Three Famines: Starvation and Politics by
Thomas Keneally – review
23 September, 2011 | Alex de Waal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
singles out the poor. The economist and philosopher Amartya Sen,
who lived through the 1943 Bengal famine as a young member of a
prominent family that fed the destitute, opened his seminal book
Poverty and Famines (1981) with the observation that famine is
the phenomenon of some people not having enough food to eat, not
of there not being enough food to eat.
Thomas Keneally, the Australian novelist, writes vividly about the
depths to which human beings descend during famines. His
examples are Ireland, Bengal and Ethiopia, and there are similarities
among the three. Keneally draws on scholarship and archives, and
also witnessed at first hand the civil war and famine in Ethiopia and
Eritrea in the 1980s, when he travelled with the rebels and saw the
destruction inflicted by the then military ruler of Ethiopia, Mengistu
Haile Mariam, who persistently sought to starve the civilian
population of the rebel-held areas into submission.
The book is both reportage of starvation and analysis of how famine
is made. The "politics" in his subtitle points to the fact that drought,
blight and pestilence may be unavoidable but famine is a manmade
phenomenon. This may be an elementary point, but it needs to be
made time and again.
One of Keneally's most intriguing passages is his description of
Charles Trevelyan, assistant secretary to the treasury in Whitehall in
the 1840s. The Irish revile Trevelyan as the instigator of cruelly
minimal relief efforts during the famine. An evangelical Christian,
virtuous in his personal life, he was convinced that certain events
were inevitable and of divine intent, though he admitted that it was
"hard upon the poor people that they should be deprived of
knowing that they are suffering from an affliction of God's
providence". Trevelyan didn't visit Ireland during the famine but
derived his policies from John Stuart Mill's laissez-faire principles of
political economy and Thomas Malthus's view that famine was a
necessary corrective to overpopulation.
Keneally writes: "The religiously devout Trevelyan considered
murder a great wrong. It is sobering, then, to think that the
deployment of convinced, virtuous intent … and an intense belief in
a providential deity, could be almost as destructive as the malignity
of a dictator such as Mengistu Haile Mariam."
In the case of Bengal, Winston Churchill shoulders much
responsibility. As the Japanese were poised to invade India in 1942,
he ordered the destruction of much of the Bengal fishing fleet and
the stockpiling of food for the army, and was notably indifferent to
the need for relief. The famine caused the largest loss of life on the
British side during the second world war.
Independent India has not suffered great famines, and Sen has
speculated that the real force for eliminating famine is the
development of liberal democracy. Keneally is sympathetic, noting
the suppression of democratic aspirations in all his three cases.
Today's famine in Somalia can certainly be attributed to the collapse
of government and the absence of democracy.
Students of famine necessarily focus their attention on the bad news
story, where starvation recurs. It is easy to overlook the 100-year
trend, which is the elimination of famine from western Europe and its
near complete banishment from Asia. Of the twenty 20 biggest
famines of the 20th century, in terms of loss of life, just one
(Ethiopia 1983-85) occurred in Africa. The other 19 were Asian
and east European. The worst was China in 1958-61, the most
recent that killed more than a million was North Korea in the 1990s.
Two huge factors in reducing killer famines are Asian economic
growth and improvements in public service technology and
infrastructure. Better transport for food and primary health care
have minimised the biggest killers during famines, which were
epidemic diseases. However, famines still persist in an era of
globalisation. Most now occur in Africa, kill far fewer people, and
are often associated with intractable civil wars.
Keneally makes passing mention of famines in Russia, China, North
Korea and contemporary Ethiopia, accusing the Ethiopian prime
minister Meles Zenawi of being as much to blame as his
predecessor. Notwithstanding the ugliness of Ethiopia's military
operations against Somali opposition groups, surely Keneally is
making an error here. Extreme poverty in Ethiopia is not the product
of Stalinist policy but of the globalisation trap.
With its existing economic infrastructure and human capital,
Ethiopia, like most African countries, simply cannot compete in a
global market, but has been told by international economic
orthodoxy to pursue policies aimed at doing exactly this. Although
the heyday of doctrinaire structural adjustment and downsizing of
the state has passed, western nations still preach the fundamentals of
a single path to development, through integration into the global
market. Is not the ghost of Trevelyan stalking Africa?
Alex de Waal is the author of Famine Crimes
Courtesy
Thomas Keneally – review
23 September, 2011 | Alex de Waal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Witnessing famine comes as a
visceral shock – the slow and
silent evisceration of society,
family and the human body itself.
