A anthropologist reminds us of our dark deeds in Panama 27 years ago

[Judi Lynn]

Editor of the Fabius Maximus website Politics 31 May 2017

Summary: The 2016 election overflowed with self-congratulatory speeches about American exceptionalism (the world is lucky to have us). Here Maximilian Forte, professor of anthropology, applies facts about history to treat these delusions. We should listen to him. A clearer perspective on ourselves would make America a stronger nation. Remembering 1989 Panama can make us less gullible to today’s propaganda.

“In Memory of Manuel Noriega, Looking Back after 27 Years“

By Maximilian C. Forte,
at Zero Anthropology, 30 May 2017.
Reposted with his generous permission.

With the passing of Manuel Noriega, I looked back 27 years to something I wrote for Excalibur, the York University newspaper. I was surprised to see how much I still agree with that article, but disappointed that I no longer share with my younger self the optimistic sentiments expressed at the end of the piece. Originally the article below was published under the title (not of my choosing), “The present regime is an illegitimate one” in Excalibur, 11 January 1990. Also in connection with this, see my Encircling Empire: Report #25 — Remembering Panama from 2015, and if you have access, the special issue on Panama in “NACLA Report on the Americas“, July 1988, which was referenced in the article below.



I must also acknowledge what I learned from Gregorio Selser, who visited York not long before his death, and Liisa North, a political scientist at York {now professor emerita} and former teacher. A slightly edited version of my Excalibur article appears below, with a few links added (there was no Internet at the time it was written, which was on a typewriter).

“{It} becomes extremely difficult to understand how a country whose hallmark has been not to be colonialist insists on maintaining a colony in the very heart of my country. Surely for that people this must be a shame, since they were a colony and they knew how degrading it was to be so”.

— General Omar Torrijos, at the UN Security Council meeting held in Panama on 15-23 March 1973.

More:
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2017/05/31/maximilian-forte-looks-at-us-invasion-of-panama/

Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016186308