WI: Zapatistas toppled Mexican govt.?

Well, there it is. What if the Zapatista movement toppled the Mexican government? Or at least regions in the South, where they operate. I have to say, I don't know much about the Zapatistas, so I'm interested to see what you guys have to say
 
An exile-Chilean friend of mine was quite closely afiliated with some Zapatistas for a time, and according to her. the movement (at least in its current incarcation) is not equipped ore willing to take over government. Their idea is to produce a cooperative-based system of self-government in the territories they hope to run. If they can somehow keep out the Mexican military for a longer period of time, I'd expect them to try that, run into trouble, and find that government is a seductively coercive mechanism. Also, they will very likely try to promote ecologically sensitive tourism and minority rights along wioth fair-trade farming. It's their thing.

They are much more likely to enter into negotiations with the government that topple it, BTW. The ideal that many of their - leaders is probably too strong a word - have is some kind of Basque solution. Perhaps a bit less messy.
 
Well, there it is. What if the Zapatista movement toppled the Mexican government? Or at least regions in the South, where they operate. I have to say, I don't know much about the Zapatistas, so I'm interested to see what you guys have to say

The Zapatistas really aren't the type to go around toppling a government. They mostly want the indigenous people of the South to have equal rights, to be free for exploitation, and to be left alone. Now, if there was a much stronger Anarchist undercurrent in Latin American leftism, they might be more willing to topple the government, and leave it toppled.
 
One reason why they're not interested in toppling the government is that the leadership circles are rather aware of what happens to central american leftist movements that topple their local state.

I think they're looking to establish a Gramscian counter-hegemony and build long term institutions. They're trying to make a permanent historical movement strong enough to survive local defeats, like the British, German or Scandinavian working class movements.

They're in it for the long haul. Besides, cursory analysis of what happens to revolutions when they seize the state would make any real anarchist think twice before doing so without a mass greater than that in Catalonia in the 1930s.

yours,
Sam R.
 
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