Peter Schurmann. Peninsula 360 Press
I am on a bus passing through the city of San Pedro Sula - in northern Honduras - on the first leg of an overnight trip east to cover stranding of migrants across the border with Guatemala. Through the window, the signs for American fast food chains fade away, one after another, block after block: Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, Popeyes. Up ahead, the pattern repeats itself.
In one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, these cartoonish symbols of American dominance tower over the cityscape — like muezzins bedecked with colored lights calling the faithful to prayer — untouched by poverty. I wonder if this is what future archaeologists will find when they search for the rubble of American empire.
Honduras faces national elections later this month that could determine the future path of the Central American nation. At right, Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, “Papi,” a member of the National Party, which has controlled the country since a 2009 coup ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. At left, Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, who has vowed to lead a new course for the troubled nation where, according to statistics, one in five residents yearns to leave.
Indeed, a glance at the headlines reveals a country besieged by violence, endemic poverty, climate crisis and rampant government corruption, all exacerbated by the iron grip that international drug cartels exercise over large sectors of society.
And yet, all I can think about is fast food.
The numbers are staggering. In Tegucigalpa, the concentration of American food franchises is one of the highest in Latin America. In exchange for creating jobs, these companies have tax-free access to local consumers, who enjoy a highly processed and very low-nutrition taste of the “American dream.”
As Tanya Kerssen writes in her book “Grabbing Power: The Struggles for Land, Food and Democracy in Northern Honduras”, the ownership of these franchises is concentrated in a few families with close ties to US capital, many of whom are known to have supported the 2009 coup. “Honduras thus offers a striking example of how a non-democratic food system reflects and sustains a non-democratic political system.”
The effects on the health and food culture of the country in general are undeniable, with troubling rates of obesity and diabetes,, even as local farmers struggle to compete with cheaper American agricultural imports that have flooded their market.
For many Hondurans, conditions in the country have steadily deteriorated in the decade since the 2009 coup, as the ruling National Party has doggedly pursued an extractive model of growth that appears to be lining the pockets of a few while impoverishing the majority.
Examples abound, including the Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDE), which grant foreign investors administrative and legal control over entire territories, at the expense of land rights, human rights and political sovereignty.
Around the city of Progreso, about two hours east of San Pedro Sula, there is a sea of palm oil crops, their leaves stretching into the distance, covering the region with a monoculture almost entirely controlled by one family.
Much has been made of the damaging effects of palm oil on forests and climate in countries from Africa to Indonesia and South America as well. In Honduras, these crops have penetrated with the brute force of a colonising company, sapping the vitality of the soil and leaving the vast majority to work in deplorable conditions for a pittance. Within ten years, these fields will be practically useless: the soil beneath will have lost its nutrients and only the traces of years of industrial pesticides will remain.
In Yorito, a municipality about 200 kilometers north of the capital, residents remember arrival of a mining company Two years ago, armed with guns and machetes, company officials and their guards set up camp in the centre of town, determined to claim the largely indigenous territory as their own. As this report points out, the impacts of mining on poor and marginalized communities across much of Honduras extend to nearly every aspect of life—from physical and environmental health to economic and political representation.
From these and other examples emerges a picture in which the current rulers of Honduras have chosen to put the nation up for sale to the highest bidder, embracing a neoliberal fantasy under the pretext that what is good for corporate interests is good for the economy, regardless of the impact on local communities and people's lives.
And they may be right. New figures from the IMF show that Honduras' economy is on track to achieve growth of 8 to 9 percent in 2021, more than double previous projections, despite the severe economic impacts of COVID-19 and Hurricanes Eta and Iota the previous year.
These numbers are staggering, but they come as thousands of people continue to flee the country, individuals like those stranded daily at the border with Guatemala. Mothers, fathers and entire families who take what little they have to escape a country in which they see no future.
Sitting in Tegucigalpa’s main market, I watch women busily preparing boiled beans, stewed meats and other delicacies. I opt for a baleada, a large hand-pressed flour tortilla filled with beans, meat and melted cheese. Delicious.
As I eat, I think about the upcoming elections and the choice Hondurans will face, and I think that in some ways it is a choice between the continuation of the reign of the “free” market policies advocated by the current government – with all their empty calories – or something else, something that I hope will be more inclusive, more nutritious. Like the difference between a Big Mac and a baleada.
