Banana Republics -- The dark side of the fruit including the CIA, Coups, Che, Carmen Miranda, Sigmund Freud's Nephew, Immigration, and more

I was going to just post another frivolous fun banana post with some OC-ish photo I took (my photo but someone else's art) but I've done a lot of food research over the years and I could not pass up this opportunity to spread the word on the rotten side of the banana business and just how deeply entrenched it is so that we don't even question our everyday lives.

First, watch the video highlighted in the screenshot above:

The Dark History of Chiquita Banana:
https://youtu.be/PFxyThdbeNQ

It's just over 7 minutes and gives a good brief overview of the far reaches caused by this little ubiquitous fruit

It also helps tie together the next points and images I'll bring up in this post

"The Fish That Ate The Whale" is a book about the founder of the United Fruit Company who more than any other is responsible for making the banana the fruit of the world, but especially the United States.

""When Samuel Zemurray arrived in the US in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. In Latin America, when people shouted “Yankee, go home!” it was men like Zemurray they had in mind.

Rich Cohen’s brilliant historical profile The Fish That Ate the Whale unveils Zemurray as a hidden kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary, driven by an indomitable will to succeed. Known as El Amigo, the Gringo, or simply Z, the Banana Man lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. Starting with nothing but a cart of freckled bananas, he built a sprawling empire of banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA agents, and American statesmen. From hustling on the docks of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments, from feuding with Huey Long to working with the Dulles brothers, Zemurray emerges as an unforgettable figure, connected to the birth of modern American diplomacy, public relations, business, and war—a monumental life that reads like a parable of the American dream.""

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The man highlighted in the book above is responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths in South and Central America and the toppling of left, progressive governments in favor of brutal regimes that weaves a twisted tale which includes Carmen Maranda, Che, Sigmund Freud's nephew, the father of Propaganda Edward Bernays and so much more.

You can find a chronicle of the history at this link:
http://www.unitedfruit.org/chron.htm

The United Fruit Co. founded by Samuel Zemurray is a big part of where the term, "Banana Republic" came from

This bears repeating:

A banana republic is a country with an economy of state capitalism, whereby the country is operated as a private commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

"Chiquita Banana" is a brand name that was born out of United Fruit company and was left in the ashes when its parent company eventually dissolved in disgrace

The famous logo was inspired by Carmen Miranda who was actually born in Portugal. I've been to her home village:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_de_Canaveses

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Miranda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Miranda

This is such an "American" thing touting US breakthroughs in diversity. The US proclaims Carmen as the first "Latin-American" so honored but being born in Portugal makes her really just another European.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Miranda

I include this above because this description is yet another angle in how the US influences and overwhelms and destroys, all of which align with the story of the banana

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Below we scratch the surface of United Fruit Co.'s propaganda man, and propaganda should have been his middle name.

Edward Bernays was a Hungarian master of propaganda with a very famous relative who he also manipulated to his whims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/23/tye.php

https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/23/tye.php

It is because of this Jewish man, Edward Bernays that the US considers bacon a breakfast food. It's all a manipulation folks. You ever really wonder why we think what we do, why we just accept that things are the way they are?

https://www.thisiscapitalism.com/bacon-eggs-and-public-relations/

But breakfast was hardly Bernays's only manipulation into our way of thinking:

""When he started working for American Tobacco Company, Bernays was given the objective of increasing Lucky Strike sales among women, who, for the most part, had formerly avoided smoking. The first strategy was to persuade women to smoke cigarettes instead of eating. Bernays began by promoting the ideal of thinness itself, using photographers, artists, newspapers, and magazines to promote the special beauty of thin women. Medical authorities were found to promote the choice of cigarettes over sweets. Home-makers were cautioned that keeping cigarettes on hand was a social necessity.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom

"""Torches of Freedom" was a phrase used to encourage women's smoking by exploiting women's aspirations for a better life during the early twentieth century first-wave feminism in the United States. Cigarettes were described as symbols of emancipation and equality with men. The term was first used by psychoanalyst A. A. Brill when describing the natural desire for women to smoke and was used by Edward Bernays to encourage women to smoke in public despite social taboos. Bernays hired women to march while smoking their "torches of freedom" in the Easter Sunday Parade of 31 March 1929, which was a significant moment for fighting social barriers for women smokers.""

