On Sun, 7 Jan 1996, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
when you focus your attempts on creating a system that embodies your ideals...you will make far more progress in developing your ideas and convincing the world to follow you than any number of essays can accomplish.
As well as the Swiss direct democratic system, at the other end of the scale, the poorest people of the Americas have the same idea. The Zapatista rebels, laboriously "making all the major decisions by the referendum" in 8 Mayan languages in the jungles and mountains of Chiapas, have stood off the US-funded Mexican army for 2 years and a week now. Here's what Bishop of Chiapas Samuel Ruiz, how the world's foremost exponent of "liberation theology" has to say: From: Bill Stivers <stiverpp@corcomsv.corcom.com> Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Subject: Bishop Ruiz: EZLN Calls People to Civil-Political Action Followup-To: alt.activism.d Date: 25 Dec 1995 05:12:59 GMT Enclosure one was excerpted from Latinamerica Press, Nov. 23, 1995. LP contributor Dauno Totoro Taulis interviewed Chiapas Bishop Samuel Ruiz. ------------- LP: Does the indigenous uprising in Chiapas contradict the dream of justice and fraternity among men and women? Ruiz: One must look at the facts. Something awaits the world, something that can come out of all this. Perhaps it is a certain model, a road to greater citizen participation in the transformation ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ of their own reality. The EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) has not called on the people to rise up in arms, it has called on them to rise up as civic-political actors. It is curious that, after 500 years, when nobody was expecting there to be articulated indigenous groups but only "conquered Indians," it is precisely these Indians who are motivating us to change, to participate. It is surprising that the most marginalized inhabitants of the continent, who are on the social floor, are those who are rising up with the prospects of a transforming success. A voice is being heard from those living in a culture distinct from the West, from the heart of the communitarian concept. It is an ancient voice that has never been heard before--and for this reason appears as a new voice--and it offers a successful alternative for everyone. Besides it was always thought that we had to "rescue" the Indians, that we had to help them, and now they are offering the possibility of renovation for us. LP: Isn't it contradictory that to talk of peace, the communities had to take up arms? Ruiz: What is new is that those who have risen up in arms did not make the same decision as the continent's other known armed movements, which believed that to achieve justice they first had to take power. The EZLN does not espouse this idea. This is war for peace, a war so that there is peace, a war in which they are not asking others to rise up in arms but to rise up as subjects of a transformation. It is not an armed group talking with a government to reach partial accords, but a people, an organized civil society, that is transforming itself through social change. It is a search that has returned to the subject and protagonist of history, the citizen, the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ right and duty for his or her own transformation. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Evan Ravitz, director, VOTING BY PHONE FOUNDATION: evanr@vote.org Electronic democracy! From the directors of the U.S. National Science Foundation's 1974 Televote trials and Boulder's 1993 ballot initiative: http://www.vote.org/v A FUTURE PASTURES PRESENTATION (303)440-6838 fon/fax "What government is best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves." -Goethe