Panama Finally Gets Its 360, 240 Acres and a Mule
By Ian Cooper
Post-colonial housekeeping is an awkward business, especially for a country that pretends to never have been a colonial power.
It is no wonder, than, that the President, Vice President and Secretary of State had other matters – very important, no doubt – to attend to on Tuesday rather than show up to hand over the Panama Canal. Only Jimmy Carter was in attendance. A Panamanian official was quoted by the New York Times as saying, “Madeleine Albright is the Bruce Springsteen of foreign affairs. It looks like we’re ending up with Barry Manilow.”
One theory goes that Al Gore stayed away – losing an opportunity to look presidential and say a few snappy phrases in Spanish – because he is worried about a “Who Lost Panama?” backlash in next year’s election. This seems pretty unlikely, even though there are a few dinosaurs in the Senate still grumbling about it, twenty years after the treaty was signed. (Imagine the big issue in the next British election: “Who lost Suez?”) My own theory: the unequal relationship which persisted so long between the two countries is sort of – well, embarrassing.
Of course, there is nothing embarrassing about the canal itself, which is one of the greatest feats of engineering in human history. What is awkward is that it is a reminder of a period, exemplified most of all by the figure of Teddy Roosevelt, when the United States – which owes its very existence to a struggle against colonialism – was itself a colonial power.
Americans often forget that their country was once involved in the dirty business of imperialism. Of course, “imperialism” is one of those words that gets thrown around indiscriminately. So I should make clear that we’re not just talking about fuzzier forms of it, like “cultural imperialism” (making foreigners watch “Independence Day” against their will) or “economic imperialism” (sending the IMF to whip Third World economies into submission) or even “internal” imperialism (the subjugation, in the 19th century, of the North American continent). No, we’re talking about old-fashioned, Kiplingesque, lets-go-out-and-take-over-a-foreign-country imperialism.
(Incidentally, imperialism would have been more tolerable – or honest, at least – if it were called “theft.” The colonizers could have said to the brown-skinned peoples, “Sorry, but your spears are no match for our guns. Now give us your natural resources and work for us free, or else.” Instead, there was an unctuous ideology of paternalism, according to which it was all for the natives’ own good – the so-called “White man’s burden.” This was the foreign-affairs equivalent of, “The Negroes were perfectly happy under slavery.”)
Imperialism was, of course, a mostly European game, but America gleefully joined in just after its own internal frontier was closed at the end of last century. It all started when a mini-empire more or less fell into America’s lap after victory in the Spanish-American war, in 1898. Along with Hawaii, America acquired (and in some cases, still holds) a bunch of far-flung islands which made handy stepping stones across the Pacific. And so, the very first year of the twentieth century featured – of all things – American soldiers putting down a rebellion in the jungles of the Philippines.
Panama achieved a state of “independence” from Columbia after some helpful gunboat diplomacy from America. The condition was that the country cedes the Canal Zone, effectively splitting it in two. It has never been truly independent. Even after reclaiming the Canal, they are keeping the Yankee dollar.
America is still living with the consequences of this period of its history. Witness the present controversy over military exercises in Puerto Rico. Or the fact that some of the designer clothes you buy, stamped “Made in U.S.A.,” are in fact made in sweat-shop conditions, by a foreign workforce, on the Pacific island of Saipan.
For the most part, however, it is completely forgotten. I bet that half the schoolchildren that visit Mount Rushmore look up and say, “There’s Lincoln. There’s Washington. There’s Jefferson. So who’s the guy with the glasses?”
C
Thought for the Day:
To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
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Mr. Swiller was known far and wide as a hard-nosed boss who watched his employees like a hawk. He was making one of his regular tours of the factory when he spotted a young man leaning against a pile of boxes just outside the foreman’s office.
Since George, the foreman, wasn’t around, Swiller stood off to the side and watched to see just how long the young man would stand around doing nothing.
