Subcomandante Marcos, left, one of the more recognizable spokesmen following the Zapatista uprising in 1994. (Photo: Oriana Eliçabe / Flickr)
Another excellent presentation on Native America Calling. I happened to catch the end third of this program as I was driving to the grocery store. The speaker was anthropologist, Dr. Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo. She pointed out that the Zapatista uprising was the first and only indigenous rebellion in which women's rights were juridically institutionalized from the beginning. The other two presenters, both from the University of Arizona, were excellent as well in their discussion of the thirty year history of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas which started with an armed uprising on New Years Day, 1994.
Update:
I went looking for books this morning at my local thrift shop and chanced on The Zapatista Reader from 2002, edited by Tom Hayden with articles by a number of my favorite authors.
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Update: After looking through recent news stories about Chiapas my impression is that the 30th Anniversary of the Zapatista insurrection was an opportunity for some nostalgic excesses. The story told by the Native American Calling program seems largely based on information that is now very out of date. The community solidarity which characterized the early years of the Zapatista movement appears to have become scarce in the face of the challenges from drug cartels and migrant trafficking along with the effects of the pandemic. It seems the situation in Chiapas has come to closely resemble that of the rest of the country in regard to poverty and violence.
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