The Zapatistas' First School Opens for Session

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Yesterday, 1,700 students from around the world enrolled in the first Zapatistas

school, held at the University of the Peoples Land of Chiapas. (WNV/Moyss

Ziga Santiago)

Last December, tens of thousands ofindigenous Zapatistas mobilized, peacefully and in

complete silence, to occupy five municipal government office buildings in the state of

Chiapas, Mexico. That same day, which coincided with the end of one cycle on the Maya

calendar, Zapatistas released a communiqu, asking, Did you hear it?

It appears that the answer was yes, because this week thousands of people from around

the world are descending on Chiapas for the Zapatistas first organizing school, called la

escuelita de libertad, which means the little school of liberty. Originally the group allotted

for only 500 students. But so many people wished to enroll that they opened an additional

1,200 slots for the weeklong school, which begins on August 12.

Just as the Zapatistas have, for two decades, rejected hierarchical systems, the escuelita

will also eschew traditional teaching models. Instead, it will be an open space for the

community to learn together.

There isnt one teacher, wrote Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesperson for the

Zapatista movement. Rather, it is the collective that teaches, that shows, that forms, and

in it and through it the person learns, and also teaches.

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community and participate both in the school and in the daily life of the community.

Participants will cut wood, work in the cornfields and cook and eat with their host families.

Subcomandante Marcos acknowledged that attending this type of school requires shifting

ones way of thinking about learning and indigenous communities. As he asked in a

communiqu:

Leading up to the school, the Zapatistas published a series of seven communiqus

entitled Them and Us. These essays illustrated the absurdities of those from above

those who hold coercive and repressive power trampling the freedoms of those from

below. The writings also spoke to the need to learn by observing and listening in order to

build an alternative world. But more than abstractions, the seven publications were a

collection of lessons about how everyday life in the Zapatista communities, including how

people resolve problems and how they organize themselves into an autonomousnetworks in which the people rule and the government obeys.

The last installation of this manual, published on March 27, also announced the

upcoming escuelita and outlined three requirements necessary for any applicant: an

indisposition to speaking and judging, a disposition to listening and seeing, and a

well-placed heart.

The Zapatistas are unique not only for challenging power or maintaining their resistance

for nearly 20 years. What sets them apart is their ever-evolving definition of liberty, and

this topic liberty according to the Zapatistas will be the central focus of the school.

According to Subcomandante Marcos, liberty is to govern and govern ourselves

according to our ways, in our geography and in this calendar. But the definition also

shifts from generation to generation, and Marcos explains that new generations must find

their own paths through rebellion and dignity.

The experience of living with Zapatistas and other indigenous families will be another

central part of the school. Some students will stay with families living in autonomous rebel

Would you attend a school taught by indigenous teachers, whose motherWould you attend a school taught by indigenous teachers, whose mother

tongue is typified as dialect?tongue is typified as dialect?

Could you overcome the temptation to study them as anthropologicalCould you overcome the temptation to study them as anthropological

subjects, psychological subjects, subjects of law or esoterism, or history?subjects, psychological subjects, subjects of law or esoterism, or history?

Would you overcome the urge to write a report, interview them, tell themWould you overcome the urge to write a report, interview them, tell them

your opinion, give them advice, orders?your opinion, give them advice, orders?

Would you see them, that is to say, would you listen to them?Would you see them, that is to say, would you listen to them?


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families. These hundreds of families have all agreed on a votn, a person who, in the

Zapatista movement, represents a guardian and the heart of the community. The

will translate for the families and the foreign students, although Marcos acknowledges

that translation itself is an imperfect process.

In legal cases, do cultures translate? he questions. In that sense, one understands thatwhat they call equality under the law is one of the greatest travesties of justice in our

world.

As for final evaluations, the school wont, unsurprisingly, have an exam, a thesis, or a

multiple-choice test. Rather, as Marcos explained, the school will make its own reality,

and the results will be a mirror.

The school began after three days of festivals in rebel communities to celebrate the

10-year anniversary of the councils of good governance, the Zapatistas autonomous

governing system in which the community makes decisions and the government carries

them out. During the celebrations, one could see empty buses and vans parked along the

streets to Ocosingo and Palenque, waiting to transport the 1,700 students from San

Cristobal de Las Casas into the rebel communities the following morning.

Earlier this summer, the Zapatistas announced that future escuelitas in the Zapatista

communities will be held this coming winter.

Related Posts

Urgent message from the Zapatistas of San Marcos Avils July 27, 2012

Zapatistas: to be heard, we march in silence December 21, 2012

Urgent Need for Zapatista Supporters to Spread Truth January 7, 2011

The Time That Has Come May 19, 2012

The moral and organizational strength of the EZLN December 16, 2012

Israel-Mexico: Military Cooperation to Crush ZapatistasMay 31, 2013

This articleThis article was originally published at Waging Nonviolencewas originally published at Waging Nonviolence

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The Zapatistas' First School Opens for Session