|
|
Mercedes Olivera
Since the Zapatistas, both men and women, came to public light in January of 1994 and invited the people of Mexico to fight for democracy and build a new world, a debate has arisen as to whether the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) is feminist or not. Some feminists, assuming that war is a bloody battle for patriarchal power implying one's own and others' death, consider the EZLN's vision to be extremely patriarchal, both because it resorts to violence to combat the phalocentric violence that annihilates it -accepting a vertical functioning in its own military structure- and because "it has self-ascribed a representativity which it does not have" in speaking of a national project where feminists, at least, do not see ourselves reflected, and which is not representative of the diversity and plurality it claims to recognise. It is possible that the feminist criticism is correct in its contents, it is possible that Marcos' discourse is reformist, and that the EZLN's structures and functioning are vertical. It is likewise possible that the contents of the Revolutionary Laws of Women are not entirely feminist, in addition to never having purported to be so. We will not stop to analyse whether these or other feminist criticisms are reasonable or not, since we could slip into a very sterile rhetoric.
It seems to us that our radical feminist vision can be enriched if, in rendering judgements, we stop to look at the reality of women's existence, the one they live and not only the one they should live, according to our feminist position. We must put ourselves in the increasingly authoritarian and corrupt political context in which they act. Our discourse will be enriched if we develop our capacity to accept the heterogeneity of social development, the diversity of paces of change, and the variety of cultures existing in the country; if we take into account the different modes and degrees of subordination in which women live; the subordinate position of indigenous cultures and the models of gender subordination endured in Chiapas, as well as the enormous difficulty of transforming them.
The rejection of women's participation in war would undoubtedly be mitigated if we were able to feel the daily needs of Indian women in Chiapas, who live life without living, subjected to gender models that are so rigid and traditional that for centuries have denied them the space to fulfil themselves beyond child bearing, reducing their field of thought to the activities repeated exactly the same way, 365 days of all the years they manage to survive in the face of poverty, discrimination and violence.
We radical feminists must remember that becoming feminist is a political process that implies very diverse paces, strategies and possibilities for progress. What is important is that the women who participate in it do not lose sight of the guiding star of emancipation, above all, that we apply feminist theory in the construction of valid strategies in keeping with the reality we seek to impact. We must obtain our information not only from Subcommander Marcos' statements or from feminist laws or from women interviewed, but instead we must see the Zapatista movement as a whole, and in the light of its possibilities, as a social process in which we can include all women participating from our own trenches in "democracy-building based on diversity and plurality" (National NGO Committee toward Beijing, 1995, 14), and who are struggling so that all women cease to fulfil the traditional roles and the everyday relations that patriarchal society imposes on them.
Awakening gender awareness
We cannot judge the Zapatista movement with the same parameters we use to judge party platforms or the projects of Central American revolutions of decades gone by. The Zapatista project is not a finished concept that seeks to impose itself, but instead gives us the opportunity to incorporate our proposals, providing us with a special place in the Larrainzar negotiations and calling upon us to participate. It gives us the opportunity to go about building a new system of relations via the long road to equality and justice with peace and dignity. We feminists working close to this process claim the right to pick the wrong road and then correct it, but we must do so in practice, in order for our force and our energy to grow to the benefit of the transformations we are seeking. We must think that Zapatista theses and positions reflect the distance between the social reality of Chiapas and what has been changed within its ranks and the organised people over more than a decade of militancy. And that is a lot. Although it is true that the 16 EZLN demands should be expanded to include the elimination of the system's patriarchal nature, the recovery of our alienated sexuality, the elimination of hierarchical, vertical and authoritarian relations, and many others. The spaces for power and participation achieved by women may be the beginning of a new road we all need. It must be acknowledged that never before has a national revolutionary political project included the specific demands of indigenous women, even accepting that most of them are immediate gender claims. It is not what radical feminism wants and has conceived in urban conditions and with resources. No, it is just the deconstruction of traditional gender models and the start of a conscious building of new models. Our feminist work, taking advantage of the spaces for research, training, support to women's organisations, accompanying their processes of confrontation and struggle, may serve as a catalyst in this process that has to be undertaken and is being undertaken by the indigenous women of Chiapas, at their pace, with their contradictions and from their own way of feeling and acting.
At the negotiating tables the women spoke, demanded demilitarisation of their communities, the disappearance of the "white guards" and of the policy of terror that haunts them constantly. They defended their rights, demanded to have "their words" included in the summaries of the debates. They expressed their right to have good land, to have a voice, to participate equitably in politics and in the indigenous government, they claimed the right to health, to education, to fair wages and prices, to organise to protect their own rights. They asked for support for their agricultural, stock raising and crafts projects to improve their quality of life. They put great emphasis on the demands for fair punishment of all military men who rape women. This process helps to strengthen the participation of women, to socialise their problems, demands and alternative solutions. Its continuity at the level of government negotiations may contribute little, but in the communities, in the daily work of women, in their minds, it awakens change, and we are sure that the process will become more and more precise, but at its own pace, in the development of gender awareness and the political participation of women demanding their strategic proposals of equality in bed, in the family, in the community and in the country. Feminists must know that is where the space lies, and we must take advantage of it. In any event, our militian and grassroots insurgent, indigenous Zapatista sisters will be the ones who decide to move ahead or not with the feminist nature of their organisations and their movement. We must do our own thing.
Mercedes
Olivera, Mexican, anthropologist and director of the
Women's Research and Action Centre headquartered in Chiapas.