President Joe Biden, 78, declared yesterday that the United States officially recognizes the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks [1915-1917] where some 1.5 Armenians were massacred or marched into the Syrian desert where they perished from starvation and exhaustion. Turkey’s 67-year-old President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Biden’s declaration, long over due when you consider the “genocide” took place 106 years ago. Biden has raised the flag of human rights to push U.S. foreign policy, putting all nations on notice that the U.S. is the beacon of hope for human rights around the planet. When Biden visits the U.K. June 11-13, he plans to make the short trip to Dublin where he should say the U.S. recognizes the British genocide of the Irish in the so-called Potato Famine [1845-1852] where at least 1 million Irish perished from starvation.
Ireland had a robust population of 8.5 million at the beginning of the famine but by the time the famine ended in 1852, the population was ravaged, cut to 4.5 million , currently at 4.9 million. But like the American Indians during Colonial Days, it’s difficult for the U.S. census bureau to account for what happened to the 15 million native population in Colonial Times. Today’s native population stands at 5.22 million, accounting for missing gaps in U.S. history. When you read most U.S. history books, native Americans died off on their own. In Howard Zinn’s 1980 “Peoples History of the United State,” he tells a different story of what happened to the U.S. Native Americans, namely, a U.S. government genocide. When its comes to the Irish, Tim Patrick Coogan’s 2012 book, “The Famine Plot,” makes a compelling case for how the British, dating back to the days of Oliver Cromwell, committed genocide on the Irish.
Unlike the U.S. with the Native Americans, Coogan goes into exhaustive historical detail about how the British capitalized on the so-called Potato Famine to eradicate the Irish, viewed in British history as “sub-humans” compared to the British. When President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act May 28, 1830, the U.S. government declared open season on Native Americans, beginning the official U.S. genocide. Cromwell’s Irish campaign 1649 to 1650 was supposed to conquer Ireland, reporting in his carefully documented logs that he discovered unbridled savagery of the Irish people. Jackson referred to Native Americans as “savages,” the same language that accompanies genocide since the beginning of time. When Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” in 1943 observing the Nazi Holocaust, he cited the Ottoman Turks massacre as a case in point.
Lemkin needed to go back another 70 years in world history to see more clearly what the British did to finish off the Irish during the 1845-1852 Potato Famine. Coogan contends with irrefutable evidence that the Potato Famine was the excuse used by the British to exterminate the Irish, making sure that British-controlled areas of Dublin and Belfast had plenty of resources to combat the famine. In Thomas Gallagher’s 1982 book, “Paddy’s Lament,” documents while some 400,000 Irish peasants died of starvation in the winter of 1846, British-controlled land barons exported 17 million pound sterling worth of grains, cattle, pigs, flour, eggs and poultry to the U.K. British Statesman Sir. Walter Raleigh [1554-1618], a contemporary of Cromwell, spoke disparagingly about the Irish to the British Parliament. Coogan goes into painstaking detail to identify Charles Trevelyan as carrying out the Irish genocide.
Coogan, Ireland’s most prominent historian, doesn’t take his work lightly tying the British Crown and parliament to the “Famine Plot,” shipping off boatloads of Irish grown and made products to the U.K. while Ireland starved. Coogan points out that the same potato blight hit Scotland, where the British government made sure they got adequate supplies to prevent starvation. Compounding British animus toward Ireland was Henry VIII kicking out the Catholic Church in 1533 from England so he could marry pregnant Anne Boleyn. Centuries of hostility with Catholic Ireland and Anglican Britain didn’t help the Potato Famine when it hit Ireland in 1845. “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious groups, as such,” and Coogan identifies British conduct in the 1845-1852 potato famine as genocide.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair [Labor Party] said in 2011 he was prepared to call the main thesis of Coogan’s 2012 book, “The Famine Plot” genocide against the Irish. Blair never officially recognized the Potato Famine as “genocide.” When Biden visits Ireland in June, it will be a great act of courage for the historic record to recognize the Irish Potato Famine as genocide. What could be a better example of genocide than the British government appointing its henchman Charles Trevelyan to preside over the diabolical plot to starve the Irish population when the British were swimming in food. As Coogan points out, Scotland experienced the same potato blight but had no real problems with food shortages. “The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine but the moral evil of selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people,” Trevelyan said, demonizing the Irish.
