Three Famines

Three Famines

Synopsis

In a world of cyclical historic and modern famine, this account is a comparative story of three great famines. The first of these famines is An Gorta M r, the great hunger of Ireland, the famine that began in 1846 and whose end-date is a matter of debate amongst historians. The second is the less well-known but more deadly famine which struck Bengal in 1943-4. The third might be seen as having two parts, but they are so similar and inter-connected that they could appear to be two phases of the one reality. That one reality is Ethiopian famine which manifested itself in the 1970s and then again in the 1980s. In those who suffered these famines, in those who denied the suffering, in those who propounded theories to excuse it, in those who - against the wishes of government - told the world what had happened and still was happening, and in those who tried to relieve it, there is a remarkable continuity of impulse and experience and dilemma. Though these famines are diverse, they can also be so like each other as if they were related by DNA or an unarguable and malignant force of destiny or fallibility. In all three, ideology, mind-sets of governments, racial preconceptions, and administrative incompetence were more lethal than the initiating blights, the loss of potatoes or rice or the grain named teff.

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