Report back from Second California Zapatista Encuentro
Article written by Colin Bossen.
Our organization received an invitation to attend the Second California Zapatista Encuentro held on Nov 11-13th in Los Angeles. It was an invite-only series of meetings organized by the Zapatista California Network, who held a similar encuentro in Oakland last August.
The text from their invitation described the purpose of the LA meeting:
Our efforts reflect the need to organize ourselves as a decentralized networked community that can...facilitate the development of a horizontal political force, rather than ...[a] hierarchical solidarity organization.
As a first step towards this end, the social forum collective... proposed a follow-up encuentro, [both] as a space to further dialogue on our initial agreements, and [to] invite other groups that are in solidarity with the Zapatistas, or are doing Zapatista inspired work.
I attended Saturday of the three day meeting, where about 60 people were in attendance, mostly young people (but with other ages present) of whom about 80% were people of color. A variety of solidarity organizations were represented, with the Chiapas Support Committee and Estacion Libre probably having the largest delegations.
The focus was thinking about what Zapatismo means, why we support it, and how best to support the Zapatista project. There is a sense that no one wants a new organization to come out of the Encuentro. Instead, some groups considered coordinating their work in Chiapas. There was also talk of holding future Encuentros.
The Sunday meeting (which I wasn't able to attend) was to focus on what -- if anything -- the attendees wanted to do. When we receive the minutes for the meeting we may pass them on here.
Overall, the encuentro was a good chance to further dialogue and also network with people and organizations doing similar work.
Colin is the founder and chair of the Chiapas Peace House Project.
Our organization received an invitation to attend the Second California Zapatista Encuentro held on Nov 11-13th in Los Angeles. It was an invite-only series of meetings organized by the Zapatista California Network, who held a similar encuentro in Oakland last August.
The text from their invitation described the purpose of the LA meeting:
Our efforts reflect the need to organize ourselves as a decentralized networked community that can...facilitate the development of a horizontal political force, rather than ...[a] hierarchical solidarity organization.
As a first step towards this end, the social forum collective... proposed a follow-up encuentro, [both] as a space to further dialogue on our initial agreements, and [to] invite other groups that are in solidarity with the Zapatistas, or are doing Zapatista inspired work.
I attended Saturday of the three day meeting, where about 60 people were in attendance, mostly young people (but with other ages present) of whom about 80% were people of color. A variety of solidarity organizations were represented, with the Chiapas Support Committee and Estacion Libre probably having the largest delegations.
The focus was thinking about what Zapatismo means, why we support it, and how best to support the Zapatista project. There is a sense that no one wants a new organization to come out of the Encuentro. Instead, some groups considered coordinating their work in Chiapas. There was also talk of holding future Encuentros.
The Sunday meeting (which I wasn't able to attend) was to focus on what -- if anything -- the attendees wanted to do. When we receive the minutes for the meeting we may pass them on here.
Overall, the encuentro was a good chance to further dialogue and also network with people and organizations doing similar work.
Colin is the founder and chair of the Chiapas Peace House Project.
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