That sentence implies that, in "two years in Africa," you didn't find much that wasn't "shitty" in Africa either. Where were you (big continent, that), and, again, what for? Business or pleasure?
By shitty I mean by everyday "normal" standards. I actually love Africa and would live there full time if I could, despite it being "shitty" in the "standard" regards. All of this is business.
How did you arrive at "the consensus of non-african panamanians" that African-Panamanians "just like to riot every now and then to get free stuff"? Do you hang out with enough non-African Panamanians to constitute a reliable poll? Or is it that you just hang out with the non-African Panamanians who are racists?
That is why I passed no personal opinion. If you want I won't report things that don't jive with the "latin americans are all brothers" line that idealist leftists believe. Just most of the Panamanians I know, all of whom are hispanic, tend to express such sentiments. To the extent they are racists you are probably right although it's more "benign" i.e. they don't express outward hostility, but rather have just been socialized that way. I don't idolize third world countries as being pure. In fact, I find them to be more racist than the US. Hell, I remember posting here two years ago that Panamanians litter a lot, and a bunch of gringos on this board got all upset about it even though anyone who had ever been here agreed.
What were you in Panama for, business or pleasure?
Business, although I always spend lots of time walking around, travelling, etc. even when the purpose is business. In this case I needed two night for business but am staying five nights anyway.
While your path through Panama seems to have been pleasant (clean streets, nice cops), do you have any information on what life is like for the poorest Panamanians?
Sure. It depends. Life in the slums of colon, where this rioting happened, is pretty crappy. The natives from the up-country, while poor, seem to live a better life. In panama city there are bad slums, but also a rising middle class.
In particular, African-origin Latin Americans--like Indigenous-origin Latin Americans--often suffer long-standing (centuries) of extreme racial prejudice, exclusion from politics, government and power, land deprivation all along in their history resulting in lack of accumulated wealth now and often extreme poverty, lack of education, lack of police protection, police brutality, lack of government services, lack of access to credit, exploitative practices by business and government, and crowding into poverty zones as a pool of cheap, unprotected labor.
Yup, except for the crowding by business.
Is this true of the people of Colon?
Yup. They were brought by the canal and then existed to serve the US canal administration, as far as I know.
Do you share what you say is the "consensus" of non-African Panamanians, that the people who are protesting this land sale are just lazy, shiftless moochers who like to riot and steal stuff? And if you do, how well do you know the people involved in these protests and the people of Colon generally?
I generally don't share it. I am with you by and large, although I would also assume that like in the US there are a certain elite among the community who actually benefit from the unrest by controlling the resulting aid money and such.
"...the onlything Colon has going for it now is the trade zone...". Why?
Colon was originally a French city, back when the French tried to first build the canal. The US came in and kicked everyone out of the canal zone which included colon, but not panama city. The african-panamanians of colon are descendants of slaves or near slaves. After dying by the thousands they were mostly dumped off and forgotten after the Canal was done. They did pretty well under the expanded US military occupation after world war two as they were the local labor, being in the canal zone. Before the US left, Colon was nicer than Panama City (or so I am told). Since the US left it is just vast unemployment.
In Jamaica, first the IMF/World Bank imposed onerous and ruinous "free trade" terms for loans, signed by corrupt "neo-liberal" politicians, then U.S. Big Ag dumped cheap produce on the Jamaican market, for instance, cheap powdered milk which drove local dairy farmers, with generations of experience and successful production and distribution of fresh milk, out of business--a scenario that was repeated over and over again, on other ag products and in other sectors. The upshot was a lot of unemployed people (also, as one local business after another was crushed, loss of generations of knowledge and experience in farming and other skills). Then they created a "free trade zone" at the port, where items were manufactured on the spot and immediately loaded in tankers for shipment elsewhere. This "free trade zone" was free of Jamaican labor protections and labor laws. It was outside the jurisdiction of the Jamaican government, and, while the Jamaican government can hardly be said to have been representing the interests of the Jamaican people to that point, the "free trade zone" excluded even the remote possibility that the Jamaican people, and especially poor workers in the "free trade zone," could, by democratic means, influence their government to improve labor conditions or anything else.
As far as I know, that is not the case here at all, but, again, as far as I know.
So, first, these transglobal exploiters and looters create a slave labor pool--a large pool of poor and desperate workers who have few or no choices as to employment--then they create a manufacturing center outside the jurisdiction of labor laws, and proceed to enslave these poor workers with shitty wages, no benefits, unsafe conditions and overwork. Disposable workers.
Yeah, I just don't think that is really the case here. There wasn't any production going on or anything before the free trade zone.
Is THIS why Colon has "only one thing going for it"--the "trade zone"? Has Colon been pre-engineered to be that way--crowded with poor people--a slave labor pool--who have few or no choices, but maybe they can get work as maids or janitors at the posh hotels that Panama's very corrupt, rightwing government is conniving to build?
No, I don't think so. It was as described. The panamanian elite don't care about Colon one way or the other, all of the action is in panama city.
Based on your previous posts, I don't expect anything but a rightwing, "free trade for the rich" answer, alas--such as, say, the people of Jamaica should be grateful for cheap, powdered milk and for any jobs at all, even unprotected jobs in a "free trade zone," and, say, that the African-Panamanians also should be grateful that anyone wants to build hotels near them, on land stolen from their community. That's what I expect, given your previous posts and this one. Surprise me.
Of course I have never posted any such thing, but for people like you everything is black and white, so that if I don't think Chavez is perfect I therefore must hold the above views.
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