Up until very recently, I did not know that the United States invaded Panama in December of 1989 (in my defense, I was only six and the United States has invaded a lot of countries). I only happened to stumble upon this particular incident because I was reading about Panama in preparation for a trip there. The Central American republic, I learned, has some great surfing beaches, bizarrely colored frogs, and a memorial constructed in honor the thousands of civilians who were killed during George H.W. Bush’s “Operation Just Cause.” This military campaign, my guidebook informed me, liberated Panamanians from the reign of General Noriega, brought democracy to the nation, and protected US citizens from the threat posed by the small, tropical isthmus.
As we approach the 20th anniversary of Operation Just Cause this December, one might think that the poetic power of smooth, whole numerals would provide us with a reasonable occasion to meditate on the contemporary relevance of the invasion. There is, after all, an eerie, almost genetic resemblance between George H.W. Bush’s stated motivations for invading Panama, and George W. Bush’s stated motivations for invading Iraq and Afghanistan.
Keeping tabs on the thematic redundancy with which the United States government has marketed its calls for regime change over the years would appear to be a responsible activity for American citizens, given the fact that our nation has its imperial tentacles wrapped all over the planet. But I have never seen a “Remember Panama” sign at a protest, and, as I have confessed, until a few weeks ago, I would not have known what such a sign meant. Whenever Panama is discussed in the media, it is in order to advise Americans to go there and spoil their unspoiled beaches (hence, my initial interest in the country).
On the one hand, the fact that I didn’t know about Operation Just Cause could be considered a minor intellectual offense—a missed trivia question, perhaps. But as I packed my bags I began to think that there might be some sociological significance to my ignorance. It is strange, is it not, that I nearly visited a country without having a clue that my own country had, relatively recently, set it on fire and flipped it upside down? This reflection became increasingly poignant as I began to suspect that I wasn’t the only one with a foggy historical memory.
Are We Stupid?
To follow up on my suspicion, before leaving I decided to ask Americans of my generation what they knew about modern US-Panamanian relations. A pattern quickly began to emerge: they knew absolutely nothing. No one I talked to was aware of Operation Just Cause, and when I told people about it and asked them if they had a sense as to why the United States might have launched such an invasion, not a single interviewee had any idea. Something about FARC? The Iran-Contra scandal? Pinochet? Che Guevara? Isn’t Panama an island? It was clear that these college-educated twentysomethings (myself among them) possessed a sense that Latin America did, in fact, exist, and that sometimes things happened down there; but from my research I can safely conclude that, generally speaking, my generation knows very little about what goes on in the Western Hemisphere beyond the bounds of our nation, even when it is our nation that is creating all the chaos.
As I boarded my plane for Panama, with a connecting flight departing from, of all places, Houston’s Bush International Airport, visions of interesting frogs and secluded beaches began to recede in my mind as I became fixated on what seemed to be a disturbingly justified question about the citizens of the United States: Are we, um, stupid?
When I arrived in Panama, I made my way over to Bocas del Toro, an insanely beautiful and ethnically diverse archipelago in the Caribbean that is popular among young, conspicuously bohemian backpackers from all over the world. I spent two weeks there snorkeling with Argentineans, spelunking with Israelis, surfing with Americans, sloshing through rainforest mud with Canadians, dancing with Panamanians, singing with Spaniards, getting drunk with Norwegians, getting drunk with Germans, getting drunk with Australians, and searching (unsuccessfully) for very tiny poison-dart frogs with members of the indigenous Ngöble-Buglé tribe. From these experiences, I arrived at several unscientific conclusions regarding the theme of American Ignorance.
1. We’re not stupid—we've done some pretty smart things over the years—but we are, despite being a nation of immigrants, remarkably insular. The idea that we are ignorant is a perception that refers not to our adeptness with math or metaphysics, but rather to what seems to be our nebulous cognizance of the world around us, as measured in comparison to the global awareness possessed by average citizens of other Western nations.
2. Americans are, as a whole, less globally aware than average citizens of other Western nations.
3. The rest of the Western world views global travel as an investment, rather than a luxury. Accordingly, many of these countries make it possible for their citizens, even in tough economic times, to take time out of their lives at home to travel or volunteer abroad.
