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

Deciding For Ourselves

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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