Voice of Work and Solidarity
What unfolded in Chiriquí Province—particularly in the city of David—on International Workers’ Day can be understood as a quiet yet meaningful social act:
a form of collective expression rooted not in confrontation, but in presence, representation, and remembrance.
May Day in Chiriquí was not merely a simple march.
It was a voice—emerging from clothing, symbols, and the unspoken language of faces.
Unlike the fiery intensity of some major Latin American cities, what appeared here was a different kind of energy:
not explosive, not silent—
but something in between.
A subtle balance between everyday life and the desire for change.
Symbols spoke their own language.
Red badges carried words such as unity, struggle, and victory.
Blue shirts, calm yet firm, repeated a quiet message:
for the unity of the working class.
This visual language did not need to shout—
it simply communicated.
The placards reflected the same demands clearly:
- “Trabajo digno, vida digna”
Dignified work, dignified life
- “No más explotación”
No more exploitation
- “Salarios justos ahora”
Fair wages now
- “Queremos vivir, no sobrevivir”
We want to live, not merely survive
- “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido”
The people united will never be defeated
Alongside them, the presence of teachers was striking—
with signs that read:
- “Educar también es trabajar”
Teaching is also work
- “Sin maestros no hay futuro”
Without teachers, there is no future
These voices revealed that the concept of work extends beyond manual labor,
reaching into intellectual and human dimensions.
Among the crowd, there was also a figure who seemed to carry history within his body.
A man—
once a guerrilla in his youth—
who had lost his leg along that path.
He stood neither at the front nor at the back,
but exactly where history often stands:
between past and present.
In his hand, a simple sign:
“Queremos vivir, no sobrevivir.”
For him, this was not a slogan—
it was a lived reality.
He belonged to a generation that learned to demand
by first giving:
giving youth,
giving life,
giving a limb.
His presence formed a living bridge
between the radical struggles of the past
and the symbolic, collective actions of today.
If yesterday struggle was defined by confrontation,
today it continues through presence, togetherness, and visibility.
From a sociological perspective,
what took place in Chiriquí can be understood as a form of collective symbolic action—
where solidarity is not constructed through complex structures,
but through the simple act of standing together.
Here, the worker is not merely an economic category,
but a social subject:
- in the face of a man whose hands still carry the memory of labor,
- in a woman who stands quietly, yet not wearily,
- in a young person learning, perhaps for the first time, the meaning of gathering,
- and in the man with a crutch—
who still, even now, is asking for something.
In this corner of Latin America—
between mountains, heat, and modest streets—
May Day is not merely a ceremony.
It is a continuation.
A continuation of a story
that began in Bushehr,
passed through London,
and now, in Chiriquí,
is being told once again—
in another language,
but with the same heart.
A story of work.
A story of dignity.
A story of humanity.
A story of class struggle—
still ongoing,
still unfolding…
until victory,
and the realization of a just society.
⸻
Naser Kamali
May 1, 2026
Chiriquí Province
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