Winter/Fall 2005
Communities of Resistance
In December, a White Dog delegation journeyed to the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, to visit Mut Vitz (Bird Mountain), a Zapatista cooperative that grows the coffee we serve at the Cafe. On the day NAFTA went into effect in 1994, the Zapatistas began their uprising, shouting “Basta!” we have had enough of corporate globalization, continuing 500 years of colonization of indigenous lands and people. Intrigued, I began annual trips to Chiapas in 1995 as part of our international sister restaurant project, “Table for Six Billion, Please,” to build people-to-people relationships. Our Mexican project sponsored tours for customers and staff to learn about the Zapatista pro-democracy movement.
With deepened interest, I initiated a project in 1998 to help develop an economic base for the Zapatistas, providing funds for organic certification and pre-financing of the first container (approx. 19 tons) of coffee exported from the Zapatista autonomous zone. Our recent trip found the cooperative prospering with 15 containers of coffee now shipped annually to the US and Europe. The coffee business helps support the Zapatista “communities of resistance,” in which they’ve developed an independent structure for democratic governance, schools to teach children indigenous history, culture and language, a judiciary system to resolve conflicts, health clinics available to all, and growing economic self-reliance through a local food system and global trade in coffee and crafts. The Zapatistas are an inspiration for all of us who are developing ”communities of resistance” to corporate control over our economy, government and daily lives.
Typically, indigenous coffee growers in Latin America, desperate for cash, are forced to sell their coffee to “coyotes,” brokers for large corporations, at prices near or below the cost of production. The pre-financing for Mut Vitz provided cash for them to buy coffee from their cooperative members at fair trade prices. Mut Vitz then sells their organic coffee to fair trade importers such as Cooperative Coffee in Atlanta, Georgia, who sell it to local roasters, such as Fonseca Coffee in Audubon, PA, who sell it to restaurants such as the White Dog Cafe. This supply chain of small-to-small, win-win relationships is part of an alternative global economy– one comprised of a decentralized network of socially and environmentally sustainable local economies, as opposed to a global economy dominated by large multi-national corporations that are increasing wealth inequality, environmental destruction, and corporate mono-culture. When you buy organic fair trade coffee and indigenous crafts at the Black Cat and White Dog Cafe, you are not only supporting the people of Chiapas, but also helping to build a global economy based on community self-reliance, democracy and preservation of local character and culture.
The world struggle today is not the classic big government vs. big business, communism vs. capitalism, but rather small against large – local communities, small businesses and family farms vs. the centralized power of big business in collusion with federal government. What serves the common good is neither the dominance of nationalization nor privatization, but increased localization – control of the economy by local communities rather than by either big government or big business. The Zapatistas were perhaps the first to clearly voice the desire of people around the world for freedom, justice and democracy in the face of growing corporate control over the world’s natural and human resources, markets and cultures.
Philadelphians can build a “community of resistance” to corporate globalization in our region through localization: buying from local family farms (www.buylocalpa.org), buying locally produced renewable energy (www.cleanyourair.org), investing in local financial institutions such as The Reinvestment Fund (www.trfund.com), building energy-efficient “green” buildings (www.dvgbc.org), shopping at locally owned, independent, socially and environmentally conscious businesses (www.sbnphiladelphia.org, - online markeplace in development) and independent bookstores (www.booksense.com), connecting globally by buying fair trade coffee, chocolate and other imports which support local communities elsewhere (www.transfairusa.org/do/whereToBuy and www.fairtradefederation.org), reading and listening to independent media sources (www.phillyimc.org), and supporting local arts and culture (www.philaculture.org).
Localization is not only about decentralizing our economy, but also about decentralizing political power through citizen activism and organizing at the local level. What City and State policies could better protect and promote locally owned family farms and businesses challenged by corporate factory farms and unfair tax breaks for large corporations and big box stores? How can we best organize locally to send legislators to Washington that represent the interests of our communities over corporate interests, and truly serve the needs of all our citizens? Join the community of resistance! “Basta - we have had enough!”
