Post by notpropaganda on Jan 31, 2019 14:31:59 GMT
Also, as we're on the topic of Churchill in terms of the Irish famine most of the historians that describe it as genocide largely come from Indian writers comparing to the larger context with the Bengal famine and other famines that occurred within the empire due to a belief of British/English supremacy, and that deliberately removing food from non British peasants to further British causes abroad was a deliberate act that had the added benefit of quashing any attempts at uprisings. It's not as clear cut as as an ideological hatred of Armenians or Jews, but relies on a mix of an ideological application of capitalism and the ideology of British supremacy. Tbf, outside of James Connolly I haven't done a huge amount of reading in terms of Irish writings, and Connolly wasn't even technically Irish.
I don't know enough about British rule in India to properly compare but the main issue in Ireland was land ownership and dependency on one crop (which was inextricably linked to the land ownership). You can also go back further to the penal laws and a general societal system which kept the Catholic peasants uneducated, impoverished and tenants on their own land. The tenant class had become so utterly dependent on the potato that most of them didn't even know how to make bread even if the ingredients were given to them. You could grow enough potatoes on a tiny section of land to feed your family and hopefully keep the middlemen away from the door.
I think you're right in talking about an ideological issue but I don't think that equates to genocide. The British upper classes believed in providence. They also believed in the laissez faire idea of enterprise. To them, intervening too strongly would make things worse in the long run. I don't think such narrow minded ideas equates to a genocidal desire to wipe out millions of peasants from Ireland. They had been trying to fix Ireland for a long time since the Act of Union, but their own incompetence and dedication to a single policy idea resulted in this disaster.
I just think we have to be very careful about what we label these things. Calling it a genocide isn't really something that we ourselves are comfortable with but I suppose we are reckoning with our own history in a lot of ways. But from listening to historians here who have studied it extensively, they don't find any indication within Parliament debates or letters from government ministers etc., to suggest that it was a purposeful policy of killing Irish peasants. For the likes of Trevelyan (who was definitely the worst), it was an act of God with the happy coincidence that a surplus population would be reduced.
If you are interested in reading more, the only tip I would give you is to avoid books from Tim Pat Coogan. He is a journalist, and writes his books with journalistic intent - not history.