Airing Panama's dirty laundry

Panama is a wonderful country with wonderful people. A few years ago ex president Mireya Moscoso opened the borders for Colombians to enter on tourist visas, which has turned into a flood of illegal immigrants working cheaper than the Panamanians and starting more businesses than the locals have.

Now your average Panamanian is upset with the Colombians and their aparent invasion. As always there are two sides to the stories. Hagrid writes in Dealante that the Colombian invasion is probably much more of a symptom of the Panamanian wellfare state employee attitude.

Aqui necesitamos ser EMPRENDEDORES para no seguir viendo a los Extranjeros venir de sus tierras a conquistar las nuestras y nosotros solamente lamentarnos o peor aun…verlo de lo mas normal y no cambiar NUESTRA MANERA DE SER!!…Si ellos vienen a buscar DINERO aca es porque HAY DINERO ACA!!!

Here we need to be entrepreneurs to not keep seeing the foreigners arriving from their lands to conquest ours and we are only here feeling sorry for our selves or worse seeing it and not changing OUR WAY OF BEING!!! .. If they come here looking for MONEY it is because THERE IS MONEY HERE!!!

Read the Google translation here

For the Spanish speakers amongst you check out the comments, for an as always entertaining and often soul searching debate.

My comment is that Panama has always been a place for foreign entrepreneurs to come and succeed. However the institutions of first the American canal administration and later the parade of corrupt social democratic governments have managed to create a mentality similar to the Danish/Norwegian Law of Jante, where no one is alowed to step out of their boundaries to create something for themselves.

Many of the things people talk about in Panama when talking about the Colombian immigrants are similar to what is found in Denmarks loony social democratic derivation party Danish Peoples Party
(En Español ). Btw. don’t write telling me that they are right wing. Read their program and compare with the Social Democratic Party they are one and the same except that the Peoples Party are more honest in their pragmatic protection of the wellfare society.