Violence Justification to Achieve Political Objectives - Essay Example

The advocacy of Violence in the name of political ends strikes most in stable western democracies as intrinsically wrong. Indeed in stable, secular democratic government violence in politics is seen as acting beyond the widely available avenues of political dissent and therefore encouraging a move to anarchy; however, in places where a large proportion of the population are locked out of the political process and have no way to express their discontent with an exploitative status quo, a degree of violence has been an effective way to let the political administration know of their presence and discontent. Such was the case with modern day Zapatista Movement which came to popular media attention on Jan 1st the day of the announcement of the NAFTA, or the free trade agreement with the United States. A group of masked men calling themselves the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN) seized control of a few towns in the the southern most state of Chaipas and declared that in the spirit of Mexico's legendary revolutionary leader Emeliano Zapato, they were making a call for the rights of campesinos, peasant land workers for representation in government and a voice in an area where they were being increasingly disenfranchised in favor of big bussiness interests. This paper will argue that the violence that was employed by the EZLN was a necessary method for the campesinos to express their discontent and since the violence was not used as an end in itself and was claimed as just a call to attention, it served its purpose. The events of January 1st 1994 surprised the Mexican establishment and awakened the world's attention to the plight of the poor Mexican rural workers. On this date, the date that Mexico joined the North American Free Trade Organization as many as 4 thousand men of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN) captured a few small towns in the state of Chiapa. As Tshirgi states, “This was accomplished with very little bloodshed and the rebels were quick to pledge that no harm would befall civilians, including tourists.”( Tschirgi, 1999,p.13) There was however a good deal of symbolism in the choice of the date for the EZLN, as Werlhof puts it in spirited terms: “ Thus, the insurrection of the Zapatistas started on the same day that the Mexican government capitulated to the North. On the first of January 1994, the day that was heralded to the Mexican people as the day of their biggest triumph, was the moment that the rebels cried out "Now it's enough!" ("Ya basta!"). (Werlhof, 1997) This group called for of the existing government to step down and demanded a truy representative democratic government. Many of the members were Mayan Indians but they insisted that they represented the interests of the disenfranchised poor throughout the country. Predictably the government sent in the army to quell the insurrection The fighting moved into the Valleys of the Lacandon Jungle and by the time a cease fire was called approximately 1500 people had lost their lives. As the respective groups stepped back from the carnage, the EZLN continued to hold fort in a number of villages. In the aftermath of the initial armed conflict attempts at negotiation were attempted through the leadership of Samuel Ruiz Garcia. The early stages of the negotiation appeared promising and it appeared as if the government would offer concessions but since that time the truce has unraveled and the conflict continues. To understand the call to arms of the EZLN it is necessary to review the nature of Mexican politics for the last 130 years. Tom Barry describes the cycle of events over this period well. "One way to regard Mexican history is as a pendulum that swings back and forth between progressive and conservative, activist and consolidating currents ...” (Barry, 1995, p. 35) Indeed the the 1857 constitution was a triumph of liberal ideas over Conservative, colonial thinking that wrested control of the extensive land holdings of the Catholic church and Indian people to redistribute as private land. Unfortunately this land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a small number of rich owners and this sowed the seeds for future campesino unrest .General Porfirio Diaz' rule from 1867 to 1910 further corrupted the inequity of the initial land redistribution as he bartered land holdings for political favor. While the Mexican economy grew with foreign investment at this time, little of the benefits trickled down to the campesinos. In 1911 Emeliano Zapata started a popular uprising backing the popular peoples candidate Francisico Madero, and then when Madero came to power forcing his hand with the Plan of Ayala which called for extensive land reform and self governance. While the Plan of Ayala was never fully implemented in its original spirit it did pressure subsequent governments to pay heed to populist ideas of land reform and democracy. This marked the beginning of a period of populist changes in Mexico as Chaffee states: ".. the Madero rebellion marked the beginning of a social revolution in Mexico that destroyed the old order and effected a major redistribution of economic wealth and political power" (Chaffee, 1992, p. 12) Zapata was killed in 1919 by government agents making him a martyr for his cause and an inspiration for the modern day EZLN, also referred to as the neo- Zapatistas. President Carranza who led the government from 1914 to 1920 further appeased populists sentiments to prop his rule by including Article 27 which made some land available for control by campesinos. It was not by any means a redistribution of land but rather a clever ploy to keep land in wealthy landowners hands. As Barry explains it served Carranza very well: " By setting limits on land ownership