4 - THE MAKING OF AN ANTIGLOBALIZATION ICON: MEXICO'S ZAPATISTA UPRISING

Summary

On March 11, 2001, 24 leaders of Mexico's Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) trooped into the Zócalo, Mexico City's huge central square. Seven years after their armed uprising, the Zapatistas arrived with government blessing, the group's spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos, proclaiming “We are here” to an audience of more than 100,000. Days later, Comandanta Esther addressed the Mexican Congress, urging adoption of a law granting significant new rights to the country's indigenous population. Throughout the Zapatistas' multiweek stay in the capital and their triumphal bus journey from remote bases in the southern state of Chiapas, foreign supporters accompanied the rebels. Conspicuous among them, dressed in white overalls and acting incongruously as security guards, strode dozens of monos blancos, or white monkeys, Italian activists prominent at European antiglobalization protests. In the Zócalo to greet the Zapatistas stood a host of left-wing luminaries: France's ex-first lady Danielle Mitterand, film producer Oliver Stone, and McDonald's “dismantler” José Bové. Around the world, thousands of Zapatista followers monitored the March for Indigenous Dignity, the “Zapatour,” on the Internet. To pay for the event, the Zapatistas solicited donations from national and transnational civil society and opened a bank account accessible to depositors around the world.

Yet, in the first days of the uprising, such support had been anything but certain. On January 1, 1994, some 2,500 lightly armed Zapatista soldiers swept out of Chiapas's Lacandón Forest to capture San Cristóbal de las Casas, a city of about 100,000, as well as nearby towns.