Politics
The Broken Ear is set in a fictional South American dictatorship, San Theodoros. However, it uses this setting to depict political issues that were important in the 1930s.
The mutually disastrous conflict between San Theodoros and the neighbouring state of Nuevo-Rico is called the "Gran Chapo War", a reference to the Gran Chaco War of 1932 to 1935 between Bolivia and Paraguay ("Gran Chapo" is a pun on the French term "grand chapeau", meaning "big hat"). Oil companies born from the Standard Oil and the Shell Oil company provoked that war (the Standard-derived companies backing Bolivia, Shell backing Paraguay) in order to get their hands on prospected oil fields. This view is reflected in the shady businessman Trickler who tries to bribe Tintin and, when that fails, resorts to attempted murder and false evidence to get rid of him. In another parallel, the Chapo plains, just like the real Chaco, turn out not to have oil after all.
The arms dealer Basil Bazarov, who sells weapons to both sides, is based on the real life Basil Zaharoff. In the English translation, he works for 'Korrupt Arms', a pun on 'corrupt', but also on Krupp, the German arms manufacturers. When a member of an airport groundcrew remarks that Bazarov has a private plane it is no idle comment. Air travel in the 1930s was in its infancy and extremely expensive and only the very wealthy (such as an arms dealer like Bazarov) could have afforded such a luxury as their own aircraft.
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Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics is repetition. It is not change. Change is something beyond what we call politics. Change is the essence politics is supposed to be the means to bring into being.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“I think the Senate ought to realize that I have to have about me those in whom I have confidence; and unless they find a real blemish on a man, I do not think they ought to make partisan politics out of appointments to the Cabinet.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“I have come to the conclusion that the closer people are to what may be called the front lines of government ... the easier it is to see the immediate underbrush, the individual tree trunks of the moment, and to forget the nobility the usefulness and the wide extent of the forest itself.... They forget that politics after all is only an instrument through which to achieve Government.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)