By Walt Sherwood, sherwow@sbcglobal.net

I wasn't in Oaxaca on June 14, 2006, when a massive police force was deployed to break up the mobilization of some 20,000 teachers who had been on strike for a living wage and better conditions in the schools of one of the two poorest states in Mexico.

That's when people from all walks of life, and many diverse communities, took to the streets in support of the teachers, and the APPO was born, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples (note the plural) of Oaxaca.

Nor was I there on November 25, 2006, when Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, governor of the state, launched a huge, well-planned police attack against the APPO and the people who had been occupying the city center for many months, leading to the beating, torture, arrest, and imprisonment of hundreds of activists, supporters, and sympathizers.

But I was there in July of the following year, when the city had returned to a misleading and tense calm, on a Rights Action delegation whose aim was to talk to and hear first-hand from some of the participants of one of the largest and most far-reaching rebellions in modern Mexican history.

One of the leaders and translators for our delegation was a young woman named Diana Denham, and I was impressed with the job she did. I know enough Spanish to realize that she always got it right, never missing a word or phrase nor leaving anything out, always translating fairly and accurately to not only give us the verbatim message but also the nuance and emotions behind what was said.

Now I am happy to see that Diana and the C.A.S.A. Collective have come out with a book called "Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca" so that we all have a chance to read in excellent translation the stories of this incredible group of people who constituted the social movement.

North American tourists are drawn to Oaxaca, especially the capital city, because it is an attractive place with fine colonial architecture, many art galleries, good restaurants, and a rich variety of indigenous arts and crafts.

But there is a hidden underside of poverty, neglect, and discrimination, enforced by an entrenched elite who maintain their grip on power no matter what the cost.

This is what the teachers' strike initially, and the APPO mobilization eventually, shone a spotlight on. The teachers weren't just asking for higher pay and better working conditions for themselves, but for a greater commitment from the state to improve the lives of the children who attended their schools and the communities they came from.

That their reasonable demands were met with intransigence led to outrage, then rebellion.

To read this book is to understand the depth and diversity of the Oaxacan phenomenon. There are many voices gathered here: a teacher, a school principal, a maid, an agronomist, a priest, artists, journalists, seasoned human rights activists, people who had never participated in politics before, high school and college students, peasants, working people, middle class professionals. Together their stories capture the excitement, fear, and hope of the movement, and share some of the lessons they learned.

One big lesson is that of empowerment: ordinary people, with varied experience, coming together, can pool their knowledge and skills, learn from each other, and accomplish things they never thought possible. Another is that shared struggle enables people to overcome class and educational barriers and communicate with people they'd never talked to before.

Each participant sees the struggle from a unique perspective, but all convey a sense of the commitment and personal sacrifice that are not so much required as freely given once the person has reached the point where he or she says "Basta ya!" ("Enough!" ).

There is also the feeling of commonality and solidarity that people share from having joined together in sit-ins and mega-marches or spent long sleepless nights at the barricades. But lurking behind the good feelings and comradeship, not to be ignored, is the ever-present danger of physical attack by police or para-military forces.

Some of the strongest stories are first-hand accounts of the shootings, arrests, and beatings that the protestors endured. The attempt to force social change carries a cost.

The Mexican government, at both the federal and state levels, used gunmen dressed in civilian clothes, SUVs and pick-ups with tinted windows and license plates removed, and random shootings and beatings, in addition to uniformed officers with helmets and shields and high powered weapons and tanks. When arrests were made, often with great brutality, prisoners were transported out of the region to another state and held in secrecy, while families and friends wondered what had become of them.

One if the book's strongest features, along with the range of individual voices telling their stories, is the six dozen black-and-white photographs interspersed throughout. Many of these photos were taken in the midst of fierce, chaotic clashes with police or paramilitary forces, and they vividly capture the action that the stories relate, as well as showing us the many faces of the participants.

The book is not intended to be read and set aside.

It comes with a Study Guide, a Chronology of the Popular Uprising, a brief section on the Historic Context, a Glossary, and a list of Acronyms. It would make an excellent choice as a required text in a university course on Latin American social movements, but that is not the editors' intention.

Rather, the underlying premise is that we can all learn from these shared experiences and incorporate the lessons into our own efforts to create a better world.

The teaching section of this book attempts to show us how we can apply to our own local situation the Oaxacan gift of community-based decision-making and bottom-up social change.

Can rebellion really be taught? Why not buy a copy of this book, get together with a group of friends to read and ponder and analyze, and find out?