On 1 January 1994, the day that Mexico joined the North American Free Trade Agreement, an uprising took place in the southern state of Chiapas. As if from nowhere – and despite the 70,000 government troops that attempted to suppress them – the Zapatista Army of National Liberation set about creating a parallel world beyond the throttling grasp of neoliberal fundamentalism, in search of liberty and autonomy for the country’s indigenous peoples.
Five years before the more publicized ‘Battle of Seattle’ against the World Trade Organization, the Zapatistas opened a brilliant vein of worldwide resistance to corporate globalization and neoliberalism. Twenty years on, and resistance glisters only spasmodically in the rich world. Mexican society has seemingly dissolved into a narcotic plasma, and the Zapatistas have vanished altogether from the flickering screens of global celebrity.
