Eric Jackson
The Panama News

The last business on Colon’s Bottle Alley is gone. Barberia Frank’s proprietor, Olivia Fallas, has died.

I haven’t noticed any mention of the elderly barber’s passing in the mainstream media. I haven’t received any emails about it.

Similarly, Olivia Fallas, like another old friend who recently died, John Jansen, is an emblem of something larger.

Olivia came to Colon from Bocas del Toro and began cutting hair at Fort Sherman during World War II. It had been a half-century or so since she worked for the US Army, but the American military didn’t have any better friends than Olivia. A small part of it was ideological --- she once told me that “someone has to be the policeman, and only the Americans can do it.” A much larger part was that she simply liked Americans. On the whole, gringos of the sort who join the armed forces are more respectful of working people like Olivia than wealthier Panamanians are. Americans tend to be better tippers of waitresses, less likely to be abusive of domestic employees, and possessed of an egalitarian sense of justice that’s alien to those who run the Panamanian legal system. Olivia never went to the United States but she knew a lot of gringos and generally liked them.

There are various individuals and groups promoting the return of the US military to Panama as the answer to this country’s problems. Most of them see the Americans as a source of well- paid jobs and lucrative contracts. But America’s best friends on the isthmus are not motivated by such pathetic welfare dependent motives. Certainly Olivia, who had to be at least 80 years old and worked almost until the day she died, did not like the gringos because she expected a handout. She was a friend who was made, not bought, and as such she represented a phenomenon that ought to be of interest to US foreign policy makers.

Johannes Cornelius (John) Jansen was another noteworthy type. A retired Dutch sea captain, he spent most of his working life sailing around the former Dutch empire and parts in between, lived in Brazos Heights for a number of years and retired to Santa Clara. When he was diagnosed with lung cancer, he decided that he had lived a full life and declined medical treatment that went beyond treating the pain. Well before his illness, he told me that he approves of the practice in Holland, where a terminally ill patient can opt for euthanasia.

John was for freedom as the Dutch tend to conceive of it. Although the Netherlands has some odious colonial episodes in its history, the Dutch don’t go around carpet bombing other countries in the name of some abstract freedom. For them, freedom is not an idealistic slogan but a series of rights that they exercise and enjoy.

Among certain sections of American public opinion, Amsterdam enjoys a reputation akin to that of Gomorrah. Bare-breasted blondes on TV, pot smoking in cafes, the right to choose euthanasia and the concept of liberty from which these phenomena arise seriously offend the sort of Americans who are most eager to dispatch troops in the name of freedom.

But John, like most Dutchmen, was actually pretty conservative about most things. He didn’t embrace any radical political, religious or economic philosophies. Willing to concede people’s right to choose how to run their own lives, he also expected them to take responsibility for the choices they made. He was quick to distinguish juega vivo --- the Panamanian culture of corruption and betrayal --- from freedom.

This issue will take you near and far, from Panama Viejo to the Western Sahara. The problems that the Panamanian government is creating for those who have embraced the yachting lifestyle are featured in our Travel and Business sections. Our Opinion columns get into public issues in New Jersey and the European Union that ought to interest people here in Panama. (If international call centers are the new growth sector down here, you should know about the objections posed elsewhere. If Europe is to regulate the dumping of toxic ships, Panamanians would be negligent to ignore the issue until we can see the asbestos washing onto our beaches.) We cross the Costa Rican border in our Outdoors section to look at an environmental restoration effort, and in our Spanish news pages to ponder the international reach of Colombia’s death squads. We visit the Balboa Theater for a night of classical music, and ponder Barro Colorado Island bats who have been turned into Bob Marley fans. We take a glance at the Azuero, where a community held a benefit to get the water running at its public school. A visit to the Panamanian Business Executives Association monthly economic forum has given us our lead stories in the News and Business sections.

We also pay attention to stories that interest the mainstream media. However, the significance of “offshore asset protection guru” Marc Harris’s arrest is examined from a different perspective here. (Is he YOUR guru? You really ought to change your religion if that’s the case.)

Am I getting too controversial here? Is that Sparky the Wonder Dog giving me a warning bark?

Enjoy, my friends.