4. The United States lacks the will and the cultural infrastructure that would make this possible, and so, as a result, we stay at home more.
5. There is almost always a correlation between the amount one knows about the world and the extent to which one has traveled through it.
6. America would be wise to take a cue from these other countries and reorient its priorities in such a way that would value a citizenry that is familiar with the planet.
Although these findings should be qualified by the natural limitations of a statistically insignificant sample pool, and by the fact that I was quite inebriated during many of my conversations, it is worth mentioning that almost every American I spoke with in Panama, regardless of their college diploma or lack thereof, was indeed aware of the fact that our home country had aggressively violated the territorial sovereignty of an impoverished paradise so that George H.W. Bush could show everyone back home that he wasn’t a “wimp.”
“Rescuing the Humanity of Places”
I feel little obligation to “prove“ that global travel is an educational experience, as the idea seems sufficiently self-evident. Seeing the world inevitably widens one’s worldview. Essayist and novelist Pico Iyer delves into the political implications of this transformative experience in his famous essay “Why We Travel.” In this piece, Iyer writes that travel is “the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places.” He compares the ecstasy and edification of soulfully connecting with people from other countries to the experience of falling in love. “Travel is a two-way transaction,” he observes, “and if warfare is one model of the meeting of nations, romance is another.”
Tags: collateral damage, operation just cause, panama, sarah palin, travel, war
Panama. Ever since I started researching U.S aggression and neo-imperialism (specially as it relates to Latin America), I've come to realize that in places such as Panama, NIcaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (among others), we have served the [self-interested] causes of evil. Unfortunately, the national mythology (America as a "Chosen" nation) propagated under Democratic (Barack Obama) and Republican administrations (Ronald Reagan) prevent us from seeing the realities of Empire.
I am from the Dominican Republic. My country was invaded by the USA from 1916
to 1924. The real reason was to get virgin land for American Investors to grow sugar cane. They changed the land use and tenure system to deprive the peasantry of their lands and to allow 16 sugar mills to take the land. The sugar enclave was totally foreign, since the peasantry would not work as slaves in their own ancestral lands. They had also invaded Haiti and brought Haitians to harvest the sugar cane.
To change the laws of the country, they created and trained a military. His chief, Rafael Trujillo, took over the presidency from 1930 to 1961. They supported a coup in 1963 against the first elected government of President Juan Bosch. In 1965, people took to the streets in a civil war to go back to the Constitution of 1963. The US invaded again, getting back the Trujillista
military in place and setting back democracy for 12 years.
I am glad to see some Americans owning what their government does. There is a holocaust denial in this country, beginning with the Native Americans. The paramilitary and Contra war in Guatemala killed 200,000 Mayans. The UN has labeled it the genocide of the XX Century. Yet, in the USA, Reagan is a hero, and never had to answer for the deaths of the Mayans or the support of the oligarchy and military during the Central American wars, and the support of Pinochet in Chile and the military in Argentina.
To change the laws of the country, they created and trained a military. His chief, Rafael Trujillo, took over the presidency from 1930 to 1961. They supported a coup in 1963of the first elected government of Juan Bosch. In 1965, people took to the streets in a civil war to go back to the Constitution of 1963. The US invaded again,getting back the Trujillista
military in place and setting back democracy for 12 years.
I am glad to see some Americans owning what their government does. There is a holocaust denial in this country, begining with the native Americans. The paramilitary and Contra war in Guatemala killed 200,000 Mayans. The UN has labeled it the genocide of the XX Century. Yet, in the USA, Reagan is a hero, and never had to answer for the deaths of the Mayans.
As a Canadian, I find this one of the best pieces of writing by an American on your role in the world that I have read in a long time. I travelled to Panama for the first time last January, and toured the canal. I heard from Panamanians about the history of American ownership/control of the canal, long before the invasion of 1989 - and the amount of work taking place in Panama now that the Panamanians have full control. Buildings, hospitals, roads, medical care for everyone, education. In the ten short years since the canal was returned to Panama they have made giant leaps forward. Panamanians were also clear that they would have dealt with Noriega eventually, just as Iraqis were clear they would eventually deal with Saddam Hussein. I loved Panama - but I've fallen in love with every country I've lived in and travelled in.
