‘Memory of What Is to Come’: Zapatista Memorial Strategies for International Activism

In International Relations, the ‘mnemonic turn’ has primarily centred on national memories and the challenges they pose in building international communities. As a result, international cooperation is often seen as requiring the suppression of conflicting memories, with forgetting viewed as a solution. However, this article offers a different perspective by examining how a memory as complex and contentious as colonisation can be strategically framed for internationalist purposes. Focusing on the Zapatista Journey for Life in 2021, I explore how the Zapatista Army of National Liberation strategically utilised their traumatic memory to promote internationalism with European activists. The article is organised into three sections. Firstly, I will examine how, since 1994, the Zapatistas have framed their revolution as a battle for memory and history against the oblivion brought about by neoliberalism, drawing parallels between their struggle and those of similar movements abroad. Secondly, I will analyse how the Zapatistas contrasted their memorial strategy, which sought internationalism, with that developed by Mexican President López Obrador, particularly in relation to his demands for apologies from Spain and the Vatican. Lastly, I will investigate how the EZLN framed the Journey for Life as a colonial expedition to Europe, intending to heal the traumatic memory of the past by re-enacting it in an inverted form.