Ya Basta!

Also expressed as “Basta Ya!” both phrases mean “enough is enough” or “enough already.” Ya Basta! are watchwords of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), the Zapatista army of national liberation, based in Chiapas, Mexico. From the start of 1994, when conflict in Chiapas became a media event, groups by this name have proliferated worldwide, in Italy, Spain, the United States, United Kingdom, and also virtually on the Internet. The Ya Basta! website was started in March 1994 by Justin Paulson, with the intention of promoting reliable information on Zapatismo and the Chiapas rebellion. From 1996, Paulson, who was a college student when he started the Ya Basta! website, was given EZLN permission to use the http://ezln.org address.

In Seattle in 1999, the Zapatista-inspired Black Bloc already had a strong presence. Prior to that, Associazioni Ya Basta! were formed in Italy, after the summer 1996 international solidarity movement encounters in Chiapas. Ya Basta! became something like a global movement when groups also operated in New York, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Italian Ya Basta! called for a basic income, for global citizenship and the free cross-border movement that that would imply, and for free access to new technology (they were critical of patenting rights). Ya Basta! Italy organized campsites at border crossings, on both the Polish-German and Ukrainian borders, as well as in Spain and Italy, where activists dressed up as border guards, built bridges across rivers, and blockaded airports to protest the deportation of failed asylum seekers. With the “white overalls”—tutti bianchi in Italian—Ya Basta! emphasizes the peaceful nature of protest. Black masks worn Zapatista style across the nose and white padded clothing serve as self-defense and symbolize the invisibility of oppressed people everywhere. Ironic practices are dominant, as when a classical orchestra plays on a Frankfurt airport runway blocking flights, reminding us subliminally of music in the death camps. Or padded protestors may hold placards reading “War is good for business,” “Trust the government,” “Bomb poor people.”

In Italy, Ya Basta! groups have also demanded the closure of immigrant detention centers, blockaded stock exchanges, protested in parliament, and used media and television to get their point of view across. In 2005, a U.K. Ya Basta! group was created to prepare for Gleneagles G8. This network of cultural activities and action forms part of the global Ya Basta! movement, which crosses borders. Ya Basta! takes many different forms and its members have been accused of being reformist; it is also the name of a French ska punk protest band. Ya Basta! members everywhere see their actions as part of a wider struggle against neoliberalism, in whose name a fourth world war is waged. Ya Basta! is part of the global refusal to agree to this war; it manifests itself in rebellious movements, in bands, in magazines, in Internet websites, all with the [Page 1502]same name. Ya Basta! is not a thing, it is the rallying cry of networks and relationships whose significance is slippery, volatile, and hard to pin down but also alive, concrete, permanent, and ineradicable. Ya Basta! is thus quite typical of the global social justice and solidarity movement of which it forms an integral part and expression.

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