Can the Zapatistas transform Mexico?
IN THE decade since the uprising, much of what the Zapatistas warned against has come to pass. Real wages of Mexican workers have fallen by 20 percent since 1994 following the economy’s near-collapse in the mid-1990s and the spreading international crisis after that. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers have been driven off their land, and the country now imports corn for tortillas. These terrible conditions brought thousands of farmers into the streets earlier this year and led the major unions to threaten a general strike against Fox’s plan to increase taxes on working people’s necessities. The protests culminated in the demonstrations that helped to sink the World Trade Organization summit meeting in Cancún in September. The Zapatista uprising has also helped to force open the Mexican political system. As a result, the long-time ruling party, the PRI, lost its first presidential election in seven decades in 2000. The PRI is now split between a pro-free market, pro-Fox wing and a
