Guerrillas fighting for bananas

September 19th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 2 Comments »

Where’s your banana from?

If it’s from Colombia it might have a bit of blood on it.

From CNN.com:

Banana producer Chiquita will pay a $25 million fine and serve five years’ probation for once paying millions of dollars to groups in Colombia considered by the U.S. to be terrorist organizations, a Department of Justice spokesman said Tuesday.

Colombia ain’t Ohio. If you are going to do business there, you are going to have to get your hands dirty. I’m not for hiring soldiers of fortune, unless they are these soldiers of fortune, but to me it seems as if our government isn’t entirely above the practice either.

I like bananas in my smoothie, on my cereal, split and topped with ice cream, and just plain peel and eat. I’m not thrilled that some of my banana spending is lining the pockets of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. But that’s not going to keep me from eating them.

I’m tempted to take my banana business elsewhere, although I’m not sure there are any other options, but when I start thinking about the ethics of the situation I’m not sure what to do. (Note: I don’t know jack about the banana business and specifically that of Colombia and I’m not going to spend my morning researching it because…well…I should actually try and get some work done.) If I stop buying bananas produced in Colombia how many people will lose their jobs? How many of these people will turn to Colombia’s most well-known crop?

And I’m sure there are many other questions like: What about the monkeys? What about cartoons that employ banana peels as gag props? Will future cartoons be forced to slip on orange peels? That doesn’t sound very funny.

One thing my WAIW? quest has taught me is there is no black and white, good and bad solution to such dilemmas. The world is much more complex than:

eating + bananas = bad