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Zapatista Army of National Liberation was featured as the Anarchism portalselected article for April 2007.
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First version... style corrections are most welcome as I am not a native English speaker... thanks! -- User:Jose Icaza
I'm not sure what to say about this but, this line "but in any case they were no match for the Mexican army." Mexico's massive 70,000 man military(much sarcarsm) is enough to keep a group that wants the world to recognize them down? All this line does is make the Zapatista's seem like a small, insignificant, powerless group. If Jane's and the CIA Factbook are to be believed, then a single battalion of well armed militia could topple the Mexican Army, but a group who claims to have clout on an international scale are "no match for the Mexican army?" I reccomend some kind of re-write, as it seems most of the rest of the article indicates that they are an actual political force.
And the very presence of this debate proves that they do, in fact, have the power to at least stimulate support and discussion internationally. However, I think that line is referring to their military capabilities (and since overseas supporters are unable to provide extra clout on the battlefield, the distinction is tangible) as opposed to the Mexican army in addition to Mexican police and loyalist paramilitaries (which overall probably amount to around twice the capability of the army alone).
There is a surprising amount of controversy around my additions to the external links section, specifically anti-globalization movement, global justice movement, and diversity of tactics. I suppose I may have contributed to this by inadvertently cancelling my own reversion of July 2nd. In any case, the connections are well-documented in the link I posted with my July 2 activity. In particular, I draw your attention to this article from the McGill Sociological Review which notes, regarding anti-globalization/ global justice movement, that:
While the Eurocentric slant of global media often point to the 1999 ‘taking back the streets’ in Seattle as the pinnacle event which launched the anti-globalization movement, it can be argued that it was in fact the Zapatista insurgency in Chiapas which catapulted this issue onto the international agenda, as a force to reckon with (Teivainen 2002)… Coinciding their protest with the siging of this trade agreement set a critical precedent which ensuing anti-globalization protests followed….
In the same article it states that "the Zapatista insurgency contributed to the transnational nature of the World Social Forum, [however] it is essential to note how they were thereafter excluded from Forum participation as a result of their avowed stance which included violence as a strategy for demanding change." The EZLN have consistently refused to surrender their arms (which include assault rifles) or jettison their clandestine military structure. At the same time, they have engaged in nonviolent actions and called for peace. This mixed strategy is a prime example of diversity of tactics. In fact, the international forum the EZLN itself helped found, People's Global Action, endorses diversity of tactics and an unconventionally broad (or as they put it, non-North American) definition of nonviolence.GPRamirez5 (talk) 02:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
The topics you add are tangentially related to this topic of this article, at best. IF they are added as see alsos about two dozen articles that are more obviously related would have to be added also.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:52, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
What a bizarre assertion. If these hypothetical articles are "more obviously related" then why pray tell haven't they been proposed already? Could you, as a guide for us, propose three articles that are more related? 2607:FB90:150E:A6DA:0:30:55AF:3901 (talk) 04:57, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
"Indigenous peoples in Mexico", "Pan-Maya movement", "Mexican revolution", "Agrarianism", "the other campaign", "NAFTA", and I could go on.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:16, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
When I read this page I found that it presented be an overwhelmingly positive perspective on a group of people that have used military means to achieve their aims but that have avoided most if not all of the excesses of violent revolution, while simultaneously supporting issues such as women's rights that are popular among the left (and at this point, among the mainstream, at least where I live). Unfortunately this itself is highly suspect because of a lack of even a single critical perspective on the group and because of the article's admission that the group makes use of new media.
As written I have no idea whether the group actually engages in warfare that is "primarily defensive, against military, paramilitary, and corporate incursions" or whether they are (or were) a group of armed thugs that mistreat people in the area they control and wage "defensive" war against organizations attempting to put a stop to this. The article claims the former but does not actually provide information that allows a reader to make an independent judgment on the issue. I also have no idea what the group's relationship is with the two thirds of people who are not indigenous Americans that live in the area the article mentions as being central to their operations, nor do I have any idea whether the group has been accused of any human rights violations such as attempting to silence critical press or violently punishing political opponents. The article appears to address this by mentioning their declaration "[defining] the right of the people to resist any unjust actions" they take, but there is no information that allows one to determine whether this actually meant anything in practice.
I suppose this would be a good time to mention that parts of the article seem written from an unstated perspective that the revolutionaries are justified in their actions - the "defensive war" statement is a good example of this, as it implicitly accepts the validity of the group's claims to the land they operate in. Another example of this includes the "Horizontal Autonomy and Indigenous Leadership" section, which opens by stating that the group has been "steadfast in resisting the violence of neoliberalism [I am not really familiar enough with neoliberalism to state whether or not this is a subjective statement being presented as fact] by practicing horizontal autonomy and mutual aid" and mentions a number of topics with positive sounding names (such as the aforementioned "horizontal autonomy and mutual aid," or "build international solidarity through humble outreach and non-imposing political communication") without really providing any information on the specifics of said topics in the context of the group's activities.
Maybe there is no critical perspective because no reasons exist that would warrant a critical perspective. But if this is the case there is no information presented in the article to support this, and an absence of information does not in fact speak for itself unless the reasons for the absence of information are clear. All in all the article as written is of limited use to a person who wants to develop their own informed opinion on the subject, and it seems almost as though it is, intentional or not, a platform for spreading their message rather than as a source for information on the issue. I think it would benefit from, if relevant sources exist, the inclusion of critical perspectives or of information explaining the reasons behind a lack thereof. It would also benefit from more detail in general, with regards to some of the topics it mentions.
I apologize for making this criticism without simultaneously making an effort to edit and improve the article; this is actually the first time I have made any edit on Wikipedia at all. I'm not sure I have the time to go into detail with changes to the article, and just wanted to point out an issue I noticed while reading it.
