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Avnery, Iraq's fate
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Bernal, "We don't want you here"

"We don't want you here"

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

This past October 9 (a propitious date) in an interview with El Panama America, the rector of the University of Panama answered the question: “Why did you declare Professor Miguel Antonio Bernal 'non grata?'” by saying that “This was a decision of the University General Council. The resolution was submitted to a vote, 75 persons voted in favor and there was only one vote against. You're dealing with a moral sanction where the university says 'we don't want you here.'”

Upon reading this response I couldn't avoid remembering when on October 19 of 1976, upon returning from a trip to France, I was accosted by a G-2 agent of the then obscure Noriega and of the Torrijos dictatorship, and at the same time he confiscated my passport and took me first to an office at the old Tocumen Airport and later --- under arrest --- to the Pumas barracks, he told me that I would be expelled from the country because “we don't want you here.” I was exiled. At that time today's rector had been hand-picked in the militarily intervened university as dean of the humanities in 1970 and was then, from 1972, when the dictatorship was at its full apogee, the academic vice rector.

Years later, on October 10 of 1987, I was again forced to abandon my country. My active participation in the struggle against the dictatorship had put me in danger from the start: receiving multiple birdshot wounds in the face, being accused of having burned the Dante store, being run over by an automobile driven by someone from G-2 and having had my leg put in a cast, having my son who was then six years old threatened with death, having had the door to my apartment kicked in by G-2 and when they left, they let me know on behalf of General Noriega that “we don't want you here.” Also at that time, today's rector had been appointed --- hand-picked --- since 1983 as ambassador to Brazil, not without having first pass through the management of the Free Zone and the Lottery. All this, in the Noriega regime's full apogee.

I won't let pass the memory that, on December 19 of 1979, I was beaten and left for dead in front of the Don Bosco church. It was a way for those in power at the time to display their rage at me for the role that, as legal counsel for the teachers, I played during the two-month strike. While they beat me mercilessly, among the thousand indignities spat upon me by “Sangre” and his bullies, I recall something that they shouted at me: “Now you're going to understand that we don't want you here.” At that time, today's rector had been appointed in 1978 as minister of education to the hand-picked president and his resignation was a demand and an accomplishment of the Panamanian Educators Reclamation Movement and --- above all --- of the grand march of October 9, 1979.

When, in April of last year the “Discipline Committee of the Academic Council,” an habitual violator of due process, summoned me to the School of Dentistry to “investigate me” and thus justify my expulsion from the university, I was received --- upon appearing --- by a mob of university functionaries, for the most part well-known veterans of Noriega's Dignity Batallions. These, individuals, among other things, were shouting at me that “we don't want you here.”

Perhaps, then, the time has come to make it very clear to the rector and his footmen that I have no interest in whether they want me. My tongue is different than his and theirs --- it doesn't have shoe polish stains from the military boot that they licked early on and long for. Thus, “Mr.” rector, allow me to remind you:

You're a political schemer; I'm a decent academician.

You haven't wanted to investigate the falsification of diplomas to the bottom of it;I, for my part, filed the complaint about it with the Public Ministry.

You don't want to show your degrees; I have shown and do show mine.

You pay homage to and unveil busts of Pedrarias  Dávila; I repudiate genocides, of the past and present.

You manipulate, order, impose; I teach.

You pick and choose among multiple standards of justice, to persecute and threaten educators; I try to be more just every day.

You, like the majority of the rectors since the dictatorship, will leave --- even though you have put your name on all the university streets; I, like other educators, will remain.

You humiliate and like to deceive; I strive to be humble and not to leave people deceived.

You, Mr. rector, like to divide: the professors, the students, the administrators; I teach my students and my compatriots to multiply, to make dignity flourish.

You receive --- and are enchanted by --- embarrassing embraces; I receive sincere embraces.

You give sinecures, privileges, payments; I pay my taxes.

You like to be called “Rector Magnífico while cutting ribbons; I cut chains.

You accumulate wealth; I accumulate knowledge.

You have your expenses paid; I pay my expenses.

You were elected rector and want to be re-elected; I vote and don't believe in re-election.

Your lifetime has been dedicated to promoting, supporting, accepting and practicing authoritarianism; I've spent a lifetime fighting against it.

You believe in neither dialogue, nor in debate, nor in citizen participation; I preach dialogue, practice debate and believe in participatory democracy.

You, Mr. rector, have the university hijacked for your dark ends; I believe in the active citizens who want to rescue it from the hands of the impostors.

You, Mr. rector, along with your acolytes in the University General Council, just like other dictators of the past, tell me that “we don't want you here; and I say with all clarity “Here I am and here I will remain.”