Go back further into your own history - the assassination of Sadegh Mossadegh in Iran by the CIA (read"our" national interests), the assassination of Salvatore Allende in Chile and the rise of Pinochet. Viet Nam gets in there too. Until Americans really understand this history, they won't understand why there is such hatred on the part of some.
I agree that American insularity has very serious consequences but I do not think that lack of travel is the main cause. The incidence of travel is much less in most poor countries but awareness of global events is higher simply because their media carries more global news. Travel is a very expensive solution; creating more awareness in schools would go much further. Meanwhile, the world suffers because of the great disconnect between the reality and its perception in the US. We analyzed President Obama's Cairo speech from the perspective of a non-US audience - it may be of interest to readers:
http://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/obama/
Thank you for some fine sentiments. Could I inject come reality, however? Travel such as you describe is environmentally damaging, which you hint at as you "sully" the beaches of Panama. The Sierra club is also righteously promoting travel through pristine wildernesses and to the antipodes as a way for the wealthy to get in touch with their inner environmentalist. But add up all the transportation, waste, and so forth, and the footprint of carbon and other pollutants is enormous. The idea that most countries have some kind of program to send all their citizens abroad for international "bildung" is also quite absurd.
Secondly, the fact that the Panama canal is the property of Panama is an example of progressive foreign policy and neighborly relations, by Jimmy Carter in this case. Who built the canal? We did. We didn't have to give it to Panama, but did out of principle, colonialism being frowned upon at the time.
While the Noriega episode was ugly and jingoistic, there was a point to it, which can not be wished away with above commenter's formulation of "they would have dealt with Noriega eventually". The US has plenty of responsibility in raising Noriega in the first place, through the CIA, our military relations with Panama, our tolerance of vast corruption, and our insatiable drug demand. But Panamanians were not going to deal with Noriega, since he had all the guns and power. Thinking otherwise is self-indulgent fantasy, and your trip to Panama under reportedly tranquil conditions is testament to the effectiveness of that intervention.
Right now, a similar situation is brewing in Mexico, where the state is disintegrating under a narco-war where no one can trust anyone else, even to the highest levels. It likely won't get as bad as it was in Panama, but the international system needs a regular mechanism to deal with failed states, instead of relying on the US, or worse, on fate. Fate brings us empires like Rome, which was militaristic, rapacious, and brutal, among its many other virtues. Hopefully we can do better by small countries that fall into tyranny.
We'd best find another source of compassion for and solidarity with the world, because all this world travel has got to wind down, even if it's for the best of reasons. It belongs to the privileged and is spewing GHGs into the atmosphere. I hope against all hope that we can figure out another way to care about the big world in which we live.
The main purpose of this article really wasn't to debate the legitimacy of the invasion of Panama. From my conversations with Panamanians, and from my book-bound research, I still happen to believe that the incursion had more to do with the interests of the US government at the time, rather than with any altruistic desire to liberate Panama. But that's not really the point. It is a general lack of awareness on the part of the US citizenry, coupled with an aggressive US foreign policy, that troubles me. Panama is just one case of this dynamic, which expresses itself in all of our military engagements. Take, for example, Afghanistan. As an American, we might be asked whether or not we believe that we should escalate our quagmire there. But how many of us could actually locate Afghanistan on a map? How many know what languages are spoken there, and could talk a bit about the culture and history of the region?
To Burke: the notion that other countries do not have some form of a "gap year" rite of passage is simply untrue. Not all countries, of course, are in a position to offer this experience, but, as I specified in my article, in most Western countries, with the notable exception of the United States, it is very common to spend extended periods of time abroad-- volunteering or teaching or simply traveling about and getting to know another culture. In Israel, most citizens take a year off to do this after they've completed their compulsory service in the military. In Germany, a "wanderjahr," a year-long period of reflection, is indeed a component of the cultivation of "bildung." In the Netherlands, where I have some familial ties, a gap year is known as a "tussenjaar." You can browse the web to find more country-specific information about this, or you could hit the road, and ask yourself why it is that the Swedes and the Australians and the Germans and the British are planning on staying in Mexico for one year, while you, as an American, have only one week to explore Oaxaca before returning to your cubicle in New Jersey. (Alas...)
