Privatisation as Colonisation

After finishing my previous post on how some of Marcos’ fiction can be read as a comment on and challenge to the invasion of privatisation and branding, I wondered if I could back my ideas up with something already written on the Zapatistas.

I read a great book this week called Zapatistas! Documents of the new Mexican revolution, published by Autonomedia and with an introduction by Harry Cleaver, and found that he included in his introduction to the Zapatista documents some interesting thoughts on privatisation.

‘The colonisation of the whole of society by business and the state has generalised both the alienating constraints of capitalism and the antagonism to them—throughout the globe.’ Page 12

Cleaver alludes here to the capitalist colonisation of public space, of the state allowing for corporations to privatise, advertise and control in all areas, leading to both a branding of the society we live in but also an attempted branding of the mind. He explains that this has led to increasing dissatisfaction and anger wherever these systems are implemented, basically, throughout the globe. This ties in very well with Naomi Klein’s work on the invasion of privatisation (No Logo and Shock Doctrine), and goes someway to explaining one of the reasons the Zapatista movement has become such a symbol worldwide: Whilst the individual struggles and situations may differe from community to community, from country to country, increasingly people are facing the same invasion of corporate capitalism wherever they live.

As I indicate above I feel that this invasion executed by corporations and allowed by State Government is certainly another form of colonisation.

‘… In the South ‘development’ has been the accepted framework ever since the defeat of overt colonialism.’ Page 15

Cleaver suggests here that overt colonialism has given way to development, suggesting that they are intrinsically the same process. I support this fully and say that colonialism has simply been given a new name, communities are now colonised by corporations and capitalism the same way that they have been colonised by invading troops.