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Sadly this sad tale of manipulation and pain is far from over...

The death of United Fruit Co and Edward Bernays was not the end of Death Squads over bananas by Chiquita, now in the 21st Century:

https://apnews.com/article/latin-america-colombia-caribbean-8e01b036fd2b487d96ad79d65d442dad

Below is the start of an expose from "In These Times" which won a Pulitzer for its work titled, "Chiquita Made a Killing From Colombia’s Civil War" from January 28, 2017

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/chiquita-made-killing-colombias-civil-war

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/chiquita-made-killing-colombias-civil-war

To read the rest:

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/chiquita-made-killing-colombias-civil-war

.
Here are some more articles from, "In These Times" on the modern Banana Republics fueled by Chiquita

https://inthesetimes.com/article/chiquita-republic
https://inthesetimes.com/article/return-of-the-death-squads

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Below I've highlighted several books on these subjects for further reading though there is plenty on the internet too

http://peterchapmanbooks.com/books/bananas/

Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the WorldCanongate, 2007. Published in the UK as Jungle Capitalists: A Story of Globalisation, Greed and Revolution

""The story of the United Fruit Company - and the banana - is the story of the birth of globalisation. In this powerful and gripping book, Peter Chapman traces United Fruit’s mass production of the banana as the first fast food, which today has pushed the fruit to near-extinction. In its rapacious career, United Fruit perpetuated wars, massacres and coups in the so-called ‘banana republics’ of Central America, while manipulating US public opinion. Along the way, the company fostered covert links with Richard Nixon and stoked the revolutionary ire of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. This is a dramatic tale of big business, deceit and lies and of how one company wreaked irrevocable havoc.""

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/299017/banana-by-dan-koeppel/

""In the vein of Mark Kurlansky’s bestselling Salt and Cod, a gripping chronicle of the myth, mystery, and uncertain fate of the world’s most popular fruit

In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the banana’s history, cultural significance, and endangered future, award-winning journalist Dan Koeppel gives readers plenty of food for thought. Fast-paced and highly entertaining, Banana takes us from jungle to supermarket, from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables around the world. We begin in the Garden of Eden—examining scholars’ belief that Eve’s “apple” was actually a banana— and travel to early-twentieth-century Central America, where aptly named “banana republics” rose and fell over the crop, while the companies now known as Chiquita and Dole conquered the marketplace. Koeppel then chronicles the banana’s path to the present, ultimately—and most alarmingly—taking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight, with no cure in sight—and to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas,_Beaches_and_Bases

This is actually a DVD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas,_Beaches_and_Bases

""Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics is a book by Cynthia Enloe. It was first published in 1990, with a revised edition published in 2014. The book focuses on feminist international relations theory, deriving its title from "the gendered history of the banana" as exemplified by promotion of sales through images of Carmen Miranda, as well as gendered issues regarding tourism and military bases.""

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/MobergSlipping

I include this book to highlight that it's far from just the US driving the banana wars & poverty.

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/MobergSlipping

https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/

Until today I did not know that Fyffes was conjoined with Chiquita (nor did I know it was Irish)

Che “Latin America Diaries” is the sequel to “Motorcycle Diaries”
https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4341-the-latin-america-diaries

Che “Latin America Diaries” is the sequel to “Motorcycle Diaries”
https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4341-the-latin-america-diaries

Banana Tax -- if you made it this far... :)

This is the image I was going to post. To tie it to Carmen Miranda it is Portuguese street art

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So what can we do?

One: Just be aware. That's half the battle there. Learn about the food you put in your body. Where it comes from, who it enriches, and who it hurts. Then try to do the Most Good, Least Harm (MOGO).

Two: Buy Fair Trade, and organic/bio when you can (this limits exposure to toxins for the workers and the environment they live and raise their children in

Here is a banana buying guide (UK based but still good in-depth info for everyone (below the store table): https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/bananas

The above also has this nifty graphic:https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/sites/default/files/styles/text_with_image_xlarge/public/images/2020-02/average-banana-value-breakdown-ethical.jpg

Other Guides:https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethical-shopping-guide

Shop at Food Cooperatives:https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/07/24/building-a-sustainable-model-for-a-food-co-op-in-toronto.html

I welcome all other suggestions