by Anton Scholtz
Zapata’s
blood
Wasn’t
spilt in vain
So
now the most poor wage war
To
reclaim their name
So
now the most poor wage war
…On
January 1st
of ’94 they became known as
The
Zapatista movement
And
they have a saying,
It
goes something like this:
Everything
for everyone, and nothing for ourselves
Everything
for everyone, and nothing for ourselves.
If
we are to ever successfully conceive of a truly emancipatory form of
politics, it is absolutely necessary that this be conducted at a
distance from the realm of the state. The following essay shall argue
that if we wish to envisage a liberatory form of politics and
resultant social reform, we must be prepared to accept that this
cannot be achieved through the use of the state as a vehicle for
radical change. This is primarily due to the fact that once you
accept the logic of the state (and thus the logic of power) as the
only means of change, this logic of power is merely reproduced
instead of being challenged and ultimately, overthrown. It is evident
that there are other alternatives in terms of power (despite what we
are often made to believe), alternatives which offer a more just,
dignified and equal world for all who live in it. This type of change
is the change which is initiated from the ground upwards, by ordinary
people, and forces the state to engage with its citizens outside the
parameters of its own power. It is therefore fundamental to this
discussion to rethink the question of power and where it may be said
to reside. This essay will argue the need for a liberatory politics
conducted external to the sphere of state power and will draw on some
of the key theoretical debates surrounding this issue. An analytical
discussion of the Zapatista movement in Mexico will be used to
supplement the theoretical discussion with a sense of practicality.
Throughout
the history of revolutionary thought, there has been a general trend
in the perceptions of how to achieve radical social change- that is,
that it must be done using the state
as the central vehicle for the transformation (Holloway, 2002: 11).
Whether the approach to social change emphasized gradual ‘reform’
or the more rapid process of ‘revolution’, both of these views
find the state to be what Holloway (2002: 11) calls “the
centerpiece of the revolutionary process”. From this perspective,
known as the state paradigm, anything external to the power of the
state is useless in terms of trying to institute change in society.
Resulting from this paradigm are three classifications of types of
revolutionary thought in the Marxist tradition- Revolutionary,
Reformist and Anarchist (Holloway, 2002: 12). All three schools of
thought are completely dominated by the state paradigm at the centre
of all discourse and debate and “the historical failure of a
particular concept of revolution” can thus be attributed in part to
the overemphasis on the need to control the state as a central tool
in the revolutionary process (Holloway, 2002: 12). As such, it is
important to ask whether the securing of state power is really the
only means to radically reform society and improve the quality of
life for the people who live in the deep shadow of daily
subordination to an uncaring and unresponsive form of political
power.
Perhaps
the central critique of the state paradigm of revolutionary thought
is the fact that it largely ignores the realities of the greater
social environment of which the state forms part. By emphasizing the
state as the only means for change, one is isolating the state from
the complex “web of social relations” which exists around it
(Holloway, 2002: 13). If the state is examined in this regard, it is
clearly limited in its agency (Holloway, 2002: 13) because it becomes
clear that the state is only one power amongst many others which
surround it and provide some kind of balance. According to Holloway
(2002: 13), the states’ potential for agency is drastically limited
by “the need to maintain the system of capitalist organisation of
which it is part”. Many revolutionary thinkers have made the
mistake of misunderstanding the power relations which surround the
state as merely a small part of the greater network of capitalist
social relations (Holloway, 2002: 14).
Holloway
(2002: 14) argues that revolutionary theory tends to view the state
as the central agent for change inside national frontiers; the main
problem being associated with this then is that capitalist social
relations are by no means geographically bound in the globalizing age
because the relationship between worker and owner is now mediated
through money.
The
agency of state is therefore over exaggerated into a potentially
autonomous actor when it is in fact locked into a global web of
interactions which stretch far beyond the power of the individual
state (Holloway, 2002: 15).
