Yesterday, the P’urhépecha municipality of Cherán, Michoacán, celebrated 14 years of autonomy. It began on April 15, 2011, when a group of women blocked cartel-linked illegal loggers from removing trees from the community. This act sparked a mass uprising that saw the community reclaim its territory, establishing barricades, 179 permanent bonfires, a form of autonomous government rooted in P’urhépecha forms of communal organization, and expelling the cartels, police, and political parties.
If you want to know more about Cherán, might I suggest "The Bonfires of Autonomy," a piece I wrote for the anthology edited by @cbmilstein, "Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy:" akpress.org/deciding-for-ourse…
desinformemonos.org/celebra-ch…
#Mexico #Michoacán #Indigenous #autonomy

This anthology explores this “sense of freedom in the air,” as one piece puts it, by looking at contemporary examples of autonomous, directly democratic spaces and the real-world dilemmas they experience, all the while underscoring the egalitarian…
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