There comes a
time.
In ancient
Egypt, there came a time. A new dynasty came to power and
leaned as hard as it could on the people, with the Pharaoh
canceling all prior concessions to the slaves, requiring them
not only to make more bricks, but to provide the straw to make
them. God decided to take vengeance, and the righteous slaves
shut themselves in their homes, painted lamb’s blood above
their doors and escaped the divine retribution meted out to the
scabs.
In modern
Detroit, there came a time. A white power structure ruling over
a largely black city became ever more abusive, until in the
summer of 1967 the police raided a party for a soldier just
returned from Vietnam, white cops threw threw a black man down
a flight of stairs and the city erupted. Detroit’s black
business owners painted “Soul Brother” on the fronts
of their stores and offices, shut their doors until after the
fury had subsided, and then began to build a new political
reality out of the ashes.
Similar things
have happened in many other times and places. Like when
European powers put a succession of worthless puppets on the
Spanish throne and expected Latin Americans to honor these men
as their sovereign rulers. Like when the politicians in Bogota
ravaged Panama with 1,000 days of war, then vetoed this
country’s hopes for an interoceanic canal, and expected
Panamanians to act like loyal Colombians. Like when Richard
Nixon shook down the rich, treated critics as criminals, built
an elaborate superstructure of lies and expected the courts and
the congress to support him when the truth came out. Like when
Manuel Antonio Noriega declared his personal interests to be
Panama’s and expected the Panamanian people to back him
when he got into a fight with someone stronger than he was.
And now Mireya
Moscoso, like the Pharaoh, like Detroit’s doomed white
power structure, like the monarchs of the post-Napoleonic
restoration, like the Colombian politicians who voted down the
Panama Canal, like Richard Nixon, like Manuel Antonio Noriega,
has gone way beyond the pale of what’s tolerable.
After four
years of dismantling institutional checks against bribery and
corruption, she has finally rigged the Supreme Court so that
two alternate magistrates, voting on a case arising from
allegations that the process by which they were ratified in
their jobs was tainted by bribery, cast the deciding votes for
a decision that effectively banned all investigations or
prosecutions of corruption involving legislators.
After four
years of shopping binges all around the world, putting an
entourage of extended families on the public payroll, wanton
excesses in the face of an economically depressed and hungry
nation, mismanagement of the public trust and running up the
national debt, the president is now raiding the Social Security
cash reserves for one last election year spending spree.
Dr. Juan
Jované, and then the labor movement, were the ones to at
long last blow the whistle on Mireya. Now she, her discredited
and dwindling band of followers, and unfortunately some
opponents who hope to supplant her as beneficiaries of all the
abuses, have been busy vilifying Jované, the unions and
the rest of her critics.
Not one of the
serious allegations that the Mireyistas have made has stuck.
They have produced no proof that Seguro Social diverted
medicines to Colombian guerrillas. They have produced no proof
that student militants tried to burn down the University of
Panama’s chemistry building in order to release a toxic
cloud over the capital. They have produced no proof that Cuba
is behind the protests. They haven’t even shown that
Jované was an inefficient administrator ---
Mireya’s Social Security budget features much higher
spending and a much bigger deficit than his proposal did.
That’s all
beside the point anyway. The issue isn’t Mireya’s
critics, it’s Mireya. You need not agree with SUNTRACS or
the Caritas Catholic social ministry or the other groups that
have taken to the streets against Mireya’s abuses to know
that now is the time to act. If we don’t act, her lame
duck administration’s abuses will only get worse.
The unions have
called for a nationwide general strike on October 30. Those
business owners who fundamentally disagree with organized labor
about economics and politics, but who know that this country
can’t go any farther down the road to ruin on which Mireya
is driving us, should make common cause with labor on that day
and argue about philosophy and policy at a more appropriate
time. This is a strike in which everybody who has a sense of
justice should participate.
Sure, there are
a few operations that for practical and humanitarian reasons
shouldn’t shut down. Bomberos should respond to alarms,
and emergency rooms should keep their doors open. We
shouldn’t leave tourists coming here to celebrate the
centennial stranded and without shelter.
But with only a
few exceptions, we should all tell Mireya that enough’s
enough by avoiding business as usual on the 30th. The time has
come for all Panamanians to stand up for common human
decency.
Foreigners
living or doing business here are in a difficult position
because it's unseemly and in some cases illegal for non-
citizens to become involved in Panamanian politics. However,
the sword is double-edged and foreigners should carefully avoid
any action that might be seen as lending support to the
thuggish Mireyista regime.
Because October
30 is a payday and two days before the November 1-4 holiday
weekend, in many cases the best thing for civic-minded
employers to do would be to pay their workers early and take
off for six days at the beach.
Just stay home
on October 30. Don’t send the children to school. Avoid
traffic jams by driving as little as possible.
Finally but very importantly, let's keep
civil society's protest against an abusive government civil. If
you feel obliged to go out on the streets to express your
displeasure with the government, do so peacefully.
