Authority 19

We need a strategy of happiness, not of sacrifice. The left must visibly, clearly embody this strategy of happiness (…). You have to get away from the Spartan, life-averse attitude. I am very poor but I feel very rich. It’s not about destruction, it’s about overcoming what currently exists.

From a letter to Lutz Taufer. Quoted in Taufer (2017): Über Grenzen. Vom Untergrund in die Favela. Berlin & Hamburg: Assoziation A, p. 178. The year (1988) is an approximation.

Luis Rosadilla (b. 1953) was a guerrilla eith the Tupamaro in Uruguay during the military junta (1973-1985), and Minister of Defence under Pepe Mujica, who was also an ex-guerrilla.

Questioning power also means thinking about alternatives. Creating something new is often more difficult than criticising what already exists. But in spite of difficult circumstances, people have always tried to make societies free, equal and just. And yet some alternatives were just as violent as the social models they aspired to overcome. Many people have also died in the attempt to create a new social order. However, there are always experiments that inspire hope with their ideas of transforming systems of rule that have existed for centuries. This doesn't always happen on a large scale, and often takes place through small projects. It can also involve whole regions; for example, the state of Chiapas in Mexico where the autonomous, democratic grassroots Zapatist@s live by the motto: ‘We advance by asking questions.’ The US historian Howard Zinn (2004) said: ‘To be hopeful (...) is by no means only foolishly romantic!’

*John Holloway (2005): The Concept of Power and the Zapatistas. *Howard Zinn (2004): The Optimism of Uncertainty.

1988