Those that Live Under the Earth Topple the Tree of Power
Comandante Samuel told a story that his mamtik, his grandfather, used to tell him when he was a child, a story that the EZLN later retook as an example of how to struggle and create something new.
“There once lived two brothers, one who was older and the mero kosh, the younger brother. One day they were walking through the mountain and came across a huge tree with a bee hive full of honey at the very top.”
“The older brother told the mero kosh that he would climb to get the honey and pass it down to him. So the younger brother waited on the ground while the older brother ate and ate and ate all the honey from the very top of the tree. The younger brother complained and told the big brother, ‘Throw me down some honey. I am here waiting, have you forgotten about me?’ But older brother only threw him chewed beeswax.”
“ The younger brother got angry and came up with a plan. He molded the beeswax into a tusa, a little animal that lives underground and lives by eating the roots of plants. To this tusa he whispered instructions and carefully placed him in a hole by the tree trunk. The little animal quickly began his task. He found the largest roots and started chewing. ‘Rasp, rasp’ was the chewing sound that the tusa made and so the big brother yelled from the top of the tree, ‘What is that noise? What are you doing younger brother?’ And the mero kosh yelled back, ‘Nothing, what could I possibly be doing? Keep eating!’ The big brother, not really listening to the mero kosh, continued to eat all the sweet honey. Meanwhile the tusa was busy chewing until finally the roots snapped and the tree came crashing down, killing the big brother. The mero kosh eventually left the earth to find his home in the sun, and like the ball of fire, he continuously dies and is reborn.”
Comandante Samuel then explained how the story defines their struggle, “We are like the tusa, we are the invisible that live under the earth, just like the dead, but slowly, slowly we are chewing away at the roots of power until it comes crashing down. And like the mero kosh, we are born from our death so that we may die and live again.”
The re-newed hostilities by the Mexican federal army during the first weeks of the year, the massacre by paramilitary death squads of 45 innocent Tzotziles from the community of Acteal on December 22, 1997, and the continuous lies on the part of the Mexican government as it fails to comply with the San Andres Accords all share one goal: to destroy at all costs the EZLN initiated autonomous municipalities which geographically re-configure over a third of the southeastern state’s territory and serve as a model of self-determination for Mexico’s 52 indigenous groups.
On December 19, 1995, the EZLN, in a political-military action, broke the Mexican army’s encirclement of the Lacandon jungle and took over towns far beyond the conflict zone. The show of force shattered the government’s assumption of the movement as an isolated struggle of only 4 regions. The rebel army demonstrated that it politically and militarily partially controls 38 municipalities and, as part of this presence, has redefined the territory in the form of rebel autonomous municipalities.
EZLN Comandante Samuel explained the reason’s for why the EZLN decided to create these liberated zones, “It was an idea that surfaced in 1994 as a way of not having to interact with government institutions. We said ‘Enough!’ to them controlling all aspects of our community for us. By creating autonomous municipalities we are defining our own spaces where we can carry out our social and political customs as we see fit, without a government that never takes us into account, interfering for its self- benefit.”
Rebel municipalities no longer recognize government imposed authorities. Instead the villages democratically install new community and municipal representatives and present them with the “baston de mando,” the traditional wooden stick with which the communities grant chosen local leaders the right to represent them. The new spaces for constructing local power not only permit villages to create political and social structures firmly rooted in their Mayan past, but they also signal a new way in which indigenous communities relate to each other and to the Mexican nation.
A local authority in the recently inaugurated autonomous municipality “Ernesto Che Guevara”, located in the rebel territory “Tzotz Choj,” officially known as the municipality of Ocosingo explained, “We are and want to be part of Mexico and not a stranger to the lands that gave birth to us. We are and want to be part of the great Mayan nation that many suns and moons ago saw these valleys flower. We are and want to take part in the construction of the nation we desire, where democracy, liberty, and justice exist. We only want to be equal to others, not more nor less, and to be respected as indigenous people.”
Within the newly created municipal structures, the communities name their authorities, community teachers, local health promoters, indigenous parliaments, and elaborate their own laws based on social, economic, political and gender equality among the inhabitants of diverse ethnic communities.
In the autonomous municipality 17 de Noviembre, located in the region of Altamirano, educational promoters from the region’s 75 communities meet regularly through workshops and meetings in order to create the municipality’s new educational system. Those responsible for carrying out this monumental task, firmly rooted in Tzeltal history, attempt to write the municipality’s own educational materials, create a bilingual teaching system, train local teachers, and eventually provide non-governmental schools for the region’s 20,000 inhabitants. The educational promoters are accountable to the rebel municipality’s Education Commission, a body of community representatives democratically chosen to carry out the tasks related to education, and must periodically inform the autonomous parliament of the work’s progress.
