CHAPTER 10 THE MAYAN ZAPATISTA MOVEMENT 393Box 10.2 Preamble of the 1996 Zapatista Indigenous Forum“We are the people who were the original inhabitants of Mexico. We have exercised, and will con-
tinue to exercise, the right to determine who we are according to our own premises. We are the
bearers of our own culture and of our own common agenda. In spite of all of our losses as a con-
quered people, we continue to maintain an organic relationship with the land that was once ours.
We feel this tie to our ancestral lands even though, in some cases, we have had to leave our
homes of origin to emigrate to new areas.
“It is this link between ourselves and our home that we call ‘autonomy.’ We raise this flag
to this cause in order to let everyone know that we continue to exist as we always have as proud
and dignified communities that are different from one another just as they are also linked by the
brotherhood of common Indian identity. To recognize this is the basic premise that will allow us
to enjoy all of our rights and liberties.
“In a profound sense, we consider ourselves to be Mexicans. This is so even though the
founders of the Mexican state and all governments that have followed in their footsteps have ig-
nored our existence. This is so even though many Mexican men and women regard us with con-
descension and ignorance, virtually denying our existence. Because of this, as we reaffirm on
this occasion our existence as a people, we wish to make it known that our current struggle for
acknowledgment of our separate identity does not seek to launch a fight with our fellow Mexi-
cans, nor much less to secede from a country that we consider as much our own as our separate
identity as Indians. Through our act of demanding recognition of our Indian identity, we wish to
contribute to the formation of a more fundamental unity of all Mexican men and women, a unity
that recognizes the true diversity of the ethnic communities that make up modern Mexico. This
is a fundamental condition for harmony among all Mexican men and women. Our quest for re-
covery of our own identity does not, in any way, constitute a challenge to national sovereignty.
“We are not asking anybody to grant us autonomy. We have always had it, and we have it
today. No one can ‘give’ us the capacity to be ourselves, to think and act in ways that are gov-
erned by our own ways of looking at the world. However, we have not been free, either during
the Spanish colonial regime or under the post-Independence Mexican State, to exercise freely
our separate identity as a people. Throughout our long struggle of resistance, we have always
been obliged to express our identity against the repressive backdrop of Mexican state repre-
sentatives and Mexican state institutions.
“Basta!We have had enough of this. We will no longer continue to be the objects of dis-
crimination, being excluded from full participation in a homeland that belongs as much to us as
to the rest of Mexican men and women, a homeland that has been built with our hands, our
labor, and our effort. We wish to enjoy the full freedom to continue being who we are. We wish
to create conditions that will make this possible. We believe that Mexico will be truly free only
when all of us are free.
“In the course of our recent struggle [the post-January 1994 Zapatista Movement], we have
succeeded in establishing a number of social spaces in which to exercise our freedom. Some of
us have been able to express our ethnic identity in our local communities. We have recovered
local control of these communities and feel that it is there, and only there, that we are free to be
ourselves. Others among us have managed to transform whole municipios[townships] from op-
pressive political units that were imposed on us during the colonial period in order to divide us
and control us into space that truly belongs to us, a space where we are also free to pursue our
aspirations for autonomy. Finally, some of us have managed to capture spaces of autonomy that
are regional in scope, extending to the entire multi-ethnic Indian community. We refer to these
advances as ‘de facto autonomous entities.’ Their juridical foundation is Indian law and custom,
and now we intend to fight to have this de facto autonomous status recognized by the Mexican
Constitution.
(continued)