'We Don't Need Permission To Be Free'

On January 1, 1994, the Zapatistas’ armed uprising seized several cities and towns in southern Mexico, on the same day that the NAFTA agreement took force. Now, as Trump threatens to rip up NAFTA and others seek to “modernize” it, it’s once again Indigenous peoples who will bear the fallout of neoliberal policies.

In March of 2018, thousands of self-identified women Zapatistas and activists gathered in Chiapas to share their struggles and victories in building a world beyond capitalism.

- Erin Innes

The Spanish sign on the side of the hill doesn’t mince any words: “You are in Zapatista autonomous territory. Here the people lead, and the government obeys.” That sign welcomes us into the Caracol of Morelia in Chiapas, Mexico, for the First International Gathering of Women in Struggle, held over five days in March 2018. I am one of over 5,000 (self-identified) women activists from around the world, hosted by over 2,000 Zapatista women from across their territory, who have travelled here to share our struggles. Some of the women I’m travelling with are Indigenous land defenders and culture keepers from North America; others are the children and grandchildren of Latin American migrants who were displaced from their homes by the very forces the Zapatistas have been fighting against for three decades; still others are activists like me, descendants of European invaders on Turtle Island looking for some way out of the destructive culture that our predecessors built. Could what the Zapatistas have created show us a way to do that? I’m here to see for myself.

A POETICS OF REVOLUTION

The Zapatistas burst onto the international scene on January 1, 1994, the day that the NAFTA agreement took force, when their armed uprising seized several towns and cities in the southernmost state of Mexico. But for more than a decade before, the Zapatistas had been slowly building a clandestine movement to reassert the dignity and autonomy of their communities.

Today they control about a third of the territory of Chiapas, with an unknown population that likely totals somewhere around 300,000. There are also communities and supporters in the surrounding states, many of them living and organizing at various levels of the same