“I think you underestimated Panama”, I was told by Walo Araujo, the charismatic director of the Panama Biennial, when he found out with this friends that my visit was originally intended to be a brief one. What is true is that I had not expected to find such a vibrant city that, more than any other so far, fulfills the main characteristics of a Panamerican city. Panamá calls itself ‘bridge of the world, heart of America”. But beyond that commercial definition, it is a city already positioned in the XXIst century, being a true meeting point of north, Central and South America.
It doesn’t exist without its contrasts: in my 18 hour trip from San Jose to Panama I had to go through three Panamanian cities whose streets would cause trepidation to many: Changuinola, Almirante, and David. These cities (two of them ports) bear closer resemblance to Ciudad Juarez, while Panama City is more similar to Miami. Panama City is seeing a staggering construction boom, while these other cities appear stuck in the poverty and urban decay of four decades ago. Yet, both seem to coexist til this pointl. “Here there has never been any conflict”, says Walo, who also pointed out that Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1903 was accomplished without any blood. From that day, Panama has been an open country, open to all the good and bad things from the exterior, from foreign dictators on the run seeking asylum to floating packs of cocaine from Colombia, to serious foreign investment and enterprise, including one of the most important engineering projects of modernity: the canal.
U.S. presence here exists still in a ghost-like manner, after Americans left in 2000. The Canal administration Zone was returned to Panama, and it has become a pleasant residential area. But Panama does not appear to have a strong nationalism. Perhaps this weightlessness has allowed Panama to grow and change fast, and adapt to the global forces that are shaping our era. If Costa Rica exists apart from Central America, Panama offers an even stronger sense of separation. Walo mentions that “Panama is the only Centro-American Capital that is placed on the Pacific, and yet it identifies itself more with the Caribbean”. Indeed, the city bears more similarities with Havana, Santo Domingo or Viejo San Juan than with Tegucigalpa or Guatemala City. Panama is thus a hybrid, an urban Protheus with a true multi-cultural society and a living indigenous culture, the Kuna, who also are ever-evolving.
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“Menospreciaste a Panamá”, me reprochó amigablemente el curador Walo Araujo, en protesta por mi breve estancia en el país. Panamá se autodenomia “el Puente del mundo, el corazón de América”. Pero más allá de esa definición commercial, está ciertamente posicionado para el siglo veintiuno, como verdadero punto de encuentro entre centro, norte y sudamérica. No carece de contrastes: en mis 18 horas de viaje desde San José pasé por ciudades —la mayoría portuarias— que le causarían trepidación a muchos: Changuinola, Almirante, David. Mientras que algunas ciudades tienen la crudeza de la clásica urbe fronteriza latinoamericana, la ciudad de Panamá se parece a Miami, con un crecimiento urbano desmesurado. Desde su independencia en 1903, Panamá ha sido un país abierto a todo lo bueno y lo malo de la modernidad, girando sobre todo en torno de uno de los mas importantes proyectos de ingeniería y comercio del siglo veinte: el canal. Estados Unidos sigue presente de manera fantasmagórica, después de que los “zonians” dejaron el país en el 2000 y le devolvieron la administración del canal a Panamá. Los panameños no son nacionalistas fervientes, sino mas bien una sociedad protéica, bien posicionada para la ambigüedad del futuro.