To Lead by Obeying: The Political Lessons of Mexican Neo-Zapatismo (Latin America)

"This book develops the main political lessons that the Mexican movement of Neozapatismo brings us, in its almost 30 years of public life. Thus, beginning by defining the singular concept of Autonomy that the neozapatista movement propose, different of the legal, or anthropological or political definitions, and conceived as a real global autonomy. Then the content of the neozapatista oxymoron 'Mandar Obedeciendo', 'To Lead by Obeying' is explained as identical to the idea of popular self-government. A new concept of autonomy linked necessarily with the idea of the 'Other Politics' and 'Other Democracy'. The book presents too how neozapatismo embodies a project of modernity that, having been constructed as a modernity of resistance, for five centuries, to the dominant modernity imposed by the Spaniards in Mexico, has now been transformed into a project of a real alternative modernity to capitalism"-- Cover HalfTitle Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Epigraph Contents Preface to the English Edition By Way of Introduction: When the Imagination Takes Power An Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience: The First Gathering of the Zapatista Peoples with the Peoples of the World Resituating the Event in Historical Perspective ·1· Leading by Obeying: Popular Self-Government, Political Autonomy, and Integral Global Autonomy Defending Autonomy as Integral Global Autonomy The Logic of Leading by Obeying The Mechanisms and Implications of Leading by Obeying The Principles of Excercising a Very Other Government ·2· The Death of the Human Activity of Politics: The Other Politics and the Other Democracy The Other Politics in the Context of the Death of Politics Deconstructing and Unthinking Limited Formal Democracy: The Other Democracy ·3· Mexican Neo-Zapatismo, Heir to the World Cultural Revolution of 1968 When Being Realistic Means Demanding the Impossible Because Even Today, “We want everything, right away!” ·4· The Mexican Neo-Zapatista Movement and the Transition from a Modernity of Resistance to an Alternative Modernity The Multiple Modernities of “Modernity” The Other Economy: Mother Earth, Collective Labor, and Equitable Distribution Laying the Foundations for an Other Society: A Truly Anti-capitalist Feminism and a Holistic and Anti-commodifying View of Health The Other Culture: The Recuperation and Reappraisal of Deep Popular Knowledge A Conclusion That Questions Instead of Concluding Appendix 1 Building Counter-Power from Below and to the Left (or, How to Change the World by Revolutionizing Power from Below Power) Changing the World by Revolutionizing Power Returning to the ‘Power’ of the Classics On the Omnipotent Weakness of the State and Political Power From Below and to the Left Appendix 2 The Zapatista Gaze: Looking (to and from) Below and to the Left The Gaze That Sees Farther The Gaze That Illuminates What Is Missing, What Is Incomplete Now We Can See the Horizon!15 Appendix 3 The New Stage of Mexican Neo-Zapatismo Appendix 4 The Little Zapatista School: Living the Struggle for Autonomy from Within On the Way to School Hurrying to Get There With Books Under Their Arm The Whole World Goes Out to Struggle Appendix 5 The (Symbolic) Death of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos and the Collective Neo-Zapatista ‘we’ The Neo-Zapatista Expectation of an Unexpected Death Despairing Over the Extreme Authoritarianism of the “New” PRI Hopes and Expectations of the New Stage of Neo-Zapatismo Building the Collective Neo-Zapatista ‘We’ Appendix 6 Mexican Neo-Zapatismo and Its Impact within Contemporary Social Sciences: Six Theses to Develop Appendix 7 Mexican Neo-Zapatismo’s Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Critical Thought Appendix 8 Neo-Zapatista Discoveries: Birthing the New World from Below, Knowing Arts, Creating Sciences Introduction Revolutionizing the Forms of Making the Revolution Art and Science for Birthing the New Non-capitalist World from Below Appendix 9 Mexico and Mexican Neo-Zapatismo in Times of COVID-19 Works Cited Glossary Translator’s Note This book presents the main political lessons of the Mexican movement of Neozapatismo. The book presents also how the Neozapatismo embodies areal project of an alternative modernity, in front of the decadent and destructivecapitalist modernity, still dominant all over the world.