The First of January Boot Co-op

It's been almost twelve years since the Zapatistas of southern Mexico said ya basta ("enough") to neo-liberalism and initiated a struggle for "a world where many worlds fit."

Today, the Zapatistas are creating a variety of participatory economic institutions to meet community needs: women's artisan co-ops, amber producers' co-ops, fair-trade coffee cooperatives and a non-sweatshop boot co-operative.

On a sunny July day, myself and a delegation of foreign solidarity activists tramped the muddy hills around Oventic Caracole, in the Los Altos region, to visit the First of January Boot Co-op. Rafael Hedez, a leading activist with the co-op, and several other compañeros welcomed us with cokes and bowls of snow-tire-tough beef soup stewed on an open fire.

Inside the workshop (basically a barn with corrugated iron roof, one of the higher-end buildings in a region of thatched farm cuts), a dozen or so men were busy cutting leather, tracing patterns, and heating branding irons. Large blue flames erupted as glue was melted to attach the soles.

After showing us around, Hedez proudly explained the ownership structure of the work-shop to us. "We have no owner. Here we are all equals," he said.

read the rest of this article by Chris Arsenault here at ZNET.
Emiliano Zapata Day of the Dead Shrine by unknown. To see other Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa folk art, click here
this article blogged by Audrey Autonomy