Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico

The new Zapatistas in Chiapas have served as a catalyst for revolutionary indigenous movements across Mexico, pioneering a new model of resistance and posing a powerful threat to the stability of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Homage to Chiapas vividly depicts the grassroots struggles for land and local autonomy now underway in an economically strategic nation of nearly 100 million people. Weinberg analyzes NAFTA’s impact on Mexico’s campesinos with on-the-spot reportage from Tabasco, where fishermen blockade state owned oil wells to protest local pollution, from Central Mexico where plans for a giant computer complex and golf course spark an Indian uprising, as well as from Chiapas where he interviews Sub-commander Marcos. He also examines Mexico’s growing militarization in the name of the war on drugs and reviews the Zapatistas’ challenge to their supporters to carry the struggle throughout Mexico and beyond its borders.