Latest round of Churchill bashing

[CogCalgary]

The problem here is that the Bengal Famine has been blown out of all proportion - primarily because Indian Nationalists did a copy-and-paste of all the lies told by Irish Nationalists about the Potato Famine. This included grossly exaggerating the number of deaths by counting everyone who died in Ireland during the 1840's as famine deaths: someone who died of cancer, or stroke, or heart-attack, or diabetes, or tuberculosis, three years before the famine started is still counted as a victim of the famine. Similarly, Indian Nationalists are just counting all deaths instead of deducting those that would have occurred anyway. The population of Ireland was about 8 million, so you'd expect well over 100,000 deaths each year to natural causes even if the famine had never happened. However, count all those as down to the potato-blight and lo-and-behold you have the 'million deaths' from hunger.

Also in Ireland some people - Catholics as well as Protestants - chose to sell food abroad, but the Nationalists don't want to acknowledge this because it would imply that the Irish were partly responsible for the deaths - and they can't have that as it destroys the myth that the Irish were eternal victims - so they dreamt up the ridiculous claim that the British 'took food out of Ireland', and of course the Indian Nationalists adopted this dishonesty too. The real figures were:

1845: 28,000 tons imported, 513,000 tons exported. Net exports = 485,000 tons
1847: 889,000 tons imported, 146,000 tons exported. Net imports = 743,000 tons

So basically instead of the British removing food they were actually pumping huge quantities into Ireland, which is why less than 20,000 people died. Simultaneously there was famine all across Europe, and far more people died in Belgium, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and elsewhere, than in Ireland. There was a good reason that 1848 became 'The Year of Revolutions' - hunger.

Interestingly the Indian Nobel prize winner in Economics Amartya Sen has done a detailed analysis of the Bengal Famine. He showed that the problem in Bengal in late '42 to mid '43 was not shortage of food. It was food prices being artificially inflated because of hoarding and wartime speculation by greedy Indian merchants.

Also, by the provisions of the Government of India Act of 1935 the responsibility for famine relief devolved upon locally administered bodies like the Muslim League which was ruling Bengal at the time. Needless to say, they made a shambles of it.

The Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal were crawling with Axis submarines and surface raiders, who sank a total of 873,000 tonnes of merchant shipping between January '42 and May '43 so that compounded the problem.

Churchill did appeal to Canada, the US, and Australia to help but only Australia responded with a shipment of wheat in July '43 but it was too little too late. Britain's own merchant navy was strapped in the Arctic Convoys business. The Soviet Union was suffering far more horribly than India.

As you said, most of the propaganda is from fanatical Indian nationalists and their mouthpieces in Leftist circles in Western countries. Listening to these people you'd think Churchill had nothing better to do with his time than exterminating Bengalis in the middle of a global war.

Moreover it was Churchill who replaced Lord Linlithgow with Field Marshal Wavell as Viceroy of India in 1943 and it was the energetic steps taken by the latter that brought the famine to a halt. It could this be argued that Churchill indirectly helped end the famine.

When the Italians had subdued Ethiopia the first thing Mussolini did was expel the Indian merchants.

[TISO]

Hello All ;


We read in History's pages, of the heroes of great fame
The deeds they've done, the battles won, and how they made their name
But the boys who made the history, for the Orange, White, and Green
Were the boys who died in Dublin town in nineteen sixteen !

Some of them came from Kerry, and some from county Claire
From Dublin, Wicklow, Donegal, and some from old Kildare
And some from a land across the sea, from Boston and New York
But thе boys who licked the Black and Tans werе the boys of the county Cork !

In Ireland's rebel counties, our heroes fought and died
Tom Barry and his gallant crew fill Irish hearts with pride
From Skibbereen to Bandon, to Bantry by the Sea
There brave young Charlie Hurley fought for Irish liberty !

Some of them came from Kerry, some from county Claire
From Dublin, Wicklow, Donegal, and some from old Kildare
And some from a land across the sea, from Boston and New York
But the boys who licked the Black and Tans were the boys of the county Cork

Now Cork gave us Mick Sweeney, a martyr he did die
And Wicklow gave us Dwyer in those days long gone by
And Dublin gave us Padraig Pearse, McBride, and Cathal Brugha
And Scotland gave James Connolly to lead old Ireland through !

Some of them came from Kerry, some from county Claire
From Dublin, Wicklow, Donegal, and some from old Kildare
And some from a land across the Sea, from Boston and New York
But the boys who licked the Black and Tans were the boys of the county Cork !


We seem to be divided, but I really don't know why
We have brave men and heroes, and for Ireland they would die
So why not get together and join in unity ?
In the north, the south, the east, the west, and set old Ireland free !


Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward

Well if they made a song about kicking their arse they must have been pretty tough.

[mil-archive]

As an aside that song was written by Dominic Behan (less famous brother of Brendan Behan) and the Wolfe tones version released in 1972. I've seen them live and that song is a staple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Out, ... k_and_Tans

Along with the equally memorable 'Rifles of the IRA'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI4qSdhmq1U

from the album that also had the song (revenge for) 'Skibereen'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpW6C56VQUY


'Come out ye black and tans' has remained hugely popular and in 2020 it went back to No.1 (in both Ireland and the UK i-tunes charts).

Thu Jan 9 2020 - 17:22

The Irish rebel song Come Out Ye Black And Tans has topped the iTunes charts in the UK and Ireland, following a row over a planned commemoration of the former Irish police forces the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Dublin Metropolitan Police.

The Government deferred the event that was to take place to acknowledge the role of the RIC and DMP in Irish history. The event has been widely criticised by the public and politicians.

Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan announced the commemorations, planned for next week at Dublin Castle, had been deferred. He also said that the Black and Tans were not to have formed part of the commemoration.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar backed the postponment, saying it had become an unnecessary controversy and "very divisive", adding that he hoped to have it at a later date in a more appropriate way.

Since the row, the Wolfe Tones rebel song Come Out Ye Black And Tans has risen to the top of both the Irish and UK iTunes charts.

The band responded by posting on Twitter, "Come Out Ye Black n Tans No. 1 in Ireland ... Fine Gael got their answer" They had previously backed calls for the RIC event to be cancelled.

The song Come Out Ye Black And Tans was originally released in 1972. It refers to additional part-time officers recruited to bolster RIC numbers in Ireland during the War of Independence, who had a justified reputation for violence.

On Thursday night the band tweeted it would donate the proceeds of the song's recent success to the Peter McVerry Trust, "who do great work to aid the homeless".

source: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/musi ... -1.4135091