The fact that the rebel municipalities define their own educational system, along with all other social, political, and economic aspects of the indigenous autonomous regions, does not remove the state from its responsibilities. If and when the Mexican government complies with the peace accords, it would still be required to channel funds, as it is obligated to do so under the constitution. However, the communities forming the municipalities would have the right to choose how these funds would be administered.
The EZLN speaks of autonomy, not as a separatist movement, but rather one that is inclusionary, that creates, as they describe in a popular slogan, “ a world in which all worlds can fit”. The construction of these autonomous municipalities signal the beginning of an alternative that allows local people to control a territory and create a new relationship to the state. It permits popular power to be created from below, reinforcing the EZLN ideal that “power is not taken, it is constructed.” Most importantly, building grassroots force presents people the opportunity to define and build the future according to their own vision and with their own hands.
Javier Ruiz, ex- member of the autonomous concession for the rebel municipality of San Pedro Emiliano Zapata, officially known as the municipality of Chenalho, explained the process of community empowerment: “Before we would ask the government to give us everything, and they would only give us handouts- some housing material, a little bit of money, a few sacks of corn. But now we realize that we can solve our necessities ourselves. That is why we decided to resist, to give birth to our own ideas. The communities created the autonomous municipalities so we could be free to create what our thoughts tell us, to create what we want according our needs and our history. We are not asking the government to hand us clothes, but rather the right to the word dignity.”
The connection between degrowth and direct action movements should be strengthened. Degrowth intellectuals should recognize combative socio-ecological struggles. Because, as Michael Truscello reminds us: “What we deter or destroy today will mean more to our collective future than anything we build or repair.” Ignoring these struggles or, worse, attempting to discursively manage them as “radical” or “militant”, reveals a colonial Stockholm syndrome, class-bias and institutionally supported narratives of the all too often “well-educated.” This plays into the notorious trap of the good/bad protest dichotomy.
These struggles, in reality, are not “radical” nor “militant:” they are logical pathways towards degrowing the techno-capitalist system, actions echoed by land defenders across the world to protect their habitats form infrastructural invasion. Degrowth advocates should acknowledge these struggles, recognizing the legitimacy of the diversity of tactics.
Finally, degrowth—and all academic schools of thought— must be careful not to tokenize struggles elsewhere across the world, meanwhile ignoring the permanent socio-ecological conflicts in their front yard. Degrowth intellectuals or organizers should not deny, nor isolate the movements on the frontlines. The opposite extreme, researching them by placing them into a Petri dish of analysis is also ill advised. Instead, spreading information, celebrating these actions and revealing the processes that impose megaprojects is another way to strengthen the connection between ecological anti-capitalist and degrowth movements.
During the first 2 weeks of this year the Mexican army, under the pretext of disarming supposedly “dangerous” organized groups, stormed into several Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN) support base communities in the state of Chiapas, ransacked the inhabitants’ homes, stole their cattle, killed farm animals, terrified children, and even tortured a handful of men. After the military’s first act of hostility, un-armed indigenous women refused to allow them to pillage their homes again, took the initiative and fought back with rage.
For over a week, relatively non-violent confrontations between Mexican soldiers and furious indigenous women demonstrated the powerful resistance deeply ingrained in the hearts of the Mayan people. Petite Tzotzil women in their colorful embroidered blouses, armed only with sticks and stones and carrying babies on their backs, shoved heavily armed Mexican soldiers until they reluctantly withdrew from the fog covered highland community of Xo’yep. In the canyon of Ocosingo, several hundred women, children, and men, from the village of Galeana hurled sticks and insults at 200 soldiers as they chased them back down the steep mountain path and away from their homes.
On January 3rd, 70 soldiers entered into the community of Morelia and, at gun point, threatened to search people’s homes. A human wall of women and children detained them. In order to prevent the soldiers from invading their village again, the women for a week constructed a 24 hour checkpoint blocking the nearby dirt road and monitoring all passing vehicles. When several hundred soldiers appeared on January 8th, an 60 women rushed towards them, flinging stones at the armored trucks and slamming sticks down onto the helmets of the few soldiers unfortunate enough to have tried to step down. The shocked men, unsure how to react, retreated as the women ran after their vehicles for over 2km.
