ANARCHISM: TIERRA Y LIBERTAD
Ⓐ is for Anarchism. “Tierra y Libertad” is the anarchist slogan, meaning “land and liberty,” first used by Russian anarchists, then passed to anarchists fighting in the Spanish revolution, and then finally to the Mexican people through revolutionaries Ricardo Flores Magón and Emiliano Zapata.
“Anarchy is Order.” - Proudhon
Anarchism: Without rulers. A political/philosophical revolutionary ideology that opposes ALL systemic oppression and advocates for a collectivist society free of capitalism and the state, while respecting the autonomy of the individual.
“Freedom without Socialism is Privilege, Injustice. Socialism without Freedom is Slavery, Brutality.” - Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front, South Africa
It is the belief that power should be localized, not monopolized by far-off state governments or soulless corporations. Anarchism has a strong heritage in the history of the Latin@ people, through both Spanish and native anarchist organizations. It is vibrantly alive in communities around the world, and very diverse. Anarchism in the U.S. was brought largely by immigrant union organizers.
Mexican/Chican@ Anarchism was first formally discussed and advocated by Ricardo Flores Magón, who became one of the intellectual inspirations for Emiliano Zapata (and through that, the Zapatistas). His slogan, “Tierra y Libertad!”, was borrowed from the Spanish Anarchists in the CNT-FAI, and it has become popularly known in Mexico as the slogan of Zapata and other revolutionary movements. Magón was one of the first radical Mexicans to agitate in the U.S., founding an anarchist commune in what would eventually become the Echo Park neighborhood in East L.A. He was eventually capture and died in a Texas prison.
In the U.S., “Tierra y Libertad!” has been popularized by Chican@ revolutionaries and activists. The Origins of Contemporary Chicana/Chicano Anarchism
From Yale Professor of Anthropology, David Graeber: “Everywhere from Eastern Europe to Argentina, from Seattle to Bombay, anarchist ideas and principles are generating new radical dreams and visions. Often their exponents do not call themselves “anarchists”. There are a host of other names: autonomism, anti-authoritarianism, horizontality, Zapatismo, direct democracy… Still, everywhere one finds the same core principles: decentralization, voluntary association, mutual aid, the network model, and above all, the rejection of any idea that the end justifies the means, let alone that the business of a revolutionary is to seize state power and then begin imposing one’s vision at the point of a gun. Above all, anarchism, as an ethics of practice-the idea of building a new society “within the shell of the old”-has become the basic inspiration of the “movement of movements” (of which the authors are a part), which has from the start been less about seizing state power than about exposing, de-legitimizing and dismantling mechanisms of rule while winning ever-larger spaces of autonomy and participatory management within it… On one level it is a kind of faith: a belief that most forms of irresponsibility that seem to make power necessary are in fact the effects of power itself. In practice though it is a constant questioning, an effort to identify every compulsory or hierarchical relation in human life, and challenge them to justify themselves, and if they cannot-which usually turns out to be the case-an effort to limit their power and thus widen the scope of human liberty…”
“…society organised without authority, meaning by authority the power to impose one’s own will … authority not only is not necessary for social organisation but, far from benefiting it, lives on it parasitically, hampers its development, and uses its advantages for the special benefit of a particular class which exploits and oppresses the others”. - Errico Malatesta
