Let's Get Engaged
Let's Get Engaged
Panama's Ambassador to the U.S. on why the region needs to address security challenges collectively.
The future of inter-American affairs is anything but certain. Our divisions and struggles are not new, but our troubles and interests have become increasingly intertwined. The challenges facing our hemisphere—poverty and inequality, political stability and citizen insecurity—have not dissipated. But for too long, we have been unable to settle our differences to find common ground and create a path for a better future.
The state of inter-American affairs today is an unmistakable outcome of our turbulent struggles of years past. Despite a renewed sense of hope for the region this past year, we have been unable to coalesce around the goodwill that was created. Instead of constructively working together to resolve many of today’s difficult challenges, we are left with a sense of loss.
Every member of our community of nations plays a key part in the inter-American system. But, more importantly, it is the role each country assumes that defines its scope for success and that of the hemisphere as a whole. That is not to say that the success of countries hinges completely on the international system, but our international efforts reinforce our domestic policies by bringing greater prosperity and stability at home.
At the end of the Cold War, a future of deteriorating cooperation was not the expected path of the Americas. Exhaustion from political turbulence for some, troubled finances for others, and the collective yearning for a new era in Latin America triggered a shift away from the polarizing politics of earlier decades. A bold vision of democracy, social justice and respect for human rights, together with the economic prescriptions of the Washington Consensus, promised to usher in a new era of prosperity and peace in the hemisphere.
Read the full text of the article at www.AmericasQuarterly.org.
Jaime Alemán is the Ambassador of Panama to the United States.
