From: Evan Ravitz <evan@darkstar.cygnus.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 01:40:29 +0800
To: dnowch2@teleport.com
Subject: Re: DNow2 Re: Hammill 1987 speech
In-Reply-To: <199601080601.WAA09591@netcom4.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960108013408.6640R-100000@darkstar.cygnus.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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