Participating in delegations is often the way people who don't have time for a longer experience in Chiapas choose to begin to develop an understanding of the political situation.  Delegations are designed to be educational experiences.  A group of people from other countries and social and economic realities spend one to two weeks meeting with local organizations and visiting communities, listening to stories and presentations in the hopes of deepening their understanding of different political and social realities.

But because most delegations happen over the span of just one week, they're not the ideal way to comprehend social processes that have developed over more than five hundred years.  There are many workshops and presentations packed into one delegation, with limited time for reflection about what one is living and learning.  However, in order to learn as much as possible in a short delegation, making it less touristy and more politically productive, there are a set of practical guidelines all of us can follow.

Leave you tourist behavior behind:

Tourism is often said to help communities economically.  We hear things like: "We are bringing money to poor people."  "Before tourism, these people were miserable."  "Tourism developed this region."  These are all excuses people use to justify their behavior as tourists.  And, not coincidentally, that's also the same speech the government uses to justify investments in tourism.  But it's important to think critically about who tourism is actually helping.  Who are we making richer?  Most tourism makes the rich richer.  Money flows into the pockets of the owners of coffee shops, souvenir stores, bars and other places frequented by tourists.  In the same way, tourism generally reproduces the same alienating working conditions and low wages present in the dominant capitalist economy.  Tourism is also justified in that it purportedly promotes "development."  To the extent that the idea of development has taken on the meaning that the so-called "developed" countries have assigned it, development connotes a consumerist, anti-ecological world with no roots in local culture, based upon the exploitation of other people.  Isn't this idea exactly the opposite of what the Zapatistas are trying to construct?

The way in which tourists come to "consume" local culture is also offensive.  Culture is not static and people are not animals in a zoo.  But tourists easily forget that when they take photographs of whatever they consider "exotic".

The business of tourism was designed for the tourists.  Tourism promotes the exotification and commoditization of cultures while at the same time creating a space of comfort for tourists in order that they not ever be asked to rethink their own values or renounce their privileges.   However, a traveler doesn't have to fall into these negative categories associated with tourism.  To show respect for new people and places, one must be ready to rethink her own values, to learn in the context of cultures different from her own, and to leave privilege behind.  To the extent that members of delegations can free themselves from the tourist mentality, their experiences, as well as the experiences of those meeting with them will be more positive and productive.

Enter communities with humility. 

Knowing that time is one of your limits, don't expect to learn everything in a week, but be open and receptive.  Also remember that despite all you may have read, books are different than reality.  Some delegates arrive with extensive theoretical knowledge of the Chiapas situation, but as we meet with real people, struggling for their rights, slowly working to construct new realities, no group of people fits perfectly into theoretical categories.  Life can be difficult—and usually is—in a Zapatista community, and people can make mistakes.  That's part of building a social movement.

Try to have a non-consumerist attitude.

If we are not here as tourists, we should leave our consumer habits behind. (We should actually try to leave them behind forever, wherever we are).  Leaving our consumerism behind also means being prepared to make choices based on political reasons and not on what is "the best" or "the most luxurious".  Practically, that means avoiding buying things you know were produced unfairly.  It might mean avoiding the fanciest restaurants in town in order to give preference to those owned by people active in the social movement.  It might mean giving up the comfort you might like to have at the most luxurious hotel in town in order to favor a smaller bed and breakfast whose owner helped international activists threatened with deportation.

Pack your bag with few clothes and a lot of patience.

Time in villages in Southern Mexico doesn't always run as fast as you may be used to.  It's essential to have respect for the seemingly slower pace of local time.  For example, entering a Zapatista community requires waiting to meet with the security committee, then meeting with an administrative committee, the Junta del Buen Gobierno or Council for Good Government.  It's easy to wait quite awhile for the local authorities to talk with us, and it may not always be visible to us that they were busy when we were available. 

Of course, it can be frustrating to travel abroad seeking contact with a social movement that we sympathize with and then not get a chance to meet with them extensively.  But we have to understand that communities have other priorities.  The local authorities and the Juntas have a lot of other things to do: they were chosen by the community to address pressing issues in their communities—for example, those pertaining to autonomous education, autonomous health, etc.; they were not designated specifically to receive us.
       

And, really, isn't that wonderful?  In one little place in the world, indigenous people are the priority.  Not us, not rich tourists from so-called developed countries, but the indigenous poor.  That's really a positive change, one we should applaud rather than be offended by.

Welcome to Chiapas

If we have these points in mind, delegations can be a great experience.  Delegates can learn a lot and take all this knowledge back to their communities.  And that's the most beautiful part of all: the possibility of exchange. That would be a step towards "globalizing" resistance.