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The banana as an image of domination in Central America and the former German Democratic Republic
In this article, I explore the banana as a symbol of capitalism and phallocentrism, drawing on historians from the Global South, CIA documents, anti-Soviet propagandists, Baudrillard and Freud, varying economic narratives, magical realist literature, and more.
This was a midterm project for a senior seminar course on food writing. Enjoy.
Part I: REFLECTIONS FROM THE TROPICS
βIn the Gardens of Bliss / They will be served any fruit they choose / They will be amid thornless lote trees / Clusters of bananas / Extended shade / Flowing water / Abundant fruit / Never out of season nor forbidden.β
β βThe Eventβ from the Quran
βThe Koran mentions the banana among the trees of paradise, but the βbananizationβ of Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador suggests that it is a tree of hell.β
β Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America
It is impossible to read about Latin American and Caribbean history or politics without frequent mention of the banana. Indeed, its symbolism is ubiquitous even in the regionβs literature. Gabriel GarcΓa MΓ‘rquez, for instance, sets the cataclysmic affair of his La Hojarasca as the arrival of a banana company in a fictitious small town in Colombia called Macondo. The banana has a heavy history in a region rich in tropical delights β bananas, but also sugar, coffee, cacao, gold, and more.
Seizing Central America
βBananizationβΒ
The United Fruit Company β todayβs Chiquita β was a multinational corporation that traded tropical fruit, most notably bananas, from Latin America and the Caribbean to the United States and Europe. United Fruit extended their activities until they gained monopolies in notable southern countries, designated as banana republics (Galeano 1997). Such countries included Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, but United Fruit was Central Americaβs top βlatifundistaβ (Galeano 1997). The effects of United Fruitβs monopolies were detrimental both to plantation labourers and land (Galeano 1997).