Claims US is 'third world, banana republic' misread history - analysis

• Date: 07 January 2021
• Published date: 07 January 2021
• Author: SETH J. FRANTZMAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

This talking point, asserting that the scenes of chaos and people attacking offices of elected representatives make America look like a "banana republic," are part of a wider American and Western cliché that attempts to paint the global South as more prone to coups and chaos than ostensibly democratic Western countries.

However, only 100 years ago, most Western countries were full of the kind of chaos and coup attempts that many claim they saw in Washington. The chaos in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s led to world war and the Holocaust. Similarly in the US, the 1920s and 1930s were also full of violence and extremism. From the Palmer Raids to the Bonus March on Washington, there were scenes in the US in that era that are not dissimilar to today.

While it is true that the protesters entering the capital's buildings was apparently the first such incidents since the War of 1812, this is primarily due to police and security not being put in place to stop the attack. Past violent eras in US history, whether the chaos after the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or the strikes and battles of the Pullman Strike in 1894 that saw 30 killed, America has a long history of political violence. The accusation today that this week's chaos makes the US look like a "third-world country" or "banana republic" seems to miss out on history.

First of all, coups, chaos, civil war and political violence are Western traditions. From the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s to the attempted coup by Hitler in 1923 in Germany, many Western countries have seen violence in the last century. Second, the coups in many "banana republics" were as often led by foreign intervention as by locals. Whether it was the revolution that led to the Castro regime in Cuba or the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, the US and many Western democracies, as well as the Soviet Union, played a role in making coups appear "third world." Without the Cold War overshadowing many countries in Latin America or many newly independent African and Asian states in the 1960s, would there have been so many coups?

In many cases, officials moved to depose leaders only after assuming they had support from the US or Russia. Whether Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo or Salvador Allende in Chile, their overthrow and killing were closely tied to Cold War rivalries, in which the US and other Western democracies played a key role.

It should also be recalled that women only received the right to vote in...