Why? And Why Not?

July 10, 2003

One of my boyhood friends was Billy Hogan. Billy and his family lived on Ferry Street, not far from my Oliver Street home. When Billy grew up, he became involved in Everett politics. When still a young man, he was elected to city office, becoming Alderman William Hogan.

Billy’s family was just one of the Irish families who became politically active in the Boston area as well as the city of Boston. There was “Honey Fitz”, mayor of Boston and father of Rose. Rose Fitzgerald married Joseph Kennedy, generating the politically powerful Kennedys. JFK, Robert, Ted, just to mention a few who have been described as “America’s political royalty” by one author.

Then there was Congressman McCormack who became Speaker of the House of Representatives. His brother, “Knocko” McCormack ran a saloon in South Boston (“Southey”) where, it was said, one must go to in order to solicit political favors.

Just to cite a few additional names will be reminders of how potent politically were the Boston Irish: James Michael Curley, Maurice Tobin. From nearby Boston, Tip O’Neill, Senator David I. Walsh, William Cardinal O’Connell, Richard Cardinal Cushing.

Many of their Irish forbears were immigrants escaping from the terrible potato blight in Ireland, 1845-1850.

As A. N. Wilson tellingly describes in THE VICTORIANS, most of the Irish were poor. The estates, great and smaller, were owned by the English aristocracy. The food for the peasant Irish was potatoes. That was practically the only food for the Irish people. A man might eat 11 or 12 pounds of potatoes a day. Two million acres were planted with potatoes.

When the blight ruined potato crops, the absentee British landlords did nothing to help. Some were growing corn on their estates,but exported it for profit rather than sharing to prevent mass starvation.

Large numbers of the Irish poor emigrated to the United States and Canada, enduring wretched conditions on the passage and settlement in a new country. To quote A. N. Wilson, there is “the eternally shaming statistic of 1.1 million deaths by starvation in Ireland between 1845 and 1850.”

Two quotations cited by Wilson (p. 83) recognized the inhumane position taken by those absentee, wealthy English aristocrats who owned so much of the land in Ireland.

Philosopher Benjamin Jowett: “I have always felt a certain horror of political economists, since I heard one of them say that the famine in Ireland in 1848 would not kill more than a million people and that would scarcely be enough to do much good.”

Sidney Smith: “The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots.”

WHY? Why do human beings act with such cruelty? We know that the situation described is not unique. The 20th century experienced the Holocaust where 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis and their allies.

But there was not enough shock and revulsion in that awful genocide to persuade humankind to abandon such killings. The New York Times, June 7, printed this summary of current horrors:

Congo: Since 1999, an intensifying civil war has left an estimated 3.3 million people dead and displaced tens of thousands....

Somalia: 1988-94 ... 50,000 dead

Angola: 1975-2002 – Civil war left and estimated 400,000 people dead and displaced an undetermined number....

Sierra Leone: 1991-2002 – Civil war left tens of thousands dead and 2 million displaced....

Ivory Coast: Since 2002, thousands have been killed and 1 million displaced....

Rwanda: Since early 1990s ... more than a half-million dead and 4 million displaced....

Ethiopia and Eritrea: 1998-2000 ... tens of thousands dead, 650,000 displaced....

Mozambique: 1977-1992 – Civil war left an estimated 800,000 dead....

Africa is not the only continent where such genocidal killings have occurred. When the dictatorship in Argentina was recently overthrown, it was disclosed that as many as 30,000 had “disappeared.” We will never know how many Soviet people died at the hands of Lenin and Stalin, but it has been estimated in the millions.

Is it possible to generate internationally and worldwide the helpfulness and concern that exists among neighbors and families as I described in the prior Musing, “Friends.”

I don’t know. The United Nations could organize peacekeeping forces that could mitigate considerably these genocidal events. But that can never happen until the United States takes the lead, and is willing to yield some sovereignty to international courts of justice. Furthermore, by assuming a front-role in funding international peacekeeping. A small percentage of the Pentagon budget would accomplish wonders in peacemaking.

The peoples of the world compete in the Olympic Games without killing each other. Is it too far-fetched to believe that the example of the Olympic torch could light up the world and seriously address hunger, sickness, boundaries, finance, trade, human rights?

If some solution is not adopted, the human venture is doomed to failure.