IRAK DIE WIEGE DER ZIVILISATION

LE MONDE PANAMA
Ambassador, politician, poet, scientist
Text: Petra Stix
Gloria Young, Ambassador of the Republic of Panama in Vienna, has a very
versatile and engaging personality. She writes books and poems, is committed to
research projects and is a respected politician in her country. For a period of over
ten years, she was politically active for her country and therefore has the best
possible credentials to represent the interests of Panama in Austria.
Diablos y Congos Festival.
Two weeks after Carnival,
communities in and around
Portobelo hold the Diablos y
Congos (Devils and Slaves)
festival to honour their
ancestors who managed to
escape slavery during the
Spanish colonial period.
PHOTOS: JOSÉ CARLOS LEIS, JULIA WEICHSELBAUM/HBF
February 3rd 2015, Embassy of Panama, Goldschmiedegasse
10, 1st district in the Vienna
city centre: interview with I.E. Gloria Young,
Ambassador of Panama in Vienna since December
8th 2014. One can hardly imagine a warmer welcome.
We are greeted by a highly charismatic, lively
and alert lady and feel very comfortable in her presence.
She doesn’t hold back and recounts the story
of her eventful life since arriving in Austria in early
December. Still at war with speaking German, she
admits that the complexity of the language is a tough
hurdle to overcome. In an effort to give her best, she
is attending a German course to improve her language
skills. In Austria, she rushes from meeting to meeting.
„Due to the presence of the UN in Vienna there
are plenty of issues on a bilateral as well as multilateral
level“, explains Ambassador Young. Since she
took office in Vienna, she is proud to have acted as
chairman for the Group of Latin American and Caribbean
States (GRULAC) within the United Nations
as well. “I grow with the challenge. It is very exciting
to learn so much about the other Latin American
countries,” said Young.
As Versatile as a Book
The charismatic lady teaches to this day at the Latin
University of Panama City in the Faculty of Law
and Political Science. Furthermore, she is the executive
director of the Department of Gender Studies.
She lectures on various topics such as politics, gender
politics, literature, education and human rights
both at national and international level. She is president
of the Association of Former Parliamentarians
of the Republic of Panama and member of the Central
American Network of „No Violence against Women“
in San Jose, Costa Rica.
From 2010 to 2012, she was president of the National
Council of Writers of Panama. She has released
nine books in total, and over 300 of her articles and
essays have been printed in national and international
publications. Her latest literary work “Nada que
ocultar” (“Nothing to Hide”) is a collection of prose
poems with impressive illustrations by the Panamanian
artists Pearl Bajdez, Silvia Costa and Soledad
Velasco Hernandez. According to Gloria Young’s description,
“It is a book for all the senses, a book to
feel, a book to see, a book to read, to listen to and to
smell”. The famous Panamanian writer Pedro Crenes
Castro referred to Gloria Young in his book review as
“one of the great female literary voices of the country”.
“Nothing to Hide” touches the soul and makes it
shiver at the same time. Gloria Young just recently
presented her book in MUSA (Museum Startgalerie
Artothek) to the Viennese public for the first time.
The Indigenous People of Panama
Ambassador Young tells us about a research project,
she was involved in, with great enthusiasm.:
“The leadership of the Nagbe Buglé woman: Silvia
Carrera”. That is how we also got an insight into the
way of life of the indigenous peoples in Panama. We
learned that in 2011, Silvia Carrera Concepción was
the first woman to be voted cacica (native chief) of
the Ngäbe-Buglé tribe. In 2012, she even made international
headlines by arranging large-scale roadblocks
with her people to prevent the construction of
a hydroelectric power plant on her people‘s land,
which brought traffic to Panama City to a standstill.
Ever since then, mining projects in the autonomous
territories of the indigenous peoples have only been
allowed to go ahead upon their consent. An enormous
victory for a woman from a small Indian tribe
in the mountains of Veraguas.
The Ngäbe-Buglé represent the most numerous
of the indigenous peoples in Panama. About 180.000
Ngäbes and 10.000 Buglé live in the protected “Ngäbe-Buglé
Comarca”, comparable to a reservation.
They have their own political system. The majority
of the Ngäbe-Buglé live in small towns or villages,
particularly in the mountain region of Bocas del
Ambassador
Gloria Young at her
accreditation.
52 Cercle Diplomatique 1/2015
Cercle Diplomatique 1/2015
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