Neozapatismo

Neozapatismo or neozapatism (sometimes simply Zapatismo) is the political philosophy and practice devised and employed by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Spanish: Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), who have instituted governments in a number of communities in Chiapas, Mexico, since the beginning of the Chiapas conflict. According to its adherents, it is not an ideology: "Zapatismo is not a new political ideology or a rehash of old ideologies . . . There are no universal recipes, lines, strategies, tactics, laws, rules or slogans. There is only a desire: to build a better world, that is, a new world."

Observers have described the EZLN has having Libertarian socialist and Marxist influences.^[1]

As UCL media studies lecturer Anthony Faramelli has written, "Zapatismo is not attempting to inaugurate and/or lead any kind of resistance to neoliberalism, but rather facilitate the meeting of resistance, and allow it to organically form worlds outside of exploitation."^[2]

Others have proposed a broader conception of neozapatismo that extends beyond the confines of political philosophy and practice. For example, according to Richard Stahler-Sholk, a political science professor at Eastern Michigan University, “[t]here are, in effect, at least three Zapatismos: One is the armed insurgency . . . a second is the project of autonomous government being constructed in Zapatista ‘support base communities’ . . . [and the] third is the (national and) international network of solidarity inspired by Zapatista ideology and discourse.”^[3]