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Comment by hutzlibu | Hacker News Reader

And what happens if they don't find a consensus?

And it has been a while that I tried to find out more about them, but I mainly found it hard to get neutral sources at all. They are very closed up and you cannot just visit them. Or in some ways you can, but you won't get to see the inside structures. How they actually make decisions. At least that's what the people I read reported.

(But there is a study I just stumbled on, I will read later, maybe there is sonething more concrete inside:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073805931...)

All in all it sounds more like tribalism. A indigenous culture that is trying to survive with some autonomy in a world of nation states.

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>And what happens if they don't find a consensus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zapatista_Autonomous_Mun...

They strive to reach consensus, if they cannot find it they make decisions through majority and they are federation composed of popular assemblies of around 300 families each.

Zapatistas are indigenous Americans whose culture was almost completely destroyed, but calling them tribalist is unfair I would say, given that e.g they promote sexual equality.

What has tribalism got to do with sexual equality?

Tribalism is a vague term, that describes societies that live in tribe like structures. Modern or ancient. But does not say much about how that tribe is structured.

Also about consensus: I think allmost all states and societies claim they try to find a consensus.

According to Wikipedia: "With a negative connotation and in a political context, tribalism can also mean discriminatory behavior or attitudes towards out-groups, based on in-group loyalty." I would describe their organization as federation of general assemblies, not tribalism.

Well, I did not use tribalism with a negative connotation.

And as far as I understand, their "assemblies" are pretty much reserved to members of their ethnicity/tribe. Thats why it is more tribalist to me, than anarchist, which is usually rather internationalist.

They seem to have closed borders which is not typically considered anarchists indeed. About assemblies - that's fine, anarchists postulate freedom of association so you don't have to let random people from outside inside your structures, still they seem to be some inspiration to the rest of residents of Chiapas and in practice there is nothing that could stop them from fighting for their self-determination too.

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