“We held a meeting and decided that we were going to throw out the army if they came,” explained Roselia, a middle-aged women from Morelia. “ We are not scared of the military, we think that if they are going to shoot, well then they are going to shoot. But we have decided that we are going to defend our communities, we are going to protect our men, because if they take our husbands away they will torture, even kill them. That is what we no longer want, we don’t want anymore death....We want the government to stop lying and comply with the San Andres Peace Accords [on indigenous right and culture, signed by the EZLN and government representatives on February 16, 1996]. We want everything for the pueblo and not just for a few people or for one community,” she declared with penetrating brown eyes.
Unlike the February 9, 1995 offensive by the Mexican military, when the support base communities fled their homes and hid in the mountains, the inhabitants of the so called “conflict zone” decided to take a stronger stance and, without the use of weapons, defend the new societies they have so carefully been constructing since they showed their masked faces to the world on January 1st, 1994.
The occupation and direct action movements are nearly endless. Remember the NoTAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline) struggle, numerous ZADs, inhabited forests in Uppsala and forest defense against highways in Germany and so many more across Europe and the world. Considering the state of ecological and climate crisis, employing brisantic politics and “diversity of tactics”—“vandalism” (or art), sabotage, blockades or destruction of coercive infrastructure—is legitimate. This is real democratic participation in matters where people have no vote or choice, only consultation.
Degrowth celebrates mainstream environmentalism promoting climate marches, weeklong gatherings and civil disobedience actions. Yet, why ignore the decades long struggles committed to inherently enacting degrowth within Europe itself? This extends to other schools of thought and academic disciplines as well. Degrowth should embrace and celebrate combative movements, spreading the knowledge of their struggles.
Does degrowth have any relevance to anarchism? Taking an academic and popular public stance against capitalist growth or, more accurately, the degrowing total material and energy throughput of techno-capitalism is extremely relevant to anarchism, green or otherwise. Degrowth, in theory, is a natural companion of anarchism and other anti-capitalist autonomist tendencies, with direct linkages through authors such as Ivan Illich and Jacques Ellul. Yet where is degrowth in practice? Do degrowthers join the riots against police repression or, more relevant and discussed below, the combative ecological struggles to stop capitalist growth? If they stand by watching, is it with condemnation, support or a righteous criticism that the rioters should be making community gardens? These dispositions matter and some positions are easier to take than others.
A phenomenon with a long intellectual history (e.g. Andre Gorz; Cornelius Castoriadis; Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen; Sergio Latouche) that arose from the anti-globalization movement, it has actually remained rather marginal or inconsequential in struggles to defend habitats and maintain autonomous spaces. Meanwhile, degrowth has become a booming academic topic, slowly taking over the halls of universities with an enormous amount of academic articles, books and special issues. In fact, degrowth has now created an important space within universities, yet what is the quality of this space and how is this space experienced by so-called “militants”?
While degrowth intellectuals have made great efforts to connect degrowth with environmental justice movements (Akbulut et al., 2019) and direct action (Treu et al., 2020), ambiguity reigns regarding politics and qualities of direct action. This coincides with an implicit academic conflation of environmental justice with all land and territorial struggles logged into the Environmental Justice Atlas (https://ejatlas.org/), which lumps in armed action with vandalism and arson. The interface of direct action and academic labelling is murky, and maybe rightfully so, yet how does environmental justice speak with or—more concerning—for to all the indigenous, autonomist and anarchist tendencies at war with techno-capitalist progress? Does this labeling preform some type of academic recuperation of political struggle, if so what are the consequences? Does environmental justice and degrowth support and/or profit from environmental conflicts where Indigenous, anarchists and autonomist tendencies are a driving force? These questions deserve further consideration and development within and outside the academy.
The article below attempts to begin this conversation, offering feedback for the degrowth movement to support combative struggles with the space they have created. This short article offers feedback from over a decade of personal experience, but also more immediate observation by working with land defenders in France and Iberia fighting energy infrastructure and wind energy power plants. There is a strong affinity that exists between degrowth and land defenders, yet the academy has a way of excluding disruptive anarchistic and autonomist elements by employing self-referential theory from the narrow lens of the academy, mainstream (or popular) movements and nonprofits. It is my hope the degrowth intellectual and organizers will affirm and work to create greater affinity with anarchist and autonomist land defenders, which—to be clear—some are already doing. Yet the article below identifies some easy ways to further bridge this gap.
References
Akbulut B, Demaria F, Gerber J-F, et al. (2019) Who promotes sustainability? Five theses on the relationships between the degrowth and the environmental justice movements. Ecological Economics 165(106418.
Treu N, Schmelzer M and Burkhart C. (2020) Degrowth in movement (s): Exploring pathways for transformation: John Hunt Publishing.