The Russian sociologist Pitrim
Sorokin, survivor of the famine of
the early 1920s in his home
country, wrote in Man and
Society in Calamity (1946) of
starvation reducing man to "a
naked animal upon the naked
earth".
- His experience was of a
communist famine, in which
singles out the poor. The economist and philosopher Amartya Sen,
who lived through the 1943 Bengal famine as a young member of a
prominent family that fed the destitute, opened his seminal book
Poverty and Famines (1981) with the observation that famine is
the phenomenon of some people not having enough food to eat, not
of there not being enough food to eat.
Thomas Keneally, the Australian novelist, writes vividly about the
depths to which human beings descend during famines. His
examples are Ireland, Bengal and Ethiopia, and there are similarities
among the three. Keneally draws on scholarship and archives, and
also witnessed at first hand the civil war and famine in Ethiopia and
Eritrea in the 1980s, when he travelled with the rebels and saw the
destruction inflicted by the then military ruler of Ethiopia, Mengistu
Haile Mariam, who persistently sought to starve the civilian
population of the rebel-held areas into submission.
The book is both reportage of starvation and analysis of how famine
is made. The "politics" in his subtitle points to the fact that drought,
blight and pestilence may be unavoidable but famine is a manmade
phenomenon. This may be an elementary point, but it needs to be
made time and again.
One of Keneally's most intriguing passages is his description of
Charles Trevelyan, assistant secretary to the treasury in Whitehall in
the 1840s. The Irish revile Trevelyan as the instigator of cruelly
minimal relief efforts during the famine. An evangelical Christian,
virtuous in his personal life, he was convinced that certain events
were inevitable and of divine intent, though he admitted that it was
"hard upon the poor people that they should be deprived of
knowing that they are suffering from an affliction of God's
providence". Trevelyan didn't visit Ireland during the famine but
derived his policies from John Stuart Mill's laissez-faire principles of
political economy and Thomas Malthus's view that famine was a
necessary corrective to overpopulation.
Keneally writes: "The religiously devout Trevelyan considered
murder a great wrong. It is sobering, then, to think that the
deployment of convinced, virtuous intent … and an intense belief in
a providential deity, could be almost as destructive as the malignity
of a dictator such as Mengistu Haile Mariam."
In the case of Bengal, Winston Churchill shoulders much
responsibility. As the Japanese were poised to invade India in 1942,
he ordered the destruction of much of the Bengal fishing fleet and
the stockpiling of food for the army, and was notably indifferent to
the need for relief. The famine caused the largest loss of life on the
British side during the second world war.
Independent India has not suffered great famines, and Sen has
speculated that the real force for eliminating famine is the
development of liberal democracy. Keneally is sympathetic, noting
the suppression of democratic aspirations in all his three cases.
Today's famine in Somalia can certainly be attributed to the collapse
of government and the absence of democracy.
Students of famine necessarily focus their attention on the bad news
story, where starvation recurs. It is easy to overlook the 100-year
trend, which is the elimination of famine from western Europe and its
near complete banishment from Asia. Of the twenty 20 biggest
famines of the 20th century, in terms of loss of life, just one
(Ethiopia 1983-85) occurred in Africa. The other 19 were Asian
and east European. The worst was China in 1958-61, the most
recent that killed more than a million was North Korea in the 1990s.
Two huge factors in reducing killer famines are Asian economic
growth and improvements in public service technology and
infrastructure. Better transport for food and primary health care
have minimised the biggest killers during famines, which were
epidemic diseases. However, famines still persist in an era of
globalisation. Most now occur in Africa, kill far fewer people, and
are often associated with intractable civil wars.
Keneally makes passing mention of famines in Russia, China, North
Korea and contemporary Ethiopia, accusing the Ethiopian prime
minister Meles Zenawi of being as much to blame as his
predecessor. Notwithstanding the ugliness of Ethiopia's military
operations against Somali opposition groups, surely Keneally is
making an error here. Extreme poverty in Ethiopia is not the product
of Stalinist policy but of the globalisation trap.
With its existing economic infrastructure and human capital,
Ethiopia, like most African countries, simply cannot compete in a
global market, but has been told by international economic
orthodoxy to pursue policies aimed at doing exactly this. Although
the heyday of doctrinaire structural adjustment and downsizing of
the state has passed, western nations still preach the fundamentals of
a single path to development, through integration into the global
market. Is not the ghost of Trevelyan stalking Africa?
Alex de Waal is the author of Famine Crimes
Courtesy
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