On August 12, law professor, journalist and all-around gadfly Miguel Antonio Bernal spoke at the weekly TunAstral literary cafe. (The series, which features a wide range of writers and Panama's other creative people is held at 7 p.m. every Monday upstairs at ExcedraBooks.) Though Bernal's work includes, in addition to his daily "Alternativa" radio show, his Friday column in El Panama America and newspaper articles he publishes in France and elsewhere, several books on Panamanian constitutional law, this was not a book reading like so many of the TunAstral events are. Instead, Bernal talked about the twists and turns of his writing career, and about the subjects that seem most important to him as a citizen activist.

Noting that he first began to write and publish essays as a student, Bernal called his first exile under the former dictatorship, beginning in 1976, "my first really fruitful writing period." He was in Mexico City then, and through friends hooked up with El Sol de Mexico, for which he started out for about $4 per article.

Soon he was in charge of the international page, and in those times one of the big editing issues he had to face was how to describe Chile's strongman at the time, General Augusto Pinochet. The wire services and most of the Mexican dailies would describe the general as "presidente," "mandatario," or even "estadista," but Bernal would have none of that. Pinochet was not the president, had no mandate and didn't qualify as a statesman as far as Bernal was concerned, so El Sol took to describing him as Chile's "dictator."

The exile ended, and Bernal returned to Panama in time for the Shah of Iran's brief exile here. While he was protesting in front of the El Carmen church against the tyrant who had been imposed by a 1953 CIA coup and deposed in favor of another sort of tyranny, the guardia beat Bernal within an inch of his life. But not long after he was out of the hospital, he began to write for La Prensa. It wasn't too long before the soldiers came and shut La Prensa down, and when it reopened after the 1989 US invasion Bernal renewed his columnist work with another paper that was revived with Noriega's overthrow, El Panama America.

Bernal complained that Panama is not a country of serious readers, noting that it's vitrually impossible to make a living here by writing books. However, he noted, "complaint is a branch of literature" that thrives in Panama, despite the fear that keeps a lot of good writers away. Thus there is the phenomenon, also noted at The Panama News, in which people come asking for a column or expose about this or that subject.

Also a professor at the University of Panama's law school, Bernal noted a problem getting students to read. "They don't have the habit, and this gets in the way of their studies," he lamented. Nevertheless, he said that "the classroom is the place where I do my best production."

Bernal's teaching at the University of Panama was disrupted by his second exile, during the decline and fall of the Noriega regime. He was able to teach in the United States during that time, however.

After his main presentation Bernal fielded a wide variety of questions from the 60 or so people in attendance, starting with a query about why he doesn't write about love and relationships between men and women. Noting that the Old Testament's book of Ecclesiastes says there's a time for everything, he left that possibility open.

A law student's question elicited Bernal's opinion of Panama's social system and why it harms the country's intellectual climate. In the litany were the monopolistic domination of the publishing media by a few interests, a ruling elite that brings criminal charges when annoyed by journalists, a national malaise of low self-esteem and perceived helplessness and the fact that many of Panama's best thinkers won't even consider teaching. Most of all, he said, Panamanians "need to have principles, not just interests.

The questions got into Bernal's political forays, as a mayoral candidate, presidential advisor and go-between in talks to end a professors' strike. He blasted the Electoral Tribunal for prejudice against independent candidates. He expressed more or less equal disdain for the Perez Balladares and Moscoso administrations' performances in office, and noted that the recent concessions to the port operators will cost the country several times the amount of money needed to fix the national education system. "The parties must not have a monopoly on political discourse," Bernal concluded, adding that a choice between the PRD and the Arnulfistas in 2004 would be unacceptable to him.

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