Do you think that American society is divided these days?
You know it is.
My Muslim friends in the states don’t get so many threatening or harassing phone calls as they did two or three years ago, but they tell me the situation is still pretty bad.
It’s not just Muslims, either. An obnoxious minority of Americans has declared open season on all foreigners, and native-born American ethnic minorities as well. True, the “you foreigners have to adjust and be like me” email chain letters don’t go around as much as they used to --- at the moment many of the people who disseminate such stuff are too busy spreading malicious libels about John Kerry’s military record. But to foreigners visiting the United States, the xenophobia that this element of society exudes is palpable.
Plus, it’s harder for a foreigner to visit the United States in the first place. Osama’s boys want to get in and kill again, and American consulates around the world are taking extra care that they don’t. It’s an absolutely reasonable response, but to someone who wants to get a tourist visa, it’s an added expense and a royal pain.
Also, US-based media corporations dominate the world news business, unavoidably making America the center of world attention. So almost every foreigner thinking about traveling to the United States knows that, on the basis of no evidence at all, she or he might end up on some terror suspect list. It might mean not being allowed to board an American domestic flight. Or it could mean being held indefinitely in a cage, with no criminal charges and no recourse to the law, incommunicado and subject to prolonged interrogation under torture. And even if those things are relatively unlikely in the statistical scheme of things, an unpleasant encounter with the INS upon arrival in the United States is not.
So what does this have to do with Panama, and the travel page of The Panama News?
Thanks to the combined efforts of George W. Bush and his team and Osama bin Laden and his team, wealthy Latin Americans are increasingly avoiding shopping trips to Miami or New York. To meet the demand for flights that don’t touch down in the United States, Iberia and other European airlines are expanding direct services between the Old World and the Latin America.
And Panama is becoming the shopping destination of choice for Colombians who used to go to Miami.
So much of the new commercial development here makes no sense in terms of Panama’s domestic economy. But hang around Multicentro, listening to the voices and noting the way people dress and style their hair. The place is swarming with Colombians.
Or go to a boxing match at the Figali Convention Center, and notice the large Colombian contingent in the crowd.
Or step just a bit downscale and walk around Plaza Concordia, on Via España in the banking district, and see who’s doing business there, offering which goods and services to which clientele. The most common businesses are about making phone calls or wiring money to people in the countries of Central America and northern South America.
Or read the Panamanian daily newspapers, and notice the special pages dedicated to Colombia.
Or notice who’s developing most of the new resorts that are popping up on Panama’s beaches --- they’re multinationals based in Latin America or Spain. Most prominent among them is Colombia’s Decameron.
Or consider the growth of COPA airlines, and notice their international advertising campaign plugging Panama as the air transportation hub of the Americas.
All of these are indicia of Panama’s challenge to Miami’s status as the economic capital and preferred shopping destination of the Americas. We haven’t yet dethroned the champ, but the momentum is in our direction.
This trend carries with it both opportunities and irritations.
If many Americans who are not and never were motivated by hatred still feel uneasy with Muslims around because of the actions of a splinter group that is to Islam what the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity, here in Panama the increased Colombian presence is also of concern to many people who are neither bigots or xenophobes. Panama has a long history with Colombia, which is why a century ago this country decided to go its separate way.
Although the great majority of Colombians come here to enjoy our attractions, do business and get a respite from the madness that grips their native land, a few of them bring gangster tendencies with them to Panama. And thus some of our very worst politicians are on the one hand very eager to take money from Colombians, but on the other stirring up ugly xenophobic passions among the Panamanian people.
That’s why, for example, in the Mireyista “hard hand” against crime, for every vicious criminal who has been arrested dozens of Colombian and Dominican prostitutes, and more dozens of humble working men and women from Central America, South America and China, have been caught in the roundup.
If American society has scum who harass their Muslim neighbors and despicable politicians who pander to such hatred, we Panamanians have our own mirror images of the same sorts of people.
Here, however, most people understand how important it is to show our foreign visitors common courtesy and a good time. It’s absolutely vital to the Panamanian economy and you hear that mostly not in pronouncements by economists but from young working men and women who are so eager to practice their English with Americans.
The situation is dynamic and Panama is going to have to find its equilibrium, sorting out the honored guests and welcome immigrants from the undesirable aliens. We're The Crossroads of the World, and the world is in flux. Of course we're changing. We have to.
And so will Miami, because we’re taking away their business.