The young man yawned, scratched his head, looked at his watch, and sat on the floor. He took out a nail file and began cleaning his nails. Then he stretched, yawned again, and leaned back on the pile of boxes.
Swiller stepped from his hiding place and walked up to the young man. “You!” he boomed. “How much do you make a week?”
The young man looked up indifferently. “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” he said.
Swiller swooped into the cashier’s office, took $250 from the cash box, and returned. “Take it,” he said, “and get out! Don’t let me see you around here again!”
The young man took the cash, put it in his pocket, and left.
Swiller snorted at his lack of remorse, embarrassment, or any other feeling. Then he went looking for George. When he found him, Swiller was red with anger. “That idler in front of your office,” Swiller said. “I just gave him a week’s pay and fired him.
What’s the matter with you, letting him stand around as though he had nothing to do?”
“You mean the kid in the red shirt?” George asked.
“Yes! The kid in the red shirt!”
“He was waiting for the twenty dollars we owe him for lunch,”
George said. “He works for the coffee shop around the corner.”
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During their silver anniversary, a wife reminded her husband, “Do you remember when you proposed to me, I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t talk for an hour?”
The hubby replied, “Yes, honey, that was the happiest hour of my life.”
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Against the advice of his stockbroker, Willings bought ten thousand shares of Miraculous Mining at a dollar a share.
The price doubled to two dollars.
Willings called his broker and said, “Buy ten thousand more shares.” The price soared to four dollars.
Willings called again and ordered another twenty thousand shares. The price shot up to six dollars.
Wililngs called once again. “Time to take my profit,” he said.
“Sell it all.”
“Sell?” his broker said. “To who?”
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I was just visiting some friends who have a real working farm. I was watching this one rooster chasing after this hen, when the friend’s wife came out to feed them. The rooster stopped chasing the hen at once and ran over to began eating. I stood there thinking to myself, “Damn! I hope I never get that hungry.”
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An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time.
“I have good news and bad news,” the owner replied. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings.”
“That’s wonderful,” the artist exclaimed. “What’s the bad news?”
“The guy was your doctor.”
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A journalist assigned to the Jerusalem bureau takes an apartment overlooking the Wailing Wall. Every day when she looks out, she sees an old Jewish man praying vigorously. So the journalist goes down and introduces herself to the old man.
She asks: “You come every day to the wall. How long have you done that and what are you praying for?”
The old man replies, “I have come here to pray every day for 25 years. In the morning I pray for world peace and then for the brotherhood of man. I go home have a cup of tea and I come back and pray for the eradication of illness and disease from the earth.”
The journalist is amazed. “How does it make you feel to come here every day for 25 years and pray for these things?” she asks.
The old man looks at her sadly. “Like I’m talking to a wall.”
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Minutes before the cremation, the undertaker quietly sat down next to the grieving widow. “How old was your husband?” he asked.
“He was ninety-eight,” she answered softly. “Two years older than I am.”
“Really?” the undertaker said. “Hardly worth going home, wouldn’t you say?”
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The Michaels family owned a small farm in Canada, just yards away from the North Dakota border. Their land had been the subject of a minor dispute between the United States and Canada for generations. Mrs. Michaels, who had just celebrated her ninetieth birthday, lived on the farm with her son and three grandchildren.
One day, her son came into her room holding a letter. “I just got some news, Mom,” he said. “The government has come to an agreement with the people in Washington. They’ve decided that our land is really part of the United States. We have the right to approve or disapprove of the agreement. What do you think?”
“What do I think?” his mother said. “Jump at it! Call them right now and tell them we accept! I don’t think I could stand another one of those Canadian winters!”
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Two confirmed bachelors sat talking. Their conversation drifted from politics to cooking. “I got a cookbook once,” said the first, “but I could never do anything with it.” “Too much fancy cooking in it, eh?” asked the second.
“You said it. Every one of the receipts began the same way – ‘Take a clean dish and…’”
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