I’m not a fan of the term “banana republic”. A pejorative expression coined by US author and international fugitive O Henry, it first appeared in Cabbages and Kings, his book of interconnected short stories about the fictional Republic of Anchuria.
This was a proxy for Honduras, a state whose economy was dependent on the export of bananas in the late 1890s, and where Henry spent six months on the run, hiding in a hotel because he was wanted by US federal authorities on charges of embezzlement.
The term is used to describe resource-rich but desperately poor countries, usually in the Global South, where a small but powerful ruling class has captured the state and abuses public resources, power and institutions to amass extraordinary personal wealth.
Such a country operates effectively as a private enterprise, where elites in the state collude with powerful private monopoly firms to exploit public goods for private profit, while simultaneously leaving the government responsible for their debts.
What is less commonly known about so-called banana republics is that they emerged in Honduras and Costa Rica in the late 19th century because a US fruit oligarchy — three multinationals that controlled about 90% of the US banana market — had captured and privatised both states.
The United Fruit Company (UFC), which operates today as Chiquita Brands International; the Standard Fruit Co, now Dole, a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange; and Cuyamel Fruit Co — which was later bought by UFC — collectively and exclusively controlled banana cultivation and harvesting, and assumed almost total control of national transport infrastructure in both countries to facilitate the easy export of the fruit.
Over 60 years, the UFC bought governments, exploited local labour, facilitated coups and cheaply amassed control and ownership of millions of hectares of arable land across Central America and the Caribbean.
Yet the term banana republic singles out only the governments in question — corrupt as they were — for censure because of their part in facilitating the plunder and destruction of their own countries.
No similar term exists to describe, effectively, a banana corporation. Nor does “banana republic” implicate the foreign states whose inaction facilitated this large-scale looting by their local oligarchs.
I don’t like the one-sidedness of the concept, but I wonder whether South Africa is becoming a banana republic
I don’t like the one-sidedness of the concept, but I wonder whether South Africa is becoming a banana republic.
A willing stooge of crooked foreign interests. An unserious state that can be bought and sold at will — and not even to the highest bidder — for a few strategically placed bribes and kickbacks.
A place perceived as having no systems, no rule of law, no independent state institutions that will prevent incursions by the greedy and unprincipled.
When international rogues — be they states or syndicates — are shopping for a cheap and easy resource-rich and governance-poor country to target for acquisition, how often does South Africa appear on their shortlist of prospects?
Chief justice Raymond Zondo said it best in his 2022 state capture report eviscerating former president Jacob Zuma, when he described how and why the Gupta family likely selected him as the patsy who would facilitate their acquisition of the South African state.
“Central to the Guptas’ scheme of state capture was… Zuma, whom the Guptas must have identified at a very early stage as somebody whose character was such that they could use him against the people of South Africa, his own country and his own government to advance their own business interests.
"And Zuma readily opened the doors for the Guptas to go into the [state-owned entities] and help themselves to the money and assets of the people of South Africa...”
When international rogues — be they states or syndicates — are shopping for a cheap and easy resource-rich and governance-poor country to target for acquisition, how often does South Africa appear on their shortlist of prospects?
It would seem that shady foreign interests hold this same view of our country in general. How else should we account for our navy being kept in the dark about the mysterious docking of a Russian cargo ship — subject of US sanctions for transporting arms used against Ukraine — at South Africa’s largest naval base in Simon’s Town?
Why would a South African military installation — Air Force Base Waterkloof — welcome a Russian cargo aircraft, also subject to sanctions by our second-biggest trading partner, even as President Cyril Ramaphosa’s national security adviser was in the US trying to affirm our country’s nonaligned stance on the war?
Why does United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan get to treat infrastructure in the Eastern Cape as his private property — throwing money at the provincial government to renovate a public installation so he can use it as his private airport? And would he have the audacity to try doing the same in, say, the UK or China?
In his inaugural address, our first legitimately elected president said: “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another, and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.”
As we approach the 30th anniversary of this famous declaration, we are in danger of becoming something more pathetic than the skunk of the world: a banana republic.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.