Banana Republic
I am looking for descriptions written in Spanish that are descriptive of the phrase Banana Republic as it applies to Guatemala.
10 Answers
Have you ever lived in one? - Spenco 3 hrs ago flag
No, not quite, but I'm from Colombia, which has been, historically, a lackey state to the US, there's the very telling episode of the Masacre de las Bananeras on december 6 1928, a massacre carried out by the Colombian army after the order came from Bogotá, on behalf of the US-based United Fruit Company, to quell a revolt by the company's plantation workers, who were rightfully demanding a pay rise and improved labour conditions, my grandma, who was a little girl when the massacre took place, used to tell me about the corpses being transported in train wagons to be thrown into the sea. So even though Colombia's never been invaded or had a dictator supported by the US(it's never needed to), it's pretty much been a Banana Republic since the XX century started with the loss of Panama, which gained independence(from Colombia, and gained dependance on the US) after the president at the time decided to give it away.
In the Colombian case your question is a tricky and ambiguous one.
Pero descripción de qué; historicamente ha habido muchos casos de lo que podría denominar una "Banana Republic", pero las circunstancias cambian de país a país y con la época: a principios del siglo XX Estados Unidos patrocinó regímenes que eran económicamente rentables en países adonde llegaban para apoderarse de tierras y crear plantaciones (de banano) y exportarlas para su consumo en Estados Unidos, creo que el término fue aplicado a un país centroamericano, no recuerdo cual.
--Mariana-- I live in Guatemala, but have never heard this term...maybe because I haven't been around long enough.
However
No, it's more like people are doomed to ignore their own history, and have it repeated over and over again, see how countries in the EU need to go into much more debt to get out of debt, then what's left for those forsaken and corruption-riddled third wolrd quasi failed-states, no country with as little to nonexistent social mobility, as much abject poverty, and a small ultrarich elite can be called a developing country, those are doomed to be underdeveloped until something really happens.
josemaloru For Spanish people "Republic Banana" (República Bananera), is a despective way of calling some countries where their citizens don't have rules or laws, and the Government runs badly the country, with a lot of corruption, soldiers controlling people, etc...
We usually say that to call countries like as: Cuba, Republica Domincana, etc....
Sounds pretty much like Spain under Franco, until not so long ago.
I found several articles where Guatemala is called a "classic example" of a Banana Republic.....
Guatemala suffers the regional socio-economic legacy of the banana republic: inequitably distributed agricultural land and natural wealth, uneven economic development, and an economy dependent upon a few export crops, usually bananas, coffee, sugar cane. The inequitable land distribution is the principal cause of national poverty and the low quality of Guatemalan life, and the concomitant socio-political discontent and insurrection. Almost 90 per cent of the country's farms are too small to yield adequate subsistence harvests to the farmers, whilst two per cent of the country's farms occupy 65 per cent of the arable land, property of the local oligarchy.
Se podría decir que el concepto de república bananera cambió tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, los países del hemisferio occidental, osea de América, fueron objeto de plan expansionista estadounidense, en el sentido que EEUU los consideraba su "([patio] trasero), por lo que cualquier indicio de simpatía a la URSS, o al cualquier cosa que supuestamente los soviéticos representaran, era causal de intervención directa y sanguinario o indirecta, igualmente sanguinaria, ya no se trataba de despojar a los pobres de sus tierras para explotarlas, ahora era evitar la propagación de la ideología comunista usando la coacción como herramienta. Algunos países que encajan en esta "evolución" de la república bananera son:
Nicaragua bajo Somoza
Brasil bajo la dictadura militar (a few days ago, the Brazilian president told the story about her imprisonment and torture during the Brazilian dictatorship)
Argentina bajo Videla
República Dominicana bajo Trujillo
Chilo bajo Pinochet
Uruguay bajo el régimen de 1973-1985
Paraguay bajo Stroessner, entre otros
I live in Guatemala, but have never heard this term...maybe because I haven't been around long enough.
However, I have seen first hand (with both a large government and small village scale) that there is a "large, impoverished working class and a ruling ...rich élites ... and the military. The Mayan people where I live in the Western Highlands of Guatemala accept this as a way of life.
I got this from Wikipedia:
English: A banana republic is a politically unstable country that economically depends upon the exports of a limited resource (fruits, minerals), and usually features a classed society — a large, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy, the rich élites of business, politics, and the military.
In practice, a banana republic is a country operated as a commercial enterprise for private profit, effected by the collusion between the State and favoured monopolies, whereby the profits derived from private exploitation of public lands is private property, and the debts incurred are public responsibility.
Español: República bananera es un término peyorativo para un país que sea considerado como políticamente inestable, empobrecido y atrasado, cuya economía depende de unos pocos productos de escaso valor agregado (simbolizados por las bananas), gobernado por un dictador o una junta militar. También se las suele llamar "republiquetas bananeras" (pero no se deben confundir con el término histórico "republiqueta").
Otro rasgo notable en este estereotipo es que en la "república bananera" la corrupción es práctica corriente en cada aspecto de la vida cotidiana, siendo comúnmente desobedecidas las leyes del país. También suele identificarse como característica de la república bananera el poder casi absoluto que ejerce sobre su gobierno una gran empresa extranjera, ya sea mediante sobornos a los gobernantes o por simple ejercicio de su poder financiero.
For Spanish people "Republic Banana" (República Bananera), is a despective way of calling some countries where their citizens don't have rules or laws, and the Government runs badly the country, with a lot of corruption, soldiers controlling people, etc...
We usually say that to call countries like as: Cuba, Republica Domincana, etc...
Perhaps I should re-focus this a bit.
Let's try looking at only the history of Guatemala which appears to be the prime example.
The Boomtown Rats.
