Globalising the Zapatistas: from Third World solidarity to global solidarity?

The 1994 Zapatista uprising in the southern Mexican state Of Chiapas found extraordinary resonance beyond Mexico's borders and generated a range of transnational solidarity efforts. The Zapatistas retain many emancipatory ideals of earlier progressive groups, but formulate their social critique in a manner that is more democratic and global than that of most groups during the Cold War. As a consequence, their interpretation of contemporary social and political problems does not build on the distinction between first, second and third worlds so common in earlier decades. This is evident in the way solidarity is understood by the Zapatistas and transnational activists. The solidarity relationship between the Zapatistas and transnational activists is highly globalised and based on mutuality. In contrast, solidarity relationships in the cold war period, including Third World solidarity, had more of a one-way character in which there was a clear distinction between providers and beneficiaries of solidarity.