Politics of Famines - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Politics of Famines Politics of Famines Introduction The history of mankind is fraught with stories of famines. These were times of crops failures, supplies runouts, and massive starvations. In the area of studies on famine, there does not exist consensus among researchers on the issues related to the famine causes, famine effects, preventive measures to tackle famines, etc. In this context, the problem of famine politics seems one of the most discussed. THESIS STATEMENT: While both democratic and autocratic states experience political famines, it is autocracies that allow greatest famine mortality and are heavier affected by famines. Famine and its Classification Just as there are many views on famines and the issues related to famines, scholars have produced a variety of definitions of famine. Generally, famine is defined as “widespread and extensive scarcity of food applicable to any species that results in malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality” (Glawe, 2009). According to Brown and Eckholm, famine can be understood as “a sudden, sharp reduction in the food supply in any particular geographic locale has usu-ally resulted in widespread hunger and famine” (Brown and Eckholm, 1974, p. 25). Similarly, Aykroyd observes the causes of famine in the following way: “two years of poor rainfall may be followed by a third year without any rain at all. It is then that famine makes its appearance…” (Ackroyd, 1974, p. 1). Here, as one can easily see, famine is interpreted as an act of nature. Yet, the realities of the twentieth century with its horrible famines in various parts of the world, led the scholars to contesting the views discussed in the previous paragraph. Importantly, Amartya Sen, the prominent economist and distinguished philosopher, who is known to have lived through the famine in Bengal in 1943 worked out a new understanding of famine. A member of a well-known family that helped the destitute during the famine, Sen opens his highly influential and super original book entitled Poverty and Famines (published in 1981) with the view that ‘starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat.’ (Sen, 1981, p. 2). Putting it bluntly, the author contends that the shortage of food supplies is perceived as a necessary condition for famines start, but it is not a sufficient one. Political reasons, e.g. entitlements that include the command over supplies of food and other non-edible commodities, matters greatly. Therefore, according to Sen, famines can be so easily prevented by human activity that “it is amazing that they are allowed to occur at all” (Sen, 2001, p. 75). As it can be easily inferred, the modern understanding of famine is based on its underlying political ingredient. The classification of famines offered by Bulliet et al allows distinguishing between natural, commercial, and political famines (Bulliet et al, 2010, p. 843). As it can be easily seen, this classification is rather successful since it enables to combine both, first-generation and second-generation interpretations of famine, and stresses their historical background. Natural famines occurred whenever rains failed for a couple of years in succession. For example, in India, which is particularly dependent on monsoon rains, famines have been known to strike twice a century or even oftener. In the eighteenth century, several million people died of starvation during three famines in India. Commercial famines are known to have been caused by the merchants’ interests and lack of government regulation of free enterprise. Despite the fact that there existed lots of ways to transport food to famine affected areas, merchants seeking great profits artificially held up transportation of grains to the poor regions until they found out the price was high enough. Then, based on commercial interest, food was transported to those areas that could afford buying it or exported to other countries. This is known to have been a case in Bangladesh in 1974, when the government failed to adequately distribute its rice stocks, with merchants buying the harvest and exporting whatever they could to India (Bulliet et al, 2010, p. 843). Political famines are based on the idea of using food as a weapon. Bulliet et al observe that “in the twentieth century food supplies were always adequate for the population of the world, and the transportation was seldom a problem. Yet the century witnessed the most murderous famines ever recorded” (Bulliet et al, 2010, p. 843). These famines were either war famines as in Russia during the civil war (1921-1922), Indochina occupied by the Japanese (1942-1945), and Nigeria (1967-1969) during the Biafran war, or famines deliberately organized by the governments. Among the latter there were the famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 