Truths and lies: left-wing Zapatism and the struggle for autonomism in Latin America

Abstract

This article addresses the sovereignty of indigenous and traditional peoples in Latin America within the scope of debates on the nation-state. It argues that the establishment of nation-states following the struggles against colonization did not create favorable conditions for "liberated" peoples to attain true freedom and justice, which would allow them to produce and live according to their ancestral traditions. According to the article, the rights of these populations to their traditionality and to the practices forged in the struggle against international capital will never find support or opportunities for cultural and political liberation within the framework of statism. This is because the nation-state constitutes part of the liberal-bourgeois political conception and is an integral element of the imperialism that subjugates the peoples of Latin America. Politically, this debate manifests in the clear distinction between the dominant leftist position—which unquestionably defends the rhetoric of the struggle for "sovereignty" via the nation-state—and the Zapatista proposal, which centers on the self-managed autonomy of these populations based on the experience of Chiapas, Mexico, and the political philosophy of authors such as John Holloway (open Marxism).