The Zapatistas speak out

First World, Ha Ha Ha! The Zapatista Challenge
Edited by Elaine Katzenberger
City Lights, 258 pp., $24.95 (pb)
Reviewed by Jon Strauss This collection of interviews and writings provides background, context and prosaic, poetic and photographic snapshots of the emergence of the Zapatista movement or EZLN in Mexico. This insurgent army of indigenous campesinos which sprang onto the world stage with the Chiapas uprising on January 1, 1994, has provoked a national crisis. It has challenged the direction of Mexico's future and won the defiant solidarity of many in Mexico and throughout the world for its attack on the "New World Order's" policy of economic colonisation. The brief introduction outlines some of the broader affects of the uprising in Mexico and the United States. Other articles describe the conditions that gave rise to the movement. Vivid writings, such as Efrain Bartolome's "War Diary" portray the uprising. A number of these also indicate the leading role being played by women campesinos and urban poor. Interviews with Subcommandante Marcos, the EZLN leader, and representatives of the craftswomen and campesino organisation allow them to speak with their own voices. The book also incorporates some assessments of the movement's broader historical implications by Mexican and US writers (including Noam Chomsky). The longest of these, Ward Churchill's "A North American Indigenist View", is particularly interesting. First World, Ha Ha Ha! offers an opportunity to begin to grasp the significance of the Zapatistas.