Meeting Revolutionary Peasants - the Zapatistas - from Mexico: Muslim Perspectives and Sharing

Beyond COP26: Regenerative Structures for a New Society

Inspired by Meeting Revolutionary Peasants - the Zapatistas - from Mexico: Perspective from Muslims

You can now watch the video recording of the talks portion of the event!

UPDATE: We have now uploaded the video recording of the talks portion of the event…

The Inevitable Collapse of our current Story

We know that our world is going through rapid change - and also that the dominating systems we are intimately woven into, continue to destabilise and destroy. It is also clear, as they creek under strain, that they will not remain.

We can either begin to educate ourselves, get skilled in collaborative decision-making, gain intimacy with the non-human world we depend on, learn ecological design principles, and work together to co-create grassroot regenerative systems that meet our needs and are relevant to our times... or we can one day discover the existing structures have crumbled, with no alternatives in sight.

The New Story: Living Examples of Community

At WiN, we are keen to have inspirational models of community as the theme for our current online forums. We are keen to look at inspiring models of community we can learn from, to help nurture the emergence of ideas for co-creating regenerative structures and deeper resilience according to our different circumstances.

There are examples that can provide inspiration at different scales and contexts: e.g. autonomous communities such as in Rojava, Kurdistan, and in Chiapas, Mexico; certain ecovillages and radical housing coops and of course the Islamic tradition and the time of the Prophet.

We can learn from these efforts, while considering what is needed in our own contexts.

Meeting Inspiring Peasants

**WiN members outside the Kurdish Community Centre, during a break in the day’s proceedings**

WiN were honoured to have been amongst a handful of grassroots groups*, who in early November (2021) - had the honour of a full-day private meeting in London with a group of six revolutionary peasants, the Zapatistas. This was part of a rare mutual learning journey that involved a delegation of over a hundred Zapatistas arriving in Europe from Mexico, and dividing to cover different regions. Their intention was to listen and share, to open up time for building meaningful bridges and alliances across shared struggles through meeting other groups.

We three core group members of WiN, were deeply moved by this encounter of sharing and listening, and are dedicating this next online forum to share and explore with our wider network, the work of the Zapatistas, in relation to a conversation on community and regenerative societies.

The Zapatista Uprising and Autonomous Communities

The Zapatistas, previously unknown, set off a global spark on New Year's Day, 1994, when they rose against the Mexican government in Chiapas, Mexico, in response to a system that dominated, stole and punished indiginous people and indigenous land, within the context of capitalism, ‘free trade’ and corporate globalisation.

Despite opposition from the government, dozens of autonomous Zapatista-associated villages arose out of this insurgence. The villages practise direct forms of democracy and continue to self-govern to this day, decades later.

The formation of these autonomous communities emerged through a decade of clandestine, purpose-driven base building, intensive skilling-up and disciplined grassroot organising, situated on 500 years of struggle against land-owners who had dominated them for generations.

“Power needs to be dissolved down”

The Zapatistas believe that power isn’t something to be concentrated at government level, (where those in power are often subservient to corporate greed, within a race, class, gender prejudiced and ecologically disruptive system) but to be dissolved down to self-governing communities.

The Zapatistas also consider their struggle to be a struggle for life. Some wise words they shared at the London gathering included:

“Do the work you need to do - get organised according to your own situation.

We are not telling you to follow our way.”

Based on our encounter and the journey leading to it, we have organised an online forum:

Date: Sat 4 Dec 2021
Times: 11am - 1pm GMT
Online, Zoom

You are invited to join us for this participative, online event, organised by Wisdom In Nature - Islamic Ecology.

Times of event are UK times

Register HERE

This online forum will comprise:

Short talks from WiN’s core group, reflecting on what particularly touched them through their encounter with the Zaptistas, as well the wider context of that gathering.
A chance for clarification questions/answers
Breakout groups so we each have the opportunity to share
Larger group conversation

A question to keep in mind:

What might the work of new regenerative and autonomous communities look like in our own situation and context? (and in the spirit of the Zapatistas (&WiN!), there will be no one answer for all).

We look forward to seeing you at this exciting forum!