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Today I read the EZLN / Zapatista’s book “The Other Campaign” about the organization’s Sixth Declaration and La Otra Campaña. Essentially the Sixth Declaration is literally the Zapatista’s sixth major outward manifesto. And La Otra is their movement to form a grassroots movement of the anti-neoliberal Left. I picked up the book because the organization I’m working with in Philly, the Media Mobilizing Project, has been philosophically influenced and inspired movement-wise by the Zapatistas.

The Spanish/English text freely mixed sports analogy with movement building and generally avoided staid Leftist jargon. It begins with an intro that gives some background into the Z’s motives for the Other Campaign. Then it goes on to reprint the Sixth Declaration itself as well as an interview with Subcomandante Marcos, or Delegate Zero as he was known during La Otra.

The essential point of the book is that the Zapatistas are fed up with trying to work with an absolutely corrupt system and with corrupt individuals in and around that system. With that in mind, they are committed to social change that is built from the “bottom up.” They change they make will be their own. It will be free of the trickery that the leading political parties embody. They will not bow down to the military or threats of violence. And just as importantly, they will not bow down to the capitalist, neo-liberal machine that gobbles everything in its path.

The patience of the Z’s is truly impressive. They are clearly in it for the long haul. La Otra was very much about listening to their compañeros in the struggle, finding out what people are doing in various parts of Latin America, hearing about their successes, failures, needs, tactics, wants, aspirations, etc… Not to mention the fact that the Sixth Declaration pays its respects to the numerous people who have left their families to work in the belly of the beast up north.

As for the book itself, I wouldn’t recommend it as a primer on the Zapatistas because there is not that much background info. But it’s a good ‘update’ as to what the Z’s are working on. As they put it in the book they “learned to learn” over their years of perseverance.