do we change the world and create a different one? How do we get rid of capitalism? How do we create a society based on dignity? What is the role of the state and what are the possibilities of changing society through anti-state movements?... the most important practical and theoretical questions that have risen from the struggles in Latin America and the world in the last fifteen years or so.... The book is beautiful, exciting, stimulating.... Do read it and also give it your friends."—John Holloway, from the Foreword