At
this point of the discussion it is important to clarify further the
position occupied by the sovereign nation state within the new world
order. Hardt and Negri (2008: 83) argue that in the globalizing age,
national sovereignty is displaced by the “supra-national power”
which they call “Empire”. This does not mean that the
nation-state has lost all significance in the face of the global
order, but that it has been dislocated from the “position of
sovereign authority” (Hardt & Negri, 2008: 80). Empire thus
refers to the new form of supreme authority which has overthrown the
superiority of the nation state and replaced it with a system which
is unrestrained by national borders (Hardt & Negri, 2008: 80).
As such, the various supra-national institutions which underlie the
existence of Empire are so far removed from the people on the ground
that they do not and can never be said to be representative of the
people, resulting in a “democratic deficit” in which citizens are
increasingly isolated from any form of popular representation (Hardt
& Negri, 2008: 83-84). Therefore, if one takes democracy to mean
the existence of a sovereign authority which represents its people,
Hardt and Negri (2008: 85) argue that democracy, in the age of
Empire, is unrealizable.
It is important to emphasize here that democracy as such may be
unrealizable from the perspective of the state;
this
is however, not to say that it is unrealizable from the perspective
of citizens
of the state.
It
is therefore clear that a liberatory politics must function at a
distance from the state in order to achieve a different, more
inclusive form of power. Hardt and Negri (2008: 86) are convinced
that there is a need to search for new forms of democracy which are
better suited to the times in which we live. Much of what we know
about power relations between the state and its citizens is based on
a contractual logic which is long outdated because of its paradoxical
nature- the contract only serves to translate the weakness of some
into the power of others, there is no equality in the realization of
this contract (Hardt & Negri, 2008: 86). As such, there should be
an emphasis on the notion of a more direct
form of democracy in society, one which is able to replace the
inherent futility of so-called “representative” democracy which
represents only a select few and has proven to have failed in the
aims which it set out to achieve.
Another
deep-seated notion which is problematic in this regard is the issue
of power itself- once people become familiar with the physical
conquest of power (usually by political party or militaristic means),
they become initiated into the very logic of power itself (and
corrupted by it) and in so doing become exactly what they initially
set out to destroy (Holloway, 2002: 15). This could be seen as one of
the primary reasons for the failure of various forms of
representative rule. When the world is seen through what Holloway
(2002: 16) calls “the prism of the conquest of power”, a
hierarchy of struggles is established which places central importance
on activities contributing to the revolution in some way. This
hierarchisation is a reflection of the party organisational structure
which subordinates all forms of class struggle to the ultimate aim of
gaining control of the state at all costs (Holloway, 2002: 17).
From
this point it is significant to examine the very logic of power and
the one-sided narrative which it tends to produce. Holloway (2002:
17) argues that “the struggle is lost from the beginning” once
the logic of power infiltrates the revolution and all other concerns
are set aside for it. This is because, ideally, the fundamental
purpose of a revolution is to challenge the very existence of power
relations altogether (Holloway, 2002: 17) - it is not to set up new
relations of domination and subordination as we have seen with so
many attempts at revolution throughout history. An emancipatory
politics therefore concerns itself with dissolving the societal
relations of power altogether so as to strive for a society built on
“non-power” relations where all forms of hierarchy and inequality
are abolished (Holloway, 2002: 17). Holloway (2002: 18) argues that
social relations should not translate into power relations and if we
are to avoid the reproduction of power in society as we know it
today, we must abandon the logic and reasoning (the “realism”) of
the dominant notions of power and state-centricity at all costs if we
wish implement radical social reform. As such, the central aim of
such a liberatory political project is not to capture or overthrow
the state in order to implement change, but revolves instead around
conceptualizing different, more inclusive ways of doing politics from
the ground up (Holloway, 1996: 1).
