Their method of local organization is very similar to the Zapatistas, or more recently, Rojava - both also shift the focus of governance onto the local level, where it can be done by the community itself as much as possible.<p>The details of the system in Rojava are better documented - they have a written constitution, for starters, but there's also more media scrutiny because of the war, producing some very detailed write-ups. Both can be fascinating to read:<p><a href="https://corporatewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Struggles-for-autonomy-in-Kurdistan.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://corporatewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Strugg...</a><p><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/441234886/Social-Contract-of-the-Democratic-Federation-of-Northern-Syria" rel="nofollow">https://www.scribd.com/document/441234886/Social-Contract-of...</a>
The commentary here seems to miss a certain basic point about the situation with Cheran (and many other regions of Mexico, where I live, that are controlled by autodefensas groups and other types of local vigilante security groupings).<p>What the people of Cheran did is worthy of applause, because it brought some measure of peace in the middle of a desperate situation of insecurity, extreme violence and governments that at both the federal and state level are almost catastrophically corrupt on guaranteeing security.<p>However, for this very reason it's a sad thing to see. The single most basic debt to society that a government owes in return for paying taxes and agreeing to its rule is a monopoly on violence that's fair and sufficient enough to prevent rampant criminality, yet Mexico suffers from the latter so severely that large swathes of the country are firmly outside the government's supposed rule of law, and make small towns and regions have no choice but to take measures like these.<p>Who knows how sustainable this is, or its long term ramifications. What it definitely does do is further weaken that same government's capacity for reestablishing its main responsibility.<p>The government of Mexico of course knows this, and so do the state governments that supposedly have authority over places like Cheran. For this reason (and for reasons of extreme corruption) they not only resent vigilante efforts like these or any attempts by private citizen groups to defend themselves with weapons or by other means, but also often actively, violently try to impede them "legally" despite not being able to replace these localized security measures with a useful reformation of their own.<p>This is done under the pretext that non-state armed security groupings are dangerous to public safety, but curiously, the same efforts at curbing heavily armed groups outside the law seem to evaporate when it comes to curbing the power and rampant impunity of cartels that also control whole regions much more viciously.<p>One of the reasons why? Unlike the people of Cheran or many private citizen defense groups, these cartels are typically colluding with the same politicians that claim armed vigilante activity as dangerous. The cartels also have their own similar reasons for disliking armed civilians who tend to retake peace from corrupt gangsters and politicians.
Radical, indigenous, feminist, anti-colonial, self-organising. I think that's the real lesson, that almost all the problems were brought in from outside by exploiters and that the armed decolonization of the town was the real liberation.<p>It's not an ideal situation: you can't have a zero party state, that always turns into a one party state. The actual situation of control will turn out to be a set of family relationships embedded in the matriarchy running the town, but analysing this will be impossible for journalists. It's also why it's very difficult to replicate.
From my experience growing up in Russia, I can say that no organised crime can exist without somebody providing them legal cover.<p>Think this way: even a single caught gang member can spill the beans on the whole group. Eventually, as the gang grows, it happens.
This reminds me of "Cartel Land" movie¹, which depicted similar events (in the same Mexican state of Michoacán, BTW) a few years before, mostly around José Manuel Mireles Valverde².<p>¹ <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4126304/" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4126304/</a><p>² <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Mireles_Valverde" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Mireles_Valve...</a>
Expect to see this model spread in the years to come. It has a lot of potential, though I'm not sure it's easily adaptable to non-agrarian economies.