Since this article was written, in mid-November, the movement has suffered further violent repression, particularly on November 25 and in the week that followed. The call by the Zapatistas for a general strike on November 20 was apparently widely ignored, with no reports of any strikes by any of the major sources of information sympathetic to the movement. As noted in the introduction, the APPO, at around the time the above article was written, issued a call to the people “to forge a new constitution for Oaxaca”, subsequently “dissolving” itself as the APPO, and reforming as the State Council of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (CEAPPO). The CEAPPO claims to include “merchants, students, bus and taxi drivers, unions, women, non-governmental organizations, political parties and social groups”, as well as the teachers whose strike initiated the movement. After being forcibly removed from the Zócalo in Oaxaca City, the APPO (or CEAPPO) moved its encampment to the plaza of the Santo Domingo cathedral, as well as continuing its occupation of parts of the university. Following the repression of November 25, these spaces were given up, and the CEAPPO apparently went underground. Since the beginning of the New Year, it seems that the CEAPPO has developed increasingly in the rural regions of Oaxaca, with the creation by a number of indigenous communities of new “autonomous municipalities” in opposition to the discredited and “dis-owned” municipal authorities tied to the regime of Ruiz. With the CEAPPO forced underground in Oaxaca City, and with the open struggle in retreat, we must assume that it is in decline there, however. At the same time, coalitions of groups in sympathy with the CEAPPO have formed their own Popular Assemblies of the Peoples of various other states in Mexico, most prominently in the Federal Department of Mexico, which includes Mexico City. The struggle does continue, nevertheless, with a ninth ‘megamarch’ of 30,000 people on February 3rd. What about the teachers? With a price on the head of many of them, approximately 30% of them are in hiding from Ruiz’s paramilitaries, while the rest returned to classes in November. They did, however, hold a state assembly of their union, denouncing and dis-owning their leader Rueda Pacheco, and his attempts to split the Oaxacan section of their union from both the APPO and the rest of the union. On February 2nd, they issued a public statement proclaiming their continued support for the APPO, for the struggle against Ruiz and his regime, as well as against neo-liberal policies, privatizations, reductions in social spending, and the concentration of wealth amongst a few. They state: “We defend the popular economy and the economic well-being of all Mexicans.” These positions are reflective of the APPO generally. Elections to the state legislature occur in August, while elections of mayors in municipalities throughout Oaxaca occur in October this year. The APPO proclaims that it “reserves the right to back candidates in the united anti-PRI campaign, without itself becoming a political party.” It remains to be seen, however, if the APPO will be able to resist the tendency to align itself with the PRD in its fight against both the PRI and the PAN.
The article above by Kellen Kass offers a clear and cogent analysis of the struggle and of the APPO. That the APPO does not share common goals with anarchists, insofar as those of the latter involve the elimination of the state and capitalism, applies also for communists. At the same time, there are some anarchists who do seem to share common goals with the APPO, who do seem to see it as a liberatory rather than as a recuperative force. While there are anti-capitalist anarchist tendencies such as Kellen’s, there are also others which, when such popular struggles arise, support nationalist, statist, pro-capitalist popular fronts such as the APPO or the PF in Spain in the ‘30s.
There are some points and some omissions in Kellen’s article which also reflect weaknesses of the anarchist perspective. For example, there is a lack of class analysis of the APPO and of the struggle in general. Insofar as the APPO is a form of self-organization of those in struggle, and insofar as it assumes the general assembly and council form workers have utilized in mass autonomous struggles since 1905 in Russia, it is to be supported. However, the APPO is not organized primarily on the basis of either neighborhood/territory or of the workplace. Besides workers, the APPO contains dispossessed peasants, merchants, small-scale producers, and others. Thus the APPO is not a working class organization, and so its political content, its goals, will not be that of the working class either. Its struggle is a ‘popular’ struggle against a corrupt regime and political establishment and an extremely inequitable distribution of wealth. As such, it can only be nationalist, statist, and pro-capitalist. Basing itself on previously existing non-governmental, semi-political and even openly political activist social organizations and union sections insures that the working class is buried under these vanguards, and that the struggle will tend to be ‘popular’ and thus on the terrain of capital rather than that of the working class. Such struggles typically reach a point, such as the one in Oaxaca currently, where the stakes are raised and there is no way forward without the struggle of the working class shaking the economy to its foundations and demonstrating who really has the power in the situation. However, ‘popular’ type struggles tend to prevent the assertion of working class power rather than fostering it, since they need to aim for what is common to all of the different classes and social layers involved, which in this case is everyone outside of the small political and economic elites in Oaxaca. In fact, the APPO increasingly identifies itself on an ethnic (indigenous, Zapotec, Mixotec, Triqui) basis rather than on a socio-economic (dispossessed or exploited) one.
While the article’s promotion of violent action against a leader of the APPO and against an individual cop can be dismissed as anarchist macho (or at least ultra-militant) posturing, the calls for activist forms of solidarity at the end of the article reflect more weaknesses of the anarchist outlook. Protests at Mexican consulates and embassies are not going to affect the power of the ruling class anywhere, and in case will inevitably be organized by leftists who support the agenda of the APPO. At best, they draw a small amount of attention to the situation in Oaxaca. Attempts to shut down corporations with links to Mexico or to set up blockades in cities outside of Oaxaca will have no effect unless undertaken by very large numbers of people, and in the case of businesses, should be done by or in connection with those workers employed there. In any case, mass meetings would need to be held first to involve all of those who would undertake such activity. Being more realistic, however, regarding the potential for active solidarity with the insurgents of Oaxaca, we see the role of pro-revolutionaries (whether communist or anarchist) to be publicizing relevant information and a clear analysis of the situation which will help to inspire workers and dispossessed people outside of Oaxaca to rise up in self-organized struggle against their own exploitation and oppression but with the goal of linking up with others throughout the world in a common struggle against global capital and every state that defends it.
E.R.
February 2007
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