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As crowds stormed the building at the heart of American democracy on Wednesday, stunned American officials, including a former president, used the same phrase to make comparisons: “banana republic.”
“This is how election results are contested in a banana republic – not in our democratic republic,” former President George W. Bush said in a statement.
Its more colorful feeling echoed on Twitter by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis .: “We’re seeing absolute banana republic shit right now in the United States Capitol.”
While Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a former presidential candidate, tweeted: “This is the 3rd world anti-American style anarchy.”
But America’s comparisons of the violent and frenzied pro-Trump crowds that plunged the Capitol into chaos, leaving at least five dead, with events in so-called Third World countries, have been greeted with derision and offensive by many. of those who live and work. in developed countries.
The term “banana republic” is widely believed to have been coined in the early 1900s by American author O. Henry in his collection of “Cabbages and Kings” stories. It is often used as a shortcut for Latin American countries characterized by political instability and single-crop economies dominated by foreign capital.
The analogy, largely derived from the United Fruit Co.’s monopoly of the banana industry in South America in the early 20th century, is an unnecessary and “tired” trope, said Lisa Munro, an American historian. Latin.
Regarding the United States as a “banana republic” does not help people understand that the events in Washington were “entirely of American creation,” she added.
As events unfolded in Washington, Andrei Gómez-Suárez, a former Colombian government official, said the “banana republic” was used repeatedly on social media and comparisons were drawn between President Donald Trump and populist leaders like Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Brazilian President. Jair Bolsonaro.
For “people who always thought these things were happening outside the United States, not in America, this was a turning point,” said Gómez-Suárez, who co-founded think tank Rodeemos el Diálogo, or Embrace Dialogue, and works as an academic. specializing in peacebuilding in Colombia.
The events set “a very bad precedent from the United States,” he said.
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The social divisions that led to the Black Lives Matter protests, America’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the riots on Capitol Hill put together the idea of American exceptionalism and the position of the United States on the world stage, he said, which makes it more likely. that the United States would soon be “replaced” by other actors.
“Many are now saying that the United States will not be” the “world power,” said Gómez-Suárez, adding that the events on Capitol Hill were “part of America’s decline.”
Comparisons with “third world” nations were “insulting” and based “on the pretext that the so-called first world is superior,” said Carlos Lopes, professor at the Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town. in South Africa. .
However, many Africans had grown accustomed to “denigrating” the language of the United States and Trump, in particular, he said, citing reports that Trump referred to Haiti and African countries as “shitty countries.” In 2018. Trump denied using the expression.
Gautam Bhatia, Indian author and constitutional lawyer, told NBC News that comparisons to the “third world” were “not so much offensive as they are ironic.”
From slavery to protracted wars and foreign intervention, Bhatia said, American violence was neither new nor surprising.
The United States has long suffered from a “democratic deficit”, he said, “but because of American hegemony it is not defined that way.”
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