Oh, the wording is all mine, inferred from this fairly thin set of news reports. But:
- radical: doesn't get much more radical than an armed uprising
- indigenous: they're Purepecha. This is very important. While they're Mexican nationals, and would be called Mexican by Americans, they're not of Spanish descent. They're descendents of a tribe unconquered by the Aztecs. Racial discrimination against people of indigenous descent is common all over Latin America.
- feminist: all the news coverage points out that the initial uprising was initiated by women.
- anti-colonial: outsiders of a different ethnic background coming onto traditional tribal land to steal natural resources? With the collusion of the police? Sounds pretty colonial to me.
It's crucial to being exempted from normal politics such as elections. "arguing before the courts that there were provisions in Mexican law that permit indigenous communities a form of self-government based on their customs"; sounds analogous to the semi-autonomy of Indian reservations in the US.
>> "set of family relationships embedded in the matriarchy running the town"
So it looks like I overstated this a lot, but if you refer to the NBCnews article above it's a "council of elders". And they don't have parties? Family is a party you're born into. It's more or less the default arrangement of pre-bureaucratic politics. It's hard to avoid even in modern states. Add up all someone's in-laws and second cousins and it's easy to get to hundreds of people, which goes a long way in a community of 20,000.
BBC: "Most people who live in Cheran are from the town. Social mores dictate that locals marry locals - there are very few outsiders here. Families are large, and they are close. Everyone knows everyone else. And that is the foundation of the town's unity."
NBC: "Patricia Hernández, a taco vendor and mother of four, accepted the challenge to be part of their government when her neighbors chose her to represent their fogata. She is now one of four women who will govern Cherán for the next three years as part of the twelve-person council known as K'eri Jánaskakua.
"Before the government didn't take us [women] into account, until we were the ones who started this new government seven years ago," said Hernández to NBC News. "We said 'Ya Basta!', (Enough!) to put an end to this violence."
(more feminism! with machetes!)
It doesn't "suddenly occur", it was always there, it just took a lot of adversity to mobilize it to the level of armed self-government.
Some of them. Most of the community is mestizo. And their ethnicity has literally nothing to do with it at all. It isn't an indigenous movement, it is a community protecting itself. Do you think the non-Purepecha residents don't count? That they were not part of this action?
>all the news coverage points out that the initial uprising was initiated by women.
No, plenty of news coverage is factual. You're just looking at the "news" that is trying to use it as a feminism story.
>anti-colonial: outsiders of a different ethnic background
The outsiders have the same mix of ethnic backgrounds the community does.
>Before the government didn't take us [women] into account
Notice how the word that is necessary to make that sentence mean what you want was inserted by the "journalist", not said by the person being quoted? "Before the government didn't take us [the people] into account..."
>It doesn't "suddenly occur", it was always there
It has never been there. There are actually several anthropology texts on the Purepecha, they were never matriarchal or anything remotely resembling it. Nor were the Spanish, although there's not much in anthropological studies on them.
>doesn't get much more radical than an armed uprising
I would like to nitpick that the idea that there exists a threshold of terribleness for local power structures beyond which it's perfectly reasonable to use or threaten violence against the people propping them up is one held by a heck of a lot of people on the North American continent. Of course people disagree about where to draw the line but the concept itself is pretty mainstream.
Edit: I guess I'm really nitpicking that "radical" implies something novel, new or fringe which does not fit the circumstances here.
Surely the local power structure is mainstream by definition? "Radical" doesn't imply "novel", but it does imply a much greater belief that the ends justify the means, and an opposition to the status quo. Radical is a modality of politics. Description of something as radical is not necessarily an endorsement or censure.
The American revolutionaries were radicals. The protesters with guns demanding that Kentucky reopen its shops are radicals. The Unabomber was a radical. Nelson Mandela was a radical.
(There's a much longer point to be made about how armed revolution is an event and the subsequent politics is a process, and that lots of places fall over when it comes to the long haul of building a working politics after the revolution. I'm glad this community seems to have avoided that.)
- radical: doesn't get much more radical than an armed uprising
- indigenous: they're Purepecha. This is very important. While they're Mexican nationals, and would be called Mexican by Americans, they're not of Spanish descent. They're descendents of a tribe unconquered by the Aztecs. Racial discrimination against people of indigenous descent is common all over Latin America.
- feminist: all the news coverage points out that the initial uprising was initiated by women.
- anti-colonial: outsiders of a different ethnic background coming onto traditional tribal land to steal natural resources? With the collusion of the police? Sounds pretty colonial to me.
- self-organising: found a bit more on this; https://elenemigocomun.net/2018/08/cheran-names-government/ ; https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/after-long-fight-self-go...
It's crucial to being exempted from normal politics such as elections. "arguing before the courts that there were provisions in Mexican law that permit indigenous communities a form of self-government based on their customs"; sounds analogous to the semi-autonomy of Indian reservations in the US.
>> "set of family relationships embedded in the matriarchy running the town"
So it looks like I overstated this a lot, but if you refer to the NBCnews article above it's a "council of elders". And they don't have parties? Family is a party you're born into. It's more or less the default arrangement of pre-bureaucratic politics. It's hard to avoid even in modern states. Add up all someone's in-laws and second cousins and it's easy to get to hundreds of people, which goes a long way in a community of 20,000.
BBC: "Most people who live in Cheran are from the town. Social mores dictate that locals marry locals - there are very few outsiders here. Families are large, and they are close. Everyone knows everyone else. And that is the foundation of the town's unity."
NBC: "Patricia Hernández, a taco vendor and mother of four, accepted the challenge to be part of their government when her neighbors chose her to represent their fogata. She is now one of four women who will govern Cherán for the next three years as part of the twelve-person council known as K'eri Jánaskakua.
"Before the government didn't take us [women] into account, until we were the ones who started this new government seven years ago," said Hernández to NBC News. "We said 'Ya Basta!', (Enough!) to put an end to this violence."
(more feminism! with machetes!)
It doesn't "suddenly occur", it was always there, it just took a lot of adversity to mobilize it to the level of armed self-government.