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National Autonomous University in Mexico City (UNAM)
striking students' organic relationship to the EZLN

Global neoliberalism prompts
global organic relations and responses

by Roberto Flores
Los Angeles, California

Abstract

This study examines the on-ongoing strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Here, the author proposes that the National University strike presently occurring in Mexico City is not only consciously part of a nation-wide struggle to resist the impact of neoliberalism but is part of a proactive national and transnational movement to build an alternative participatory democratic state, world. This paper builds on the theoretical scaffolding provided by Daniel Schugurenski on the impact of neoliberal state policies on institutions of higher learning. The heart of the paper is dedicated to discussing what the author calls the “organic relationship” between the UNAM strike and the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN). The author points to new forms and methods of struggle that are democratically participative in form and essence and that are paradoxically reinforced as they are utilized to respond to new globalized conditions. The paper concludes by supporting a position of positive feasibility for the development of a Democratic Participatory State in Mexico- what Paulo Freire calls building a Solidarity State from below. In addition to Schugurenski, the analysis of Mark Hansen (particularly his case study of Columbia) Paulo Freire’s final work, “Pedagogy of the Heart,” Manuel Castel’s critique of neoliberalism and the copious analytical works of Sub-comandante Marcos make up the thick of the theoretical framework.

  • References (back to top)
    • Comite Clandestino del EZLN, (1993, Dec. 31), Declaracion de la Selva Lacandona, Primera, available: <ezln.org/primer-lacandona.htm>
    • Comite Clandestino del EZLN, (1994, June 10), Declaracion de la Selva Lacandona, Segunda, available:<ezln.org/archive/segunda-lacandona.html>
    • Comite Clandestino del EZLN, (1995, Jan 1), Declaracion de la Selva Lacandona, Tercera, available:<ezln.org/tercera-lacandona.htm>
    • Comite Clandestino del EZLN, (1996, enero), Declaracion de la Selva Lacandona, Cuarta, available: <ezln.org/cuarta-lacandona.htm>
    • Concejo General de Huelga, (12/11/99) Buletin available http://www.geocities.com/Baja/Mesa/9813/
    • Delegacion de 1,111 Zapatista, (1997, 9 de Septiembre) Mensaje, available: <perez@total.net>
    • Foro Nacional Indigena, Part II. Tematica, Resolucion de la Mesa 1, Comunidad y Autonnmia:
    • Freire Paulo, (1996) Pedagogy of the Heart, The Continuum Plubishing Company, 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017
    • Gamio Gonzalez, A. (29 de enero, 1997), Autonomia, Soberania, Democracia. La Jornada.
    • Lopez y Rivas, Gilberto, (1997, 10 de febrero), el deterioro de un modelo de Estado-nacion-parte 1, La Jornada
    • Lopez y Rivas, Gilberto, (1997, 11 de febrero), el deterioro de un modelo de Estado-nacion-parte 2, La Jornada
    • Rubio, Lilia (1997, 11 de Julio), Etapa reaccionaria en la educacion, por el neoliberalism: sociologo Apple, La Jornada
    • Steward, B. D. Steward, California State Employees Association, Civil Service Division, DLC 765 and member of the Purple Shoelace Gang, BKDean@aol.com.
    • Schugurinsky, D. (1997). Higher Education Restructuring in the Era of Globalization: Toward a Heteronomous Model? Comparative Education. Arnove and Torres, Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
    • Tollefson, James W. (1996), Planning Language, Planning Inequality. New York: Longman Publishers.
    • Torres, A. & Puiggros, A. (1995). The State and Public Education in Latin America, “Comparative Educational Review, Vol. 39, #1
    • WTO Website (1999) available at http://www.wto.org/wto/inbrief/inbr00.htm

    (back to top)

    Footnotes

    1. Ceneval es una organización nacional constituida el 28 de abril de 1994, como Asociación Civil a instancias de la Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior (ANUIES) para coadyuvar con las acciones de evaluación de las Instituciones de las Instituciones de Educación Superior, de manera independiente a las funciones que en esta materia realizan las propias autoridades.