But this, also, could be considered a bit beside the point. Even if these other nations did not encourage educational vagabonding, I believe that the United States should, for the compelling reason that we, unlike, say, Switzerland, are currently the world's sole superpower. Our government exerts a profound influence over the day-to-day lives of people around the world, but our citizens remain profoundly indifferent to these other lives. This is the heart of the problem: the paradoxical coexistence of American imperialism with American insularity. I too, Burke, wish that there were some benevolent, selfless multinational paradigm for assisting troubled states, but right now I am concerned with addressing and correcting the situation as it is, on a person-to-person plane, and hoping that a shift in geopolitical realities may follow a shift in moral perspective. What we need is an ethos of outward-bound curiosity. Travel, I believe, is one means of attaining this.
RE: the environmental impact of travel. This is definitely worth taking into consideration, which is something I did not do. I must claim some degree of ignorance on the subject, and am in no position to judge the merits and failings of ecotourism. It is possible, however, that someone who has attained an increase in global awareness would be more concerned about global warming. If, on the other hand, you have never left Topeka, you might be less concerned about the evaporation of Lake Titicaca. Such problems as droughts in Argentina, and killer mudslides in El Salvador might seem very distant, very removed, very abstract. But if you have seen firsthand the devastating effects of environmental degradation on impoverished communities in the developing world, perhaps you would feel more inspired to recycle your Coca-Cola can. (Or stop drinking Coca-Cola, for that matter.) Is it worth the fumes that your plane spilt across the sky while crossing the Atlantic? To answer this question, one would have to weigh the calculable with the incalculable...short-term damage with long-term rewards. Personally, I think it's worth it. A less extreme solution than banning airplanes is out there.
Plus, if you would entertain my idealism a bit further, if travel really can foster peace, love and understanding between nations, my hope is that it would work to assuage paranoia, eradicate misunderstanding and make war between interconnected nations entirely unpalatable. I can't imagine something that is more harmful to people and the planet than shipping soldiers and machinery halfway across the globe, packing the earth with landmines and exploding bombs all over the place. I'd much rather have those resources, and that carbon footprint, go towards expanding study abroad programs to La Paz.
Finally, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the logic hiding behind sentiment. The world is hearts and minds, and maybe it's time we begin to attend to it accordingly.
Hi, Ryan-
I didn't mean to dismiss your thoughts, only to supply some miscellaneous critique. I agree completely that exposure to other lands is an essential part of liberal education and a better world. Indeed it is essential to the US's own intelligent use of its power, as the sorry episode of Vietnam makes so clear, where we completely misread the nature, motivations, and capabilities of the Vietnamese.
I am intrigued by your youth travel program assertions. I have not been able to dig up what kind of state support exists for such things in Europe. Note that the US also has countless study-abroad and exchange programs, etc., though not heavily subsidized. Germany does teach every student English, which is one very outward-looking policy, though with obvious historical origins. Generally, I'd think that the smaller the country, the more likely its inhabitants are to travel abroad, simply as a function of wanting to go to other places, most of which are elsewhere. And their abroad orientation would also be a function of business necessity.
I agree that international travel is more of a regular part of European education, but how much of that is a function of being from small countries, (such that a German going to Britain is similar to a New Yorker going to Idaho), how much from being wealthier per capita, and how much from special educational efforts, let alone government sponsored pay-for-everyone-to-go-on-expensive-international-vacation programs would be difficult to disentangle.
I have traveled outside of the country quite a bit, and when I gave it some thought, I realized that many people I know or have known also have done so, including friends of modest means who have found creative ways to afford international travel. I checked some statistics and found that the United States is #3 in terms of the number of people who depart annually for international destinations, not for business reasons, behind Germany and Great Britain. However another statistical source indicates that a large amount of the international travel from Germany and Great Britain is within Europe (mostly to Spain). So Americans actually do travel abroad in relatively large numbers. This is not to say that your idea is wrong - I think travel does correlate with awareness of other cultures and understanding of the complexity of the role of the United States in the world. It may be the case that ignorance of the scope of American imperialism is not as widespread as your own experience (or that of your generation) may suggest.
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