opinion

The reflection on ethics that the Honduran Cardinal Rodríguez Madariaga brought to an audience that packed FETV's central studio came at an opportune moment for us to take stock of the nation's political life. Essentially, his talk was a clarion call for the necessity to improve politics by reviving the idea of human decency. I have to congratulate the event's organizers, both for their ability to summon a crowd and for the quality of the orator who, for a little over an hour, knew how to maintain the attention of his audience at the same time that he thrashed out --- with brilliant clarity --- understandings, statements, facts, arguments and reasons that we are seldom used to hearing among ourselves, especially from our politicians, in such a brief time.

At a time when Panama finds itself with a degraded political leadership, one without fixed loyalties, which idolizes the least human aspect within itself, which is capable of thinking and believing that everything is negotiable, which forgets on purpose that "man is free because he isn't an animal," Rodríguez Madariaga reminded us that freedom exists to aspire to the best, to aim toward the good, to try to seek out and achieve all that's grand, noble and beautiful there is in human life.

In my opinion, the statements of the Honduran cardinal remind us that we live in a society that's institutionally devalued, in permanent instability which constantly manifests itself in diverse ways. This is shown not only by how we have abandoned our civic duty to safeguard our fundamental rights, but also by how we haven't been able to get up to date with humanity's accomplishments in the field of modern social rights, how we have opted for appearances and double standards, and how we have forgotten how to tell the truth about how we haven't accomplished the really important political changes.

He was very precise in reminding us that political problems demand political solutions. But not improvised politics in which ethics and values are lacking, full of appearances, boasting the "solution" of personal ambitions, destined to assault the public coffers, to institutionalize corruption, to put individuals in their places rather than to have active citizens.

In a society like ours, in which authoritarianism and corruption walked hand- in-hand with their consequences, to the point of reaching their maximum expression during the 21 years of the military dictatorship's repression and impunity, the "x-rays" of the values that contain ethics and politics constantly show up as a reminder to all of society, but especially to Rodríguez Madariaga's principal audience, the local politicians. This is so because we all witness the sad spectacle, which is now very hard to watch, wherein the pretense of respect for the Constitution and laws is unsuccessfully passed off as a simple formalistic euphemism to trample upon and diminish the supremacy of the Law of the Land. It's the same with the repeated and almost ritual allusion to respect for the principles of democracy, when we can all rest assured of the weight of the ruling faction's influence in all of the acts of state institutions.

I go back to recall Ferdinand La Salle, who more than a century and a half ago taught us that "Pseudoconstitutionalism isn't a victory for the people, but on the contrary, a triumph of absolutism, with which it is able to maintain its regime for the longest possible time. Pseudoconstitutionalism consists of the government proclaiming that which isn't; consists of passing off as constitutional a state that is, in reality, an absolutist state; consists of a deception and a lie."

For those who have always believed in and acted as if the search for truth is a passion for liberty and its consequences, without forgetting that the essence of truth lies not in its utility, it was pleasing to hear the distinguished speaker insist that to be human is to love truth and liberty. Don't lie and don't back down on me, Jorge Manrique told us. But how many of our politicians have Manrique not only in their studies, but also in their set of values? The cardinal's emphasis on how the lack of organized and committed civic action has brought us ever more costly defeats for the fundamental rights and freedoms inherent in a modern society under the Rule of Law --- a truly constitutional state --- and thus that "you see a lack of confidence in the forms and practices of democracy reinforced, and the inclination toward the search for some kind of definitive solution of an authoritarian type," was also instructive.

Rodríguez Madariaga left many things clear, but above all, he reminded those of us present that changes are necessary and that people are looking for changes. I hope that his words didn't fall on deaf ears for some of those in attendance.


Miguel Antonio Bernal (mabernal@sinfo.net) is a law professor at the University of Panama and the host of the Alternativa radio show, to which you can listen over the Internet through the website of Radio La Exitosa.


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Cordova & Vance, Caribbean regional integration
Abd'Al-Malik, Owning up to a colonial legacy
Jackson, Panama City mayoral race

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