TO
commemorating the 30 years of the insurrection of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), the Al Faro Zapatista Collection has undertaken the immeasurable task of publishing 30 books, with the participation of more than 50 authors and groups, which, as Carlos Tornel points out in his mega-review “Weaving networks of rebellion and sowing hope: 30 years, 30 books and lessons of Zapatismo”: “is perhaps one of the most complete and systematic recovery of the contributions of Zapatismo.” This is possible thanks to the commendable support of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, the Cooperativa Editorial Retos, the Jorge Alonso Chair-University Center of Social Sciences and Humanities-University of Guadalajara and Al Faro Zapatista, San Cristóbal de Las Casas and Buenos Aires.
In particular, volume III, Zapatista autonomy in the face of the stormedited by indigenous people, in what for many was the closest thing to a constituent congress.
In the words of the editors, the book shows “three great rivers that allow us to navigate towards the sea of Zapatista autonomy. The first analyzes the time-space and history of Zapatismo. In the second, the different aspects of Zapatista autonomy are addressed and analyzed. Its autonomous forms of government de facto and without permission, their emancipatory agroecologies, the Zapatista arts and communication system in the face of the project of the Fourth Transformation and the Storm. The three rivers put the Zapatista word and work at the center.”
In fact, the work in question has a presentation by the editors and nine chapters in its 310 pages, in which Carlos and Jorge Alonso address a brief approach to Zapatismo. “Zapatista delusions”, by Jorge Regalado Santillán. “The Zapatista we and time as flower and rebellion”, by Sergio Tischler Visquerra. “Zapatista autonomy, a lighthouse in the fight for life,” by Jerome Baschet. “Emancipatory agroecology(s) for a world where many autonomies flourish”, by Valentín Val and Peter M. Rosset. “Nautical charts for a stormy sea”, by the Radio Zapatista collective. “Art and politics”, by Francisco de Parres Gómez. “Los Tercios Compas. Zapatista autonomous audiovisual communication”, by Axel Köhler. “Legacy of the Zapatista towns and communities to the fight for land and life in the face of the Storm”, by René Olvera Salinas and Alonso Gutiérrez Navarro.
The collection as a whole emerges as a tribute to Zapatismo, to its legacy from critical thinking and situated knowledge, embodied and felt by the environment of support and solidarity with this movement, as a reflection for urgent action, taking into account the interpellation with which the book closes on autonomy, this disturbing question that Zapatismo launches: What about you? full to those who come behind.
Coincidentally, these days, colleague Waldo Lao Fuentes Sánchez, a recognized continental reference in the study of autonomies and collective rights of indigenous peoples, sent me his latest work Indigenous autonomies in Latin America. A brief historical approach (Abya Yala Collection, El Colectivo-La Fogata editorial, winter 2025), in which it defines autonomy as “a mechanism that indigenous peoples use to defend their culture, reorganize their territories, govern themselves and build resistance against the advance of capitalism. The basis of autonomy is the territory – where the construction of community dynamics is exercised – with creativity, affection, discipline and sustainability of the subjects who exercise it, therefore, each autonomy is unique and different.” This work includes a timely and detailed chronology of events, declarations, agreements, uprisings, marches and legal and constitutional reforms from 1953 to 1994, related to the autonomous movements.
Zapatista autonomy in the face of the storm It is a necessary work to have a comprehensive perspective that self-managed experiences maintain, within which that of the Zapatista Mayans is emblematic, an autonomy that, as Leyva points out, “has challenged us and organized us as a way of life and struggle that includes all areas of the personal, collective and organizational life of the Zapatista movement.”
