Part I: Political education as historical necessity

Before we get started, and in order to be as upfront as possible about things, we must confess that this book is actually not about Zapatistas (believe it or not), but rather political education. That said, what better example of political education than the Zapatistas?

To begin, we need to address the current state of things. On this point, the world is undeniably in crisis and neither humanity nor Earth is safe. The coloniser's model of modernity, not to mention the global economy, has been in the making for over five hundred years and is operating, if not plundering, in full effect. The consequences include exploitation, repression, indifference, mass alienation and both human and non-human suffering, in addition to climate catastrophe and ecological ruin. We, collectively and the planet, are simultaneously confronted with the very real prospects of existential peril, environmental collapse, social anomie and spiritual death. All of these dynamics, when and if reflected on and considered seriously, raise a crucial two-fold question:

Amid such a reality and as a response to this question, countless people and communities all over the world (as well as perhaps even you yourself) – who have not given up hope in the face of what is seemingly impending doom – are declaring ‘Enough is enough!’ or ‘¡Ya basta!’, as the Zapatistas would say. Indeed, something's gotta give and things must change. But how?

On this front, well over half a century ago, the anti-colonial revolutionary Frantz Fanon (1963: 88) proclaimed in his ground-breaking book, The wretched of the earth, that ‘the political education of the masses is now recognised as an historical necessity’. Fanon, who was from the Caribbean and was dying of leukaemia at the time, was passionately offering this assertion amidst a violent struggle for liberation while tending to the injured in Africa – Algeria, to be precise.