But
how are we to realistically envision such an alternative conception
of politics? Hardt and Negri (2008: 86) argue that one possible
answer lies in the hope of what they refer to as the “multitude”,
which is different to the concept of the “people” in that it
defies representation on any level (and is immeasurable) due to the
democratic deficit which, as has already been established, is one of
the defining characteristics of Empire. This “multitude of
intelligent monsters” with “monstrous intelligence and
co-operative power” is said to be a dynamic and influential social
as well as political agent and highly capable of democratic
self-organisation (Hardt & Negri, 2008: 87). Hardt & Negri
(2008: 88), like Holloway (1996, 2002) argue that democracy (and thus
power) as it exists now can never be reformed through control of
imperial institutions and therefore the only way to reclaim true
democracy is by way of a revolution. The post-revolutionary
“democracy of the multitude” thus represents a clean break with
all classical forms of governance as it is said to be an absolute
democracy, meaning that it has no limits in the sense that all
concepts of previous power relations are completely dissolved (Hardt
& Negri, 2008: 88). Through the exercise of “counterpower”
this vision of a new form of politics is realized (Hardt & Negri,
2008: 88). This echoes a similar vision to that of Holloway’s
(2002: 17) concept of “non-power” relations. The multitude
essentially expresses a wish to govern itself.
While
the concept of the multitude as developed by Hardt and Negri (2008)
is extremely useful to a discussion of alternate forms of power, it
must be noted that it appears to be a fairly abstract concept at
times. It is never fully asserted by the authors of Empire
what, or rather who, constitutes the physical manifestation of the
multitude. It is certainly not limited to the world’s poor, the
“wretched of the earth”, as Balakrishnan (2000: 3) suggests about
its constituency. While Hardt and Negri (2008) define the multitude
largely from a sociological perspective, it is also necessary to
supplement this conception with a more political definition.
Politically, the multitude is a much broader, all-encompassing entity
which unites all those who are disillusioned with the politics of the
state and the rigidity of statist thinking. It represents the cries
of those who are convinced of the existence of power beyond the
limited scope of the state, and thrives on the possibility of a
society where all voices speak in the same volume. It is the roar of
a people who demand action and organize amongst themselves, fighting
for more of a say in the governing of and control over their own
lives, a precious freedom from domination and oppression by those who
talk but never listen. In short, it is as John Holloway (1996: 1)
says, hope,
which ensures that individuals fragmented by the state come together
and arise in the form of the multitude. It is also, as will be argued
below in the case of the Zapatista movement, an immediate assertion
of equality and dignity in the broadest sense conceivable.
In
the jungles of Southern Mexico in 1994, a new social movement emerged
which voiced the grievances of the indigenous Mexican population and
attempted to gain recognition of their plight at the national level
(Ruiz, 2010: 160). At the forefront of this movement was the
Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) which formed the
organisational core of the movement in addition to other
organisations which formed part of the same struggle (Ruiz, 2010:
160). On January 1st
of the same year, the Zapatista movement seized control of the town
of San Cristobal and other towns in the southern state of Chiapas
(Holloway, 1996:1). On the surface, the movement arose in response to
two pressing issues in Mexican society. First was the demand for
profound reform in terms of the attitude of the Mexican state toward
the indigenous and rural poor. Second, the movement was initiated as
a form of resistance to rampant corporate globalization and the
pursuit of state-initiated neo-liberal policies which ensured that
the market became the “central regulator of socio-economic life”
and saw the aggravation of already existing inequalities in Mexican
society (Ruiz, 2010: 163). A deeper reflection on the character of
the Zapatista movement, however, reveals that there is much more to
their struggle than simply placing demands on the state for reform or
for material improvements- they struggle for a more just, dignified
world.
The
very essence of the Zapatista struggle, and something which many
people find difficult to comprehend, is the fact that they wish to
transform the present condition of the world without
seizing state power (Holloway,
1996: 1). The movement saw through the apparent futility of the use
of the state or any other established political institutions as a
means of bringing about change, as characterized by the belief that
“the seizure of the state is not the seizure of power” (Holloway,
1996: 2). The Zapatista are avid in their contestation of the
centralization of decision-making and political power. The rejection
of the state is thus fundamental to the core of the Zapatista
movement; members are even advised that they should surrender all
hopes to one day hold any form of political office (Holloway, 1996:
2). The type of politics articulated by the Zapatista is one of
listening, not just talking; a less technocratic manifestation of
politics based on mutual recognition and an unwavering respect for
dignity and humanity (Holloway, 1996: 3) in a world which so often
seems to have forgotten that these and other values exist to the
benefit of all people, not just a select few.