and by giving the state strong powers of eminent domain, the reform language of the constitution did facilitate the modernization of Mexican agriculture and the expropriation of inefficient haciendas. For the most part, however, it was used more to pacify the peasantry than to build a strong agrarian reform sector in Mexico. By keeping alive the promise of land distribution, the state could maintain pressure on estate owners to use or lose their land while at the same time retaining the political support of the peasantry” (Barry, 1995, p. 20) In spite of the duplicity of Article 27 , the lands it designated as campesino land, the Enjidos did offer some solace to the memory of Zapata. Populist reforms continued with subsequent leaders till 1940, when the tide started to turn again with the widespread adoption of the ideas of the “Green Revolution”. This introduced farming on a large scale and at the same time divided the agricultural economy into two: the large landholding farms that worked on immense scales under business models and the small campesino holding that were once again marginalized. From 1982 onwards the the move toward free market principles by a succession of leaders reversed all of the gains of the populists. President Carlos Salinas, the most zealous of the new so called technocrats moved ahead with revisions of the Agrarian Reform law and a whole sale overturning of Article 27. The terms of this change were coldly issued as Barry points out: “According to the government's 1992 program for agricultural conversion, some two million campesino families—about three-quarters of the nation's corn farmers—"will have to search for alternatives in other crops, reorganize their landholdings, associate with private capitalists, or become wage laborers “ (Barry, 1995, p. 47) So when the neo- Zapatista's made their stand in Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico they were not just invoking Zapata's memory in a sentimental way. The government had marginalized the campesinos to such an extent that they had no other means to garner attention to their plights. The neo -Zapatista's cause started on a violent tone but they deserve more consideration than anarchic elements because they were aware of the limitations of violence as anything more than a way to draw attention to their cause. As Petras reports of their leader commandante Marcos, he “placed the armed struggle in the context of the early “phase” in the struggle- as a means of achieving recognition, opening a political dialog with the regime and advancing towards a political solution.” ( Petras, 1997,p.41) In fact, Commandante Marcos had spoken of the reluctant decision to choose armed struggle: “while he was clearly intent on moving toward legal political activity, the regime was tightening the military struggle, increasing the repression of peasants in Chiapas by its support for paramilitary group, and offering no concession in ending the stranglehold the private state. The real political conditions in Mexico are deeply repressive; an average of two leaders or activists are killed – over 250 since the election of President Zedillo.”( Petras, 1997,p.41) The neo-zapatistas offer a compelling case for violence in the name of political advancement. Some would argue that their violence is part of the pattern of political life in Mexico in the last 100 years or so, and therefore a necessary part of the political process. The campesinos of the Neo-Zapatista movent are not an unsophisticated movement despite their composition of subsistence farmers. They raised real issues of grievance that were grounded in everyday realities and not an anarchic call to complete destruction of the status quo; they spoke of “soil depletion, political tensions, and population pressures ...made subsistence farming inviable in their native villages.”(Barry, 1995,p.158) This paper maintains that the economic policies of the government had neglected the welfare of a large part of its population in Mexico. Denied the usual means of political dissent, the EZLN had no recourse but to attempt what they knew had worked in the past, to resurrect the spirit of Zapata and attempt to force the government to heed their cause, which as a democratic nation it had denied at them to that point. Since the violence was never espoused as part of the creed of the EZLN but rather a necessary evil to raise attention to their grievances it is hard not to be sympathetic to their cause and look the other way at the violence, and beyond, to what they were achieving. At this point the EZLN look like tragic figures but only time will tell about their success or failure to achieve their goals. References Barry, T. (1995). Zapata's Revenge: Free Trade and the Farm Crisis in Mexico. Boston: South End Press. Retrieved March 30, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98209058 Chaffee, W. A. (1992). The Economics of Violence in Latin America: A Theory of Political Competition. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Retrieved March 30, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=14351150 Petras, J. (1997). Latin America: the Resurgence of the Left. New Left Review, a(223), 17-47. Retrieved March 30, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98490235 Tschirgi, D. (1999). Marginalized Violent Internal Conflict in the Age of Globalization: Mexico and Egypt. Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), 21(3), 13. Retrieved March 30, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001828490 Werlhof, C. V. (1997). Upheaval from the Depth: The "Zapatistas," the Indigenous Civilization, the Question of Matriarchy, and the West. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 38(1-2), 106+. Retrieved March 30, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000485474 Read More