The sovereign and independent Republic of Panama

As a matter of law, as a matter of sensible and orderly relations among nations, the Panama Canal belongs to Panama. Relatively few Americans physically labored on the late 19th and early 20th century building of the original Panama Canal, the preceding Panama Railroad, the 21st century expansion or the building, maintenance or operation of the associated port infrastructures. Donald Trump, scion of his grandfather’s pimping fortune, has no legitimate claim.

So Marco Rubio is playing a China card. Part of Panama is ethnic Chinese. They came here in great numbers some 170 years ago to escape unfolding horror stories back in China and to help build Panama.

China is a major customer for the Panama Canal, which by treaty law is neutral. The US-Chinese rivalry is a notorious reality, But there is no need for Panama to take sides in it.

Anti-Chinese racism is a notorious historical reality in Panama and it’s disgusting that US Republicans play to it.

Panamanians need to stand firm and united against piratical threats to seize the Panama Canal, and rally international support for this country’s defense against them. Americans of good will should revive the US antiwar movement for this cause as well.

Is Trump’s threat against Panama, like his threat to grab Greenland from Denmark, just a distraction for US domestic political consumption? Panamanians need to consider what sort of people such consumers are.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964. Library of Congress photo.

The great awakening of Malcolm X

Sixty years ago, Malcolm X had little time left to his life. The son of a Christian preacher father and a Grenadian immigrant mother, he was a bright student according to his elementary school teachers. But they kept telling him that a professional career as a doctor or a lawyer was unrealistic for a black person in those times.

The his father, a follower of the Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, died an untimely violent death. The Ku Klux Klan had been harassing him for a long time. The insurance company didn’t want to pay and the authorities didn’t want a full and honest investigation. They didn’t pay, got an opinion that it was suicide, and Malcolm’s mother went crazy. Malcolm was taken away from her by state child welfare authorities who didn’t care and ended up on the streets and working a series of menial jobs as the hoodlum his peers called “Detroit Red.” He soon ended up in prison.

A bright, literate, eloquent young black man who had been given a raw deal in life? He was an attractive recruit for what was to become the Nation of Islam, an odd syncretist mix of Islam, black nationalism and science fiction. He was brought into the movement and became one of their best-known preachers. The corruption and jealousy in the denomination’s main leader, Elijah Muhammad, cut Malcolm loose. He made the hajj to Mecca and traveled in newly independent African countries.

By late 1964 Malcolm was saying, rather than the devil is a white man, that racism can afflict any person of any race, that it was a small problem among black people in the USA but a big one with white folks. Speaking in Detroit, he famously interrupted an anti-Semitic screed by telling its maker to sit down, shut up and be ashamed of himself for being such a bigot. He’d been to Africa and seen how tribalism – racism among black people, was hurting people and creating gaps for neocolonial forces to drive wedges into, in order to maintain economic exploitation. But he tended to put a positive spin on his new awareness, talking about meeting Muslims of all races on the hajj, and common grounds where racism faded into near-irrelevance.

Elijah Muhammad’s followers threatened, harassed and physically attacked Malcolm, an d bodyguards were recruited. Among these were planted agents of the FB and of the New York Police Department’s Bureau Of Special Services.

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm was shot dead at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of murder but decades later two of them were exonerated. Courts ruled that the FBI and New York police go the wrong men, even though the assassination took place amidst a large crowd assembled to hear Malcolm speak. Come the 2020s and Malcolm’s daughters have sued to get the truth about law enforcement involvement in their father’s murder.

The attitude of the FBI director at the time, J. Edgar Hoover, was exposed when a group of radicals broke into a small FBI office and stole files that were published and verified. Hoover put ou the word to all offices to “preven the rise of a black messiah.”

A cover-up for all these years? Wouldn’t that tend to back up MAGA allegations about a “deep state?” But those folks are white supremacists – even the black ones – and would not consider disclosure to, and at least a small measure of justice for, THIS black family.

About as bad are those timid Democrats who, out of fear of offending white racists, dismiss all claims and questions by Malcolm’s daughters – and any news coverage about it – as a “conspiracy theory.

It’s time to get full disclosure, even if all questions can’t be answered, even if statutes of limitation would have run to bar any legal accountability for any official misconduct. Let us, at long last, complete and correct the record of this part of US history. Even if Republicans deride the truth as illegally “woke.”

Bear in mind…

Contact us by email at thepanamanews@gmail.com

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

These links are interactive — click on the boxes