which occurred due to massive collectivization of agriculture, the famine in China (1958-1961) that took the lives between twenty to thirty million people, famines in Sudan in Ethiopia in 1980s that were not prevented due to the governments’ denial of famines and refusal to receive food from international donor agencies, famines in Bengal (1947), and North Korea (1995-1997). Political Famines in Autocracies vs. Political Famines in Democracies Since the aim of this research is to explore political famines and their effects in both dictatorships (autocracies) and democratic states, and to prove that the former are heavier affected by this calamity, in this part of the paper I will focus on particular political famines in the world history of the twentieth century. The Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine The famine of 1932-1933 deliberately arranged by Stalin in Soviet Ukraine was part of agricultural collectivization. In Ukraine, which was one of the Soviet republics at that time (Ukrainian SSR), it has come into the history under the name of Holodomor (literally meaning “Killing by Starvation”). Dr.Shevchuk, a lecturer engaged in Ukrainian Film Studies in the United States, rightfully admits to the fact that data on the Holodomor had been kept in secret and the very fact of its existence had been persistently denied until the end of 1980s (The Ukrainian Weekly, 2009, p. 5). At that time, the famine existence got recognized on the official level, yet its man-made nature was denied. Only after Ukraine became independent in 1991, the recognition of politically initiated famine took place, so that the Ukrainian Supreme Council (Verkhovna Rada) evem made an attempt to officially recognize it as a genocide against the Ukrainian people. By the way, recently popularized archives (2006) allowed estimating the overall death toll in 7, 000, 000 (Glawe, 2009). Picture 1 Ukrainian SSR Coat of Arms (Glawe, 2009) Collectivization aimed at peasants’ enslavement. Peasants were obliged to abandon their land and cattle, and join collective farms. They were forced to work hard there without hardly receiving any pay (at its best, peasants were paid with grain, hay, or some other natural supplies). Additionally, peasants were not allowed to move anywhere since they were legally attached to their collectives and deprived of passports. That was the way the Communist government hoped to resolve the problem of cities food supplies under the circumstances of industrial growth. Those peasants who refused to join the newly created collective farms were either sent to prison camps, or killed. Their crops were expropriated and their property seized. To illustrate, Bulliet et al write: “Millions were sent to prison camps, and millions of others died of starvation” (Bulliet et al, 2010, p. 843). Another political cause of the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine was the deliberately planned genocide of Ukrainians, people that had long strived to form an independent state. In his recent research “Ethnic Issues in the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine”, David Marples pointed at the ethnically colored political background of the Holodomor (Maples, 2009, 505-518). Furthermore, Dr Serbyn, a professor of the University of Montreal, in his presentation “Historical Background on the Holodomor” contends that the Holodomor ought to include not just the Famine but the total campaign against the representatives of the Ukrainian nation initiated by the Soviet Government. He asserts that this campaign could be characterized by four distinct criteria typical for genocide. These are “destruction of the intelligentsia, destruction of the Orthodox Church, forced deportation of Ukrainians during de-kulakization, and finally, elimination of the peasantry through famine.” (The Ukrainian Weekly, 2009, p. 5). Picture 2 The Victim of Stalin’s Holodomor (Source: www.brianakira.wordpress.com, 2011) Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961 The famine of 1958-1961 that took place in People’s Republic of China was far worse. It occurred during the so-called “Great Leap Forward” (Ashton et al, 1984, p. 613). That policy initiated by Mao Zedong, the then Chairman of the Chinese Communist party, aimed at swift transformation of the country into a communist state. Yet, Zedong ignored the economic and technocratic data, and decided to rely totally on masses’ enthusiasm. Zedong ordered to consolidate farms into large communes. Similarly to the collectivization in Soviet Russia, peasants were forced to join in mandated communes. In the sphere of agriculture, they were obliged to apply new production techniques that included deep plowing of soil, as well as close planting. In addition, peasants were made to produce steel out of the utensils they used in their households. In 