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A good example of free cooperation is the way the women of the Zapatistas acted in the phase when the movement started and the decision about how to fight and when to fight the Mexican government, and when to use even military force was to be made. Because according to reports, there was an assembly of the women who took part in the movement and they made clear that there were certain conditions for them under which they would participate in the fight and which they wanted to be realized: questions of representation in the movement, of acknowledgement of women's rights by the movement. If this was done, they could participate, otherwise there would be just a "no" from them. And I think this is a good example, because that's something that went wrong in a lot of national and colonial liberation movements we know, because there the form was the main question
now one has to fight a colonial system, everybody has to join this fight and other questions have to be addressed later on - which, of course, doesn't work, because the point when you start is the point to enter into some basic negotiations. And they used their kind of power, that is, they used the possibility of refusing to join the movement, they made conditions for their cooperation and they did it in a way that was based on their power as a group. There was no need for them to infiltrate the formal base of decision-making in the Zapatista movement, these things work independently of how these structures are organized. They came together as a group and said: We will participate only if, yes,
or yes, only if
, or no, if not. And that's also typical because it's not necessary that everybody understands their motives or their reason, it's not necessary that they explain everything about it. It's just a negotiation which takes place and a decision that can be made. And I think this is very important for free cooperation and their primal force, because it's close to the point where this force gets lost in most systems of formal representation, of formal decision-making - so much is ruled out because it doesn't fit as a system. But in this example this force was really used.
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