    El CENEVAL tiene como finalidad la medición, evaluación, análisis y difusión de resultados académicos de los estudiantes y profesionales, especialmente en cuanto a su aptitud académica y aprendizaje. (Ceneval Website)

    2. The combination of North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), stringent austerity program dictates, and the change in land tenancy rights set stage for what Zapatistas called genocideThe Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN) declared Mexico’s present economic-political system of neoliberalism with its centerpiece of NAFTA as its main target. In 1993, former President, Carlos Salinas de Gotari facilitated the liberalizing of the Mexican market by modifying Constitutional Article 27, the sacred land tenancy law that prohibited sales of communal lands (Flores, R., Martinez, CS, Mujeres Zapatistas, 1997).

    Mexican Congresswoman Carlota Botey, head of the Agricultural sub-committee, described the genocidal results of NAFTA by stressing: “how can a marginalized and forgotten Indian subsistence farmer compete with US Agri-business that is subsidized and supported by the US government?” (La Jornada, 11/96).

    3. The welfare state refers to the intervention of the capitalist state in the form of social policies, programs, standards, and regulations in order to reduce class conflict and provide the conditions for the long-term reproduction of the capitalist mode of production. The welfare state intervenes in five main areas of social reproduction: (1) physical reproduction of the working class (universal health care, subsidized housing, and social benefits for mothers and children such as subsidized child care, child or family allowance, food stamps, etc.); (2) preparation of the new generations for the labor market through the provisions of certain skills and attitudes (universal and cost-free basic education, technological and vocational institutes, etc.): (3) provisions of adequate labor supply and working conditions (subsidized public transportation, regulations on minimum wage, work hours, child labor, retirement age, training, injury insurance, immigration, etc.) (4) Provision of an institutional framework for class conflict (collective bargaining rights, recognition of unions, employment and health and safety standards, etc.) and (5) provision of income for the “unproductive” and retired (unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, etc.) See Gary Steeple, Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform (Notes, Schugurenski).

    4. The heteronomous university stems from the combined effect of two apparently contradictory dynamics: Laissez-faire policies and state interventionism. Indeed, the emerging model emcompasses two university models usually addressed independently in the literature on the topic: the “commercial” model and the state controlled model.,,”(Schugurinsky, 1999 p.297)

    5. Neoliberal globalization: “La restructuración mundial del capital iniciada hace dos décadas ha devastado los pilares constitucionales fundadores de la comunidad nacional: ha anulado el conjunto de derechos sociales de lso mexicanos, ha trastocado el principio constitucional que otrogaba a la Nación la propiedad y el control de sus bienes estratégicos y ha socavado la saberanía en una transferencia acelerada del mando nacional, los recursos naturales y el patrimonio histórico culturala a poderes externos, en una embestida sin precedente en la historia de Estado posttrevolucionario. Todo ello atenta contra la libre determinación, la integridad nacional y el derecho de la sociedad mexicana a decidir sobre su propio destino.” “La nueva fase de la globalizacion del capital -en cuya naturaleza está el ser global, mundial, planetario-implica no sólo la internacionalización de los procesos productivos, la articulación multipolar y transnacional de grandes corporaciones, la liberalizacion de los mercados de mercancías, dinero y capitales, flujos migratorios de fuga de fuerza de trabajo...” (Flores, H., part II, La Jornada, 5 de Octubre, 1997; Pineda, L.O., 1994; Bastos, La Jornada, 19 de Septiembre, 1997)

    6. "State” is used in this paper as defined by James W. Tollefson. “..the state refers to the apparatus by which dominant groups maintain their power. Also, the state is an independent source of power with an interest in retaining and expanding its dominance (Tollefson, 1996).

    7. According to the WTO itself, The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. (WTO Website http://www.wto.org/wto/inbrief/inbr00.htm)
    According to detractors: The WTO wants nothing to stand in the way of trading products even if they are not healthy, even if they were made by child labor in sweatshops, even if they pollute our land and our air, even if they are not even necessary. The WTO intents to privatize the world's water supply, the use of human DNA in genetically engineered plant food. The WTO currently has several lawsuits against poor farmers for attempting to save their seeds, pesticide damage to health, sweatshops, child labor and prostitution, abuse of women laborers. The WTO intends to patent indigenous practices, age-old farm practices, and ideas from individual workers in improving their company's products. I learned of the eradication of national health and safety laws, clean air rules, human rights and protections. (From Barbara Dean Steward, California State Employees Association, Civil Service Division, DLC 765 and member of the Purple Shoelace Gang, BKDean@aol.com).

  • Published in In Motion Magazine August 19, 2001.