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Why do degrowth intellectuals publicly neglect combative self-defense against “growth” projects? The connection between degrowth and anti-capitalist, autonomist and (ecological) anarchist movements exists, and it can be strengthened by acknowledging the legitimacy of a diversity of tactics as necessary pathways towards degrowing the techno-capitalist system and protecting habitats form infrastructural invasion.
Degrowth is about reducing total material and energy throughput, which entails rejecting elite accumulation and the ideology of capitalism itself. For some—those acquiescing or clinging to the growth euphemism—degrowth is a provocative term. “Trying to avoid provocation, or trying to be agnostic about growth,” explains Jason Hickel referring to degrowth, “creates a milieu where problematic assumptions remain unidentified and unexamined in favour of polite conversation and agreement.” However, in matters of political struggle, it seems that the same applies to degrowth.
Currently, influential degrowth approaches veer towards polite political conversation, mainstream movement politics and largely ignore the combative struggles putting degrowth into practice closest to home. While ambiguity can create space, we ought to acknowledge—and support to various degrees—the full range of degrowth action. Specifically, the land defenders fighting economic growth and its interconnected infrastructural schemes.
This issue gained increasing relevance for me after designing a course on degrowth and following three months of connecting with people fighting energy infrastructure projects in France, Catalonia and Spain. Combative ecological struggles are important, yet the degrowth community tends towards ignoring or selectively mentioning antagonistic struggles enacting lived practices of degrowth. Struggles embodying “monkey wrenching,” “diversity of tactics” and articulating a “brisantic politics” are quite literally stopping—or attempting to stop—the expansion and/or growth of capitalist infrastructure into forests and ecosystems. Why do degrowth intellectuals publicly neglect these struggles?
The connection between degrowth and anti-capitalist, autonomist and (ecological) anarchist movements, as they converge to defend habitats, can be strengthened. The connection exists, yet remains vague in the popular degrowth literature. Inversely, when asked about “degrowth” in ecological struggles in France, Catalonia and Spain, land defenders see little relevance, associating degrowth with NGO politics, university culture and middle-class environmentalism.
One visible obstruction to this connection is degrowth’s ambiguity regarding “diversity of tactics” and combative direct action. In response, degrowth should embrace the “de” in “degrowth:” Recognizing the legitimacy in destruction or, more accurately, combative self-defense in struggles against “growth” projects and all that entails. This translates into degrowth intellectuals, teachers and organizers acknowledging these struggles vocally—including them into the degrowth lexicon—by recognizing their contributions to combating (capitalist) growth projects and defending habitats.
This short essay, in addition to highlighting this issue, further draws a link with degrowth and four socio-ecological struggles in Europe. Degrowth is vitally important, yet—following Hickel’s approach—the time has come for degrowth to become less polite and unambiguous about the importance of combative socio-ecological movements.
Recycling has many forms: A Hambach Forest barricade, 2015. Source: Wikicommons
In December of 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) revealed the existence of 32 rebel indigenous municipalities, which are known as autonomous municipalities, within the district lines of the official municipalities.
The autonomous municipalities are the organization of the rebel peoples of Chiapas for resistance. The war and the militarization prevent the people, in many cases, from going to the municipal seats in order to resolve their immediate problems; the soldiers at the checkpoints assault and interrogate every person suspected of being a zapatista: that is, all poor campesinos. There have been instances of rape against women at the military checkpoints, and also of kidnappings and attacks.
The lack of freedom of movement in the state has also forced the appearance of the autonomous and rebel municipalities.
Some autonomous municipalities have opened their own marriage, birth and functions registries, because, since 1994, many villages have stopped utilizing official services, because they belong to the civil support structure of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Completely abandoned by state institutions, and without basic services, the indigenous communities of Chiapas have opted to resolve some of their own problems through self-organization.
The legitimacy of the autonomous municipalities is based in the Treaty 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), to which Mexico is a signatory, and which recognizes the rights of the indigenous peoples to live according to their uses and customs. In addition, municipal autonomy is recognized in Article 115 of the Mexican Constitution.
For the rebel peoples of Chiapas, the creation of the Autonomous Municipalities is also a means for carrying out the San Andres Accords. On February 16, 1996, the Mexican government signed the Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture with the EZLN. These accords were to have been transformed into constitutional changes. But the Mexican government rejected the legislative proposal of the Commission of Concordance and Peace — made up of all the political forces in the Congress of the Union — which they had prepared in December of 1996.
The carrying out of the San Andres Accords on indigenous rights is still not resolved, and it is one of the EZLN’s essential requirements for returning to the dialogue table.
The EZLN maintains that the autonomous municipalities are legitimate, given that they are the results of the application of the San Andres Accords, which the govenrment signed, and which it now refuses to recognize.
