Jackson, The curse of interesting times

The curse of interesting times
by Eric Jackson

I'd be a big failure as a Confucian, and not just because I don't have any kids.

The Confucian philosophy emphasizes authority and order, and counts among its worst curses "May you live in interesting times."

But I have been raised in the gringo tradition that questions authority, and I have this visceral dislike for pompous assertions of authority --- which means that I don't really fit into Stalinist or militaristic or messianic movements either. Plus, I'm both a politics junkie (even have a degree in political science) and I'm a dual US-Panamanian citizen who thinks that both of my countries, each in its own way, needs to see some major changes to get out of some unacceptable situations. Thus I am attracted to interesting times.

But I must say there are terrors that come with the turf.

In the 2006 canal referendum, we got glimpses of the Torrijos regime flexing its totalitarian baby muscles --- journalists losing their jobs over their politics, media being taken over by the PRD and blacking out opposing points of view, a Panama Canal Authority flat-out lying about the contents of its own studies and blacklisting any reporter who pointed that out, the power going out at Hosanna TV's studio when Reverend Alvarez began to talk about conflicts of interests within the canal administration and board of directors, the massive illegal use of public funds for a one-sided propaganda campaign essentially in favor of the construction and banking industries, the government provoking and breaking a teachers' strike, young jerks coming by in daddy's boom car and blasting "cueco" epithets at my home at four in the morning.

Since then we have seen the police get into murdering union activists. We have witnessed flagrant PRD alliances with international organized crime, including with a notorious corporation that was at the center of a bid-rigging scheme that forced out a Brazilian president and Martín's (and Balbina's) campaign manager's partnership with a scofflaw Colombian developer who issued death threats via the front page of La Prensa. We have also watched the progressive remilitarization of Panama and the ever-closer union of church and state, recently symbolized by officers of the National Police being issued sabers, which were duly sprinkled with holy water by a Catholic priest.

We have also seen nearly 100,000 names either stricken from the voter rolls or under legal challenge, Electoral Tribunal moves to license pollsters and restrict political discourse on the Internet and rulings that have in effect ratified the use of public funds to promote Balbina Herrera's political fortunes. It's not just all the old Norieguistas currently occupying high government offices, it's as if we were in a time warp that has shifted the way that elections are done in Panama back 25 years.

There is no obvious way out, but there is also no calm public acceptance. That political patronage and embezzlement racket that goes under the guise of the Ministry of Education sneeringly refused to hire enough teachers for a school in the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca, and when the community refused to let those teachers the school did have go home until the ministry sent in replacements, the president sent in a commando squad instead --- and then the leaders of the Ngobe-Bugle General Congress issued a statement approving of the community's actions and calling for more of the same. Organized labor is restless. All across the country lands are being grabbed for strip mines, hydroelectric dams and tourist resorts and those who are being displaced are ever more disposed to resist their dispossession. There's a middle class tax revolt brewing, as the government lets it be known in dribs and drabs that the people who own property near the Cinta Costera boondoggle will be forced to pay for it through special tax assessments. There are more confrontations over urban public transportation and the configuration of our public health care system looming on the horizon.

Yep. Interesting times. Let us all hope that we survive them.

opinion