opinion

The powers that be
in Wonderland
by Héctor Endara Hill

On September 1, as happens every year, the deputies of the National Assembly of Panama put on a gala of the worst variety: a parade of the economic, political and religious powers. This gathering and framework of interests represents those who constitutionally exercise authority. We known them by their fortunes and their mania to seek happiness in the accumulation and concentration of assets and wealth. A society sick of subservience that dominates the stomach and the mind calls them authorities.

Cynicism, corruption and demagoguery excel in the parliamentary chamber. The perversion of values has created a sad parody --- more properly a tragedy --- of God's blessing for the people of Panama. As in Alice In Wonderland, in the wee hours machinations of the assembly, all are obliged to enjoy a country of "orange marmalade" and "white rabbits."

In the assembly's offices, hallways and chambers, the wastrels in coats, pants, shirts, dresses and designer underwear try to hide and cover with perfumes --- also designer brands --- the stench of death given off by an exercise of power characterized by an eagerness for lucre and easy profits, the foundation and explanation for such misery, impoverishment and social injustice as afflict the majority of people in this nation.

Sitting in the seats of honor, representatives of the executive, judicial and legislative powers are blessed, embraced, anointed and spiritually protected by religious power. Lies and fawning, like sloth, ought to be capital sins. For the act of September 1 all would be condemned, including their spiritual exorcist. Imagine, asking us to honor our scourges with the pseudonym "fathers of the country."

Now we know that lies and fawning can't be catalogued as sins because they're part of the appropriate etiquette for misgoverment and machinations. The powers of "Patria Nueva" --- and the "vieja" as well --- live in another dimension of capital sins: luxury, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy and arrogance are the real menu for their feast after the theatrics. They're the same capital sins that people vicariously "enjoy."

When will subservience and fatalism be declared capital sins? Or cowardice? To submissively and fatalistically accept the machinations of whatever government also ought to be declared a capital sin --- so long as this goes on, we'll continue to have our necks broken without the power to shake off the yoke of the powers that be --- dead from fear of living with dignity.

One by one, sanctified by the representative of divine power present in the chamber, the representatives of power paraded down the runway of corruption. It was as if they were something to be admired: hard faces, poses of serious people, putting on a determined effort at the art of dissimulation and, above all, the capacity to stifle the sacred yawn provoked by exhaustion and tedium of such lies and such worthless meetings.