Take Back the Kitchen: Lessons from the Zapatistas

By Peggy Rivage-Seul
From a presentation given for the Sustainable Berea Blitz Build of Raised Beds, sponsored by Union Church. Dr. Rivage-Seul graciously allowed us to reprint her remarks as we seek to discern “What Next, Union Church?!” and build a beloved community.
Take Back the Kitchen is a modest proposal for changing the world, blitz build by blitz build, one healthy meal at a time. This project invites us to develop a visionary resistance to the fast food economy and all its accoutrements, from genetically modified foods, to dangerous chemicals poured into our agricultural soils, to international trade policies condemning much of the Global South to economic servitude, especially to the USA.
And while this sounds like very bad news (and it is), it is also the case that the entire world is becoming aware of the dangers of the global food economy. Gatherings like this one today are happening literally all over the world, in the hope of changing our food paradigm.
Some of remember our Berea activism in the 80’s when we resisted US policy in Central America. We were especially committed to ending the U.S. funded civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. We worked as church communities through the Berea Interfaith Task Force for Peace, and met for monthly potlucks at Union Church. On our reading list was the book, The Hundredth Monkey. We took inspiration and hope from its core idea that social change does not require the entire population to mobilize, but rather just enough committed people to create the tipping point to another way of doing things. Change occurs when we transform our habits collectively. In the world of monkeys, when the 100th monkey joins the party, the culture has changed. We in Berea are like those monkeys, creating new habits of respecting the earth and our bodies. And one day- sooner than later we hope- we will reach that critical mass when the dominant paradigm of agro-chemical farming gives way to a vision and practice of stewardship towards life in all of its forms.
It seems to me, however, that we have no time to waste in creating this new world where there is room for everyone. My proposal in Take Back the Kitchen is that we need a new ethic to get there. The deeper project, beyond eating for health, is to reclaim dignity for all of creation—human communities, animal and plant kingdoms, the earth, the air, the fire and the water.
During my research on the book (Take Back the Kitchen), I traveled to women’s kitchens in the Global South. There I found inspiration for a new code of conduct that just may lead us through the food revolution. It comes from an indigenous political movement in Chiapas, Mexico, known as Zapatismo. Not unlike people in the United States who have moved off the grid, the Zapatista communities declared, “ Basta! “ (Enough!) to the Mexican government. They removed themselves from government services, refused social handouts of any kind, and enclosed themselves from politics and policies of Mexico. These indigenous groups have remodeled their communities to reflect a new value system that rejects the dominant world view of competition and ‘win lest you lose.’ Among Zapatistas, we find a revolutionary return to an earlier mode of living that respected women as equals to men, the importance of indigenous languages, and the vitality of traditional forms of agriculture and simple, mostly, vegetarian cuisine. So often, we in the Western “developed” world think of ourselves as more evolved than our “undeveloped” world counterparts. Instead, we discover in places like Chiapas, Mexico, signs of new social arrangements that provide inspiration and a way forward for rebalancing the world and ourselves.
There are seven ethical principles that guide Zapatista communities. I will mention just a few of them for today’s talk:
The first principle is Walk with the Slowest. Who are those among us who walk slowly? Of course, we know that children, the elderly and the infirm move about the slowest. And who walks with them? It is the women, the mothers and grandmothers. They are always watching from behind to make sure that everyone gets where they need to go. Nobody left behind under the watchful eyes of women. Zapatistas are committed to deliberating slowly and carefully before they take political action. When the engines of time slow down, more voices are heard, and consequently, more intelligent thought goes into community decisions.
A second principle is Command by Obeying. Some of us are familiar with this ethical principle because we understand the notion of servant leadership in our churches. In Zapatismo, it the will of the communities that prevails. The leader’s job is to help others organize themselves to better to plan initiatives and negotiate problems as they arise.
A third Zapatista principle is to Propose Not Impose. Everyone has ideas and the creativity to bring them to life. But nobody has the right to inflict their personal agendas without respect for the communities’ needs. Decisions among the Zapatistas are made collectively, accompanied by long deliberations that include everyone’s perspectives. The Zapatista motto is a “world where there is room for many worlds,” meaning that many perspectives and ideas are welcomed at the table.
A fourth principle is To Serve Others, Not to Serve Oneself. Another of the Zapatista mottos is: “ Everything for everyone. Nothing for ourselves.” This does not suggest self-sacrifice, but rather recognizes the importance of working collectively to accomplish a task. The highest values is working for the survival of all. Everyone has individual work to help the family unit, as well as “collective work” that benefits the community itself.
These are feminine habits of behavior. And that is because women are at the center of Zapatista politics. The first public pronouncement of the Zapatistas in 1994 was the Revolutionary Laws of Women. In these very traditional, patriarchal communities, women have returned to a place where they have dignity and live in partnership rather than subordination to men.
What if we adopted these principles: walking with the slowest, instead of running ahead of everyone to get what we want? What if we claimed our leadership as service to the wants and needs of our brothers and sisters instead of imposing our wills on others? What if we listened to each other, especially women whose voices are not often heard? What if we, like the Zapatistas, took the “I” out of our vocabulary and replaced it with “we?” That will mean finding our identities through the communities we call home.
For me, the Take Back the Kitchen project is about a new feminism that includes everyone. It cannot be gender specific because we need all hands on deck for the work ahead. Each of us is called to the table of social change. And the meeting places are the kitchen, the garden, the blitz build, and in our relationships with each other. It is time to work for everyone’s dignity, including the earth that supports us all. We have a world to change. We have a system of domination to dismantle. And we have each other to help move this revolution forward. Living by Zapatista principles will erode the foundations of our individualistic culture. The new world that we know is necessary will happen when we reclaim the strength that living in community provides us all.
Viva la revolucion! (Long live the revolution!)

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