Back in 1823, President James Monroe had informed the world that America became now the reputable protector and defender of the Western hemisphere, and European colonies were not welcome. but in reality, the U.S. became too concerned with its own growth across the North American continent, after which with the Civil war, to simply enforce the Monroe Doctrine or take a good deal of an interest in overseas affairs. many nations within the Caribbean and Latin America seemed to be in constant political turmoil and poverty. The U.S. attempted to protect American interests and stabilize the vicinity through non-colonial imperial enlargement. This meant the USA would intervene in foreign affairs without really taking control of any countries.
In the documentary, there noticed two main theories, the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny and Monroe Doctrine basically served as justification for the USA to intrude and impose its will on ‘America’s backyard,’ and made foreign intervention desirable, so long as it was the united states doing the intervening. It additionally underpinned the primary century of U.S. involvement overseas, making America a dominant player inside the newly unbiased Americas. In simple terms, manifest destiny was the idea that Americans were destined, through God, to govern the North American continent. This concept, with all the accompanying changes of landscape, subculture, and non-secular belief it implied, had deep roots in American subculture.
It’s far important to remember that, as originally conceived, manifest destiny was an unabashedly prejudiced idea. It rested upon the sidelining or eradication (both actual-international and fictional) of American Indian peoples; there was little vicinity for African people (free or enslaved) in the trope; Asian and Hispanic immigrants did not figure in the best the us it conjured. Catholics have been commonly omitted; women have been deemed unimportant. The peoples who were supposed to triumph over the continent had been white, Protestant, and overwhelmingly male, with an unquenchable thirst without spending a dime business enterprise. Those are critical ideas to preserve in thoughts considering the lingering importance of happen future as a concept in American tradition.
The Chiquita corporation was negatively impacting the environment, workers worked in harsh conditions, and also involved a lot of corruption. As the production of bananas increased, so did the need of acquiring more lands. Many people were driven off their lands because big companies needed the lands for mass production. The company started using more chemicals in order to keep up with production. In the documentary it’s pretty obvious that the Chiquita company did not take into consideration that these chemicals were creating a lot of abnormalities in child birth, health issues with workers, lastly with those living close to the plantations.
Also in the documentary it shows that workers were harassed and even killed by rebel groups funded by the Chiquita company in order to protect its interests. Union activists, and even leaders were fired. The company felt it could treat the workers as they deemed fit because they felt workers didn’t have much job opportunities to run to. With all the wrongs Chiquita was doing to the environment, those living near the plantations, and also the workers, they felt untouchable because they were a multinational company with lots of political connections they had in Latin America and the United States. It is also said in the documentary that the Chiquita company spent more than one million to rebels groups such as the ANC to defend them and to also harass their workers.
As the movie explains, through the early twentieth century UFC had turn out to be a powerful multinational organization, and in change for its position in supporting to prop up repressive regimes in Latin America, the corporation was afforded cheap land, and in time, it got here to broaden a monopoly on the transport of fruit in the vicinity. When people organized to call for higher working conditions, including 6-day work weeks, eight-hour work days, money rather than scrip, and written contracts, they were met with a violent response from the Colombian military. Shielding the interests of American financial elites, the United States government threatened to invade Colombia with a view to quell the UFC worker protests, and in reaction, the Colombian authorities dispatched a regiment from its own navy to do the job.
The Colombian troops correctly created a kill box, setting their system weapons on the roofs surrounding the plaza where a group of protestors had accumulated. After a 5-minute caution to disperse, the troops opened fire killing women, men, and children. other than a sobering reminder of the power agencies often wield over the lives of employees, mainly when they have the backing of states, this clip might work nicely as a method of introducing a number of the fundamental components of postcolonial theory, which may be understood as a body of idea that opinions and goals to go beyond the structures supportive of Western colonialism and its legacies.
In comparison to Marxist dependency theories and the sector systems perspective, work in the postcolonial tradition tends to emphasize cultural, ideological, and even psychological systems born from the forceful and global expansions and occupations of Western empires. The banana strike and its violent end is a bright example of the manner the united states have maintained a postcolonial grip on the running of overseas economies. In this example, a propaganda device chipped away at worldwide sympathy for the protesting workers, at the same time as at the identical time, the U.S. turned into able to wield strength over the Colombian government via mere threat of military force. I also believed realism also play a part in these big corporations and how they handled multinational companies in Latin America.