Perhaps
the most important concept at the heart of the Zapatista movement is
that of !Ya
Basta!,
which is best explained by Holloway (1996: 3) as “the negation of
oppression, which exists in the depths of all of us”. The Zapatista
are of the firm belief that the !Ya Basta! lives inside every person
and as such their aim is not to recruit members to their struggle,
but rather to convince other people to express their !Ya Basta! and
take up their own struggles for freedom and justice in ways of their
own
choosing
(Holloway, 1996: 3). What Hardt and Negri (2008: 93) refer to as a
“legion” residing in every person as the “basic foundation of
the multitude” is clearly a parallel to the manifestation of the
!Ya Basta! of which the Zapatista movement speaks. Their idea of
struggle is therefore much broader than traditional notions of
resistance to state power and embodies a genuine spirit of humanity.
The
structure of the movement itself is indicative of its ultimate aims-
the movement is not arranged in a top-down, vertical fashion but
rather works according to a more horizontal configuration which
emphasizes the sameness of all members. All decisions are made
through a process of collective decision-making and an emphasis on
“lead by obeying” whereby leaders are expected to obey the
members and regard one another as true equals (Holloway, 1996: 2). As
such, the Zapatista movement can be said to be highly internally
democratic. This is also emphasized by a “politics of dignity”
which recognizes and sympathizes with the struggles and oppression of
women, children and the elderly which is well reflected in the fact
that it was a woman named Ana Maria who led the occupation of San
Cristobal in 1994 (Holloway, 1996: 3-4). It is evident that the
political project pursued by the Zapatista is in line with the
concept of absolute
democracy as articulated by Hardt and Negri (2008: 88). The spirit of
!Ya Basta! coincides with the notion of the democracy of the
multitude, a democracy “not only of equal individuals but of powers
equally open to cooperation, to community, to creation” (Hardt &
Negri, 2008: 95). It is through the central, collective narrative of
longing for a common, dignified life that the Zapatista wage their
struggle and realize a form of power which resides far beyond the
capacity of the state.
One
of the key phrases in Zapatista discourse, that of ‘preguntando
caminamos’ (asking we walk), is valuable when examining the core
ideals which underlie the movement (Holloway, 1996: 3). “Asking”
here refers to the Zapatista promise to listen, communicate and
cooperate with all members of the movement so that every opinion is
heard and given equal weighting. “We walk” is arguably indicative
of a compelling struggle to resist the power of external forces,
especially the state, in determining the path which the people must
walk (Hallward, 2009: 17). It is a declaration of collective
self-determination to stipulate the course of their own history
(Hallward, 2009: 17), uncorrupted by the technocratic tongues of the
state.
In
conclusion, it is without doubt evident that any political project
wishing to be truly emancipatory must be prepared to function at a
distance from the state. Due to the nature of the modern sovereign
state within the global relations of power (Empire), Hardt and Negri
(2008: 95) affirm that the impossibility of achieving democracy in
any traditional sense of the term should compel us to move forward,
away from the controlling clutches of the state. There is no other
way forward but for us to engage in struggles to exercise our
autonomy from the state and exert a sense of political agency in any
and every way possible. The logic of power, as perpetuated by the
state, is unequal and uncaring, but the Zapatista movement is a
triumphant testimony to the belief that another form of power is
possible if we can envision it and act. Any liberatory political
project should also aim principally to be more humane by embracing
values such as dignity, hope and love at their core because this is
in direct opposition to the cold, mechanical and bureaucratic logic
which is so characteristic of the state.
Reference
List
Balakrishnan,
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and Negri’s Empire.
New Left Review 5.
Hallward,
P. 2009. The
will of the people: Notes towards a dialectical voluntarism.
Radical Philosophy 155.
Hardt,
M & Negri, A. 2008. Globalisation
and Democracy in
‘Reflections on Empire’. Polity: Cambridge.
Holloway,
J. 1996. The
concept of power and the Zapatistas.
Common Sense no. 19.
Holloway,
J. 2002. Beyond
the State
in ‘Change the World Without Taking Power’. Pluto: London.
Ruiz,
CC. 2010. The
struggle towards rights and communitarian citizenship: the Zapatista
movement in Mexico
in Thompson, L. and Tapscott, C. (eds) ‘Citizenship and Social
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