1959, the harvest proved to be poor. The harvests in the years to come were even worse. If in 1957 it was normal for a person to get 452 pounds (equals 205 kilograms) per year, in 1961 the amount of grain to be consumed by one person significantly dropped. Now people were to have only 340 pounds or 154 kilograms per year (Bulliet et al, 2010, p. 844). Picture 3 Chinese Communes (Glawe, 2009) The famine progressed as higher requisitions for the cities and the army were demanded. Since the Communists had closed the Central Statistical Bureau, and were not aware of the harvest failures, they ordered more supplies to feed the workers who will work hard so that China could pay off its debts through extensive exports (Yang, 1996) . Consequently, due to the governmentally launched policy, as well as institutional changes, around 36, 000, 000 people died of starvation or malnutrition (Interestingly, the official figures appear to be more than twice lower: “just” 15, 000, 000) (Glawe, 2009). Incidentally, having denied the very existence of famine in China, its officials finally recognized its existence but referred it to natural causes. The Sudanese Famine Picture 4 The Victim of the Sudanese Famine (Source: www.dignidadcuba.blogspot.com) Despite the fact that politically arranged or non-prevented famines take place predominantly in the states with totalitarian regimes known as autocracies, the facts prove that democracies may employ this calamity as a warfare strategy. The case of the Sudanese Famine that occurred in the late 1980s is a good illustration of this point. It was for the third time since the independence of Sudan that the democratic powers came to rule. Despite some evidently democratic measures (e.g. relatively free press during 1986-1989), the Sudanese government used famine in fighting and suppressing the Southern Sudanese rebels. As Plumper & Neumayer observe: The central government allowed and encouraged cattle and other raids by armed militia on the economically better off ethnic group of Dinkas in Southern Sudan, which made them vulnerable to famine. Moreover, it allowed the Sudanese military and militia groups to employ famine as a strategy in its warfare against the rebels in Southern Sudan and frustrated and blocked relief efforts. How many people died as the consequence of war-related famine is hard to say. (Plumper & Neumayer, 2009: 11) As for accurate estimations, Devereux mentions 250,000 victims based on Harden’s estimate (Harden, 1993: 169; Devereaux, 2000: 33). Alex de Waal, the author of Famine Crimes, states that the Sudanese Famine that took place in the late 1980s was ‘the most severe famine in Sudan’s modern history’. In the conditions of a formally democratic state, the press predominantly concentrated on what happened in the North of Sudan, rather than focusing on the progressing famine in the South. At the same time, the Sudanese government artificially mislead the society about the real extent of famine in the South. Instead, it strived to support relatively low prices in the northern part of Sudan, in the area adjacent to Khartoum, so as not to disappoint its supporters and voters. To make the matters worse, the government that was elected on the democratic basis made deliberately obstructed the supplies of food by the international agencies and did not allow any relief efforts in the area. Conclusion Having analyzed the experiences of political famines within the autocratic (communist) regimes in Soviet Ukraine (1932-1933) and People’s Republic of China (1958-1961) and compared them to the reality and effects of the famine in Sudan (late 1980s), I have come to the conclusion that it is autocracies that allow greatest famine mortality and are heavier affected by famines. References 1. Bulliet et al (2010) The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. Cengage Learning. 2. Yang, D. (1996) Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society and Institutional Change since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford University Press. 3. Ashton, B. et al (1984) Famine in China, 1958-61, Population and Development Review, Vol. 10, No. 4. (Dec., 1984), pp. 613–645. 4. Zakydalsky, O. (2009) Columbia University Conference ‘Vizualizes’ the Holodomor. The Ukrainian Weekly. No 1. Sunday, Jan 4, 2009. 5. Glawe, C. (2009) Famine Due to Political Policies. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/guest6d46ce5/famine-due-to-political-policies 6. Marples, D. (2009) Ethnic Issues in the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Europe-Asia Studies. 61 (2009), pp. 505-518. 7. Plumper, T. & Neumayer, E. (2009) Famine mortality, rational political inactivity, and international food aid. Retrieved from http://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Famine_Mortality_and_Rational_Political_Inactivity_LSERO.pdf. Read More