Zapata Lives!: Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico

11. Contradictions of Zapatismo in Rural Oaxaca

This chapter seeks to clarify what I have come to call the “pro-Zapatista and pro-PRI” stance found among some ejidatarios in Unión Zapata and Santa María del Tule in the mid 1990s, and to explain how this contradiction contributed to a vote for the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in El Tule in the presidential elections of July 2000. The contradictory stance involved is all the more interesting given important differences between the two communities in ethnicity, economic activities, landholdings, and education. Some of these differences were discussed in the previous chapter ; others are elaborated in what follows. The common pro-Zapatista and pro-PRI stance articulated by a signi ficant number of ejidatarios in both communities suggests that despite the diversity of experience and living conditions in the two, they share a perspective about their historical relationships to the state, as well as sympathies for the EZLN in Chiapas. In terms of how different local nation views are produced, analysis of the views of ejidatarios from El Tule and Unión Zapata suggests that different ethnic identities, class positions, and educational levels can underlie local convergences in what nationalism means. The similar stances in El Tule and Unión Zapata with respect to their relations, as communities, with the government over time, and on what their place in the nation means, are strongly linked to physical location (proximity to the state capital and officials, official visits), the historical period in which they consolidated their ejidos (i.e., the 1930s under Cárdenas), and the ideological content of nationalism when they chapter 11 The Contradictions of Zapatismo in Rural Oaxaca 287 received the ejido land with which they consolidated as communities (socialist education, promotion of class-based and rural identities by the state, links to Zapata and the Mexican Revolution). I focus on these “pro-Zapatista and pro-PRI” ejidatarios because they represent what at first appears a contradictory position but is in fact consistent with their history and experience. While people’s superficial participation in government programs linked to economic restructuring might be read as approval of such policy and of the government, a more nuanced exploration suggests the complex and contradictory interpretations that these rural Oaxacans have of contemporary economics and politics. Once below the surface, we can see significant identification with the plight of those indigenous poor in Chiapas who have joined, or who support, the EZLN and have opposed the Mexican government. By July 2000, this opposition was more openly expressed in elections as well in Oaxaca. In Chiapas, although the PRI (the government party) won the state in the presidential elections, with 45 percent of the vote, many from Zapatista communities did not vote. And in the gubernatorial election in Chiapas in August 2000, the PRI lost. The opposition candidate Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia, representing a coalition of eight opposition parties, including the PAN and the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), defeated the PRI candidate, with 51.50 percent of the vote; the PRI gubernatorial candidate, Sami David, received 45.68 percent of the vote; but, most important to note, 50.25 percent of the electorate abstained (Castro Soto 2000b). The identification felt by Oaxacan ejidatarios with the plight of the Zapatistas is not clearly seen if one focuses only on formal political behavior such as voting. Rather, it is revealed through lengthy discussions about community history and the use of such histories to interpret contemporary events, including the Zapatista rebellion. Unpacking the proZapatista and pro-PRI stance also suggests that the loyalty articulated by people in these two communities for the government is tenuous and unpredictable—as seen in a switch in voting patterns in El Tule between 1994 and 2000. There, in 1994, the PRI took more votes than either the PAN or the PRD; in the 2000 elections, the PAN received a majority. More often than not, both in 1994 and in 2000, a vote for the PRI was tied to a desire to continue participating in government antipoverty programs rather than to any ideological identification with PRI policies. This seemed the case in Unión Zapata, where the PRI continued to win in the 2000 elections but people articulated their vote as a desire to con288 New and Old Zapatismo in Oaxaca tinue receiving farm subsidies through the PROCAMPO program and antipoverty subsidies through PROGRESA (Programa...