It isn't just in Chiapas; my understanding is that many indigenous communities in Mexico are autonomous and doing relatively well because of it. Some have always been autonomous and others more recently. At the same time, many communities seem to avoid autonomy as long as they can so there are obviously down sides. I think unfair practices against indigenous communities are more likely to turn violent when the community becomes autonomous. Indigenous communities have been dealing with the worst aspects of government corruption for much longer than the current wave of violence (and not just drug issues) and they are also affected by the current issues.

However, I don't know of a great source for this type of information, it is just the impression I get from a variety of sources that I have been able to find.

In general, the best overall English language resouce on what is happening in Mexico that I've been able to find is Borderland Beat. They translate a bunch of article from Mexican newspapers and repost stuff from English language newspapers as well. http://www.borderlandbeat.com

They had an interesting article about a recent study showing that the recent increase in violence seems to be due at least in part to the weakening of the one party system in Mexico that had stabilized the cartel situation due to long term continuity of the corruption. http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2017/11/study-sheds-new-light-...

The impression I have, coming from a host of different sources (by living here, reading newspapers, talking to people that live in those communities, etc) is that a lot of those towns do quite well thanks to their autonomy, but

1) it doesn't seem to scale past a certain community size

2) it leaves them vulnerable to aggression from rival groups that get in cahoots with narcos and other powerful people (caciques, etc), and when they ask for government help the response they get is along the lines of "well, you wanted to be autonomous, so now help yourself and don't ask for help". In many cases it's even been pretty well documented that the government itself funded these rival communities precisely to "punish them" and create conflict due to them "daring" to go independent.

In any case, some communities have very interesting takes on how governance should be carried out. For example, some require people to serve in the "governance body" for a short period of time (I've read about 3-6 months in some cases) so that everyone gets to participate a few times at least and thus everyone's interests are fairly represented. Also, those positions are often unpaid as they are considered to be "your duty", i.e. it's the share of the load that you get to carry for living in such society, and so on.

Unfortunately I can't link any sources since a lot of this info has been told to me in person and some I've read in obscure magazines, random blog articles or Mexican newspapers and such. I think the works of Eduardo Galeano [0], if you can find them translated, have some information on Zapatistas' government structure called "Caracoles" for example.

It's an interesting topic to say the least.

[0] https://ososabiouk.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/eduardo-galeano-...

I am curious what issues the larger communities have if you have more information on that?

I read part one of EZLN's "Autonomous Governement" but had forgotten about that. IIRC, one issue they mentioned is that when they invested in services, people outside the autonomous areas wanted to use them but didn't help support them at the same level as they were using them, which increased the difficulty of providing services for the community. I should read the first one again and the rest of them. The english translations are available at: https://escuelitabooks.blogspot.co.uk/

You link confuses the Zapatista Galeano with the writer Eduado Galeano, at least to the extent of implying that Subcomandante Galeano is named after the writer. The Zapatista Galeano was killed by paramilitary forces (that came from two rightwing parties, the Green Ecologist Party and the National Action Party, as well as the Independent Center for Agricultural Workers and Historic Peasants) who also destroyed a school and health clinic. http://radiozapatista.org/?p=12813&lang=en https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/assassination-world-st...

I am not really aware of specific issues with larger ones, but I've never seen mention of sizes beyond a certain point (small towns, marginalized areas in the mountains, etc). I'd love to have better references on this.

No, I was trying to refer to Eduardo the writer. He's written about Zapatistas' Caracoles a bit. Can't find the specific text though :(

I'll keep an eye out for translations of Eduado Galeano's work, thanks for the recommendation!

I think it's going to be pretty hard to find the relevant texts among Galeano's work.

Closest thing I could find with a tiny bit of information about Caracoles is the Wikipedia page translated with Google :/

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev...

But at least maybe you can find some pointers there in case you want to do a bit more research.

In any case, my Keybase profile is in my hn profile so you can get in touch with me if you want to.

Cheers!

Similarly, Rojava and their role in Syria are barely mentioned by Western media.

To be fair, this is true for all anarchist societies, as their stated goals are directly contrary to the goals of media conglomerates owned and managed by wealthy capitalists.

But as far as I could see it, all anarchist society's still in effect acted as a state, no matter how much they said otherwise.

And the rojava is not really anarchist afaik. (there is only a small anarchist group inside, of mostly foreigners)

They are a independent Kurdish society in the first place. Then they have strong ties to marxism because of Pkk and their history, but lately more moderate federalism.

But with the pressure from ISS and now turkey, they just accept any help they can get, so that's why they have hardcore marxists next to antimuslim fanatics next to regular (capitalist) american special forces.

If it would not be cracy dangerous, I actually would like to see all that weird mix by myself ...

They seem to be anarchist in a sense that they reject the notion of state as an organizational structure for their society.

Could you name a few of these that you're referring to? I'd love to read more.

I am not a specialist but these two (largely overlapping) lists provide a good start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy#Lists_of_ungoverned_co...

There are also interesting things happening in Catalonia and the Basque country, but the limit between anarchy, direct democracy, autonomism is more blurry there.

I would also add that another reason why they are not talked about too much in the media is because they keep quiet. They know that a small community has to live under the radar because a strong influx of newcomers could easily destroy them.

The New York Times would never mention the EZLN. =)

They've reported on them dozens of times

https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/zapatista-nationa...

though strangely apparently not between 2005 and 2017.

Here are another 200 google hits from 2006 to 2016. The tags are often just used for larger features, not every news item.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+zapatista&r...

That’s a pretty big gap

I thought so too, but another commenter here found that they were repeatedly reported on during that time, just not tagged as the main subject of the articles. (But maybe this change still does reflect a different level of editorial interest in them during that time.)

Why not?

The New York Times has an archive of news and background on the Zapatista with hundreds of articles: https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/zapatista-nationa...

Sure, but how many column inches did those articles occupy? And how does that compare to the number of column inches dedicated to consumer capitalist interests?! </chomsky>

Probably a lot more for the general topic and very little for the very specific topic. As one would expect.

The goalpost has now moved, and the new question is obviously impossible to answer.

It's also worth noting that "consumer capitalist interests" is a term I've never heard and, more importantly, neither has Chomsky, who never used the term.