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Speaker 1: Cool Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the History of Potatoes, Part two

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Speaker 2: with ren A Rye. I'm your host Margaret Kiljoy, who

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Speaker 2: always talks in this voice or it's just the voice

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Speaker 2: I have because I have a cold. This is cool

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Speaker 2: people who did cool stuff. I'm your host Margaret Kiljoy,

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Speaker 2: but I'm not the host today because Ren's the host today. Hi, Ren,

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Speaker 2: how are you doing good?

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Speaker 1: I really appreciated that, like intense serious Margaret voice. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's definitely like a mix up from your usually you know,

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Speaker 1: your usual friendly demeanor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, potatoes are serious business.

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Speaker 1: They are serious business.

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Speaker 2: Much like serious business. Is Rory our audio engineer who

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Speaker 2: Hi Rory Hi Rory, an unwoman who wrote our theme music.

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Speaker 2: And Sophie, who is our producer, who is not here today,

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Speaker 2: so we can do whatever we want and that I

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Speaker 2: mean we can try and do our job without Sophie around.

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Speaker 2: But where we last left off? Wait, I got so

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Speaker 2: distracted at the end of last episode. I'm talking about

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Speaker 2: other stuff. Where did we last leave off? Where's our cliffhanger?

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Speaker 1: We actually left off talking about Ireland. So our cliffhanger

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Speaker 1: was that there was this Scottish guy McCullough who claimed

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Speaker 1: that the Irish had been prevented from rising up because

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Speaker 1: they were, you know, so tied to their little plots

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Speaker 1: of land and their potatoes. They didn't even know that

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Speaker 1: their lives.

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Speaker 2: Were hard, right, and we're going to learn he's wrong. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: hell yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I should say that there is a lot of

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Speaker 1: information about potatoes in Ireland, in fact, an overwhelming amount

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Speaker 1: of information.

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Speaker 2: What uh huh so much?

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Speaker 1: I uh yeah, it was both wonderful and sort of

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Speaker 1: deeply I guess I'm just going to repeat the word

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Speaker 1: overwhelming here, overwhelming to dig through. So I do want

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Speaker 1: to say I don't actually know enough to make a

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Speaker 1: sweeping generalization about whether or not these sort of self

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Speaker 1: sufficient life ways of Irish presidents negatively impacted their ability

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Speaker 1: to organize with one another. I like can't say overall.

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Speaker 2: I'm guessing that's wrong. I'm guessing that's some usual like

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Speaker 2: Marx shit totally.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know enough to make a whole sleeping

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Speaker 1: generalization about you know, self sufficiency and how it impacted

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Speaker 1: organizing in rural Ireland. But there was a ton of

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Speaker 1: resistance to British colonization. The Irish rose up again and

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Speaker 1: again over eight hundred plus years, and in fact they

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Speaker 1: sometimes even rose up in directly potato related ways.

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Speaker 2: Oh hell yeah.

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Speaker 1: So most notably among these were food riots. So food

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Speaker 1: riots were common in Ireland, as they also were in

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Speaker 1: other parts of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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Speaker 1: They were typically in response to sudden price surges and

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Speaker 1: other concerns about food and security, and they took different

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Speaker 1: They took the form of blockades to prevent food from

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Speaker 1: being exported, as well as your classic plundering and looting,

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Speaker 1: and less common but still notable were price riots, which

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Speaker 1: is when protesters would exppropriate a store of food and

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Speaker 1: then sell it for what they saw as a fair price.

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Speaker 2: That is so interesting you mentioned that last time.

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Speaker 1: It is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a like robinhood, but like it's like

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Speaker 2: kind of almost like a liberally robinhood, but not like

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Speaker 2: in a bad way, just to like, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: it's interesting to me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny, isn't it. I would like to learn

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Speaker 1: more about, like some of the dynamics behind why people

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Speaker 1: were choosing this Instead of choosing just to like give

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Speaker 1: away the potatoes.

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Speaker 2: They probably saw it as like this is well, this

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Speaker 2: is what the world should be is that things should

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Speaker 2: be fairly priced as compared to like, whereas I'm like, well,

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Speaker 2: everything should be free. That's the fair price for everything,

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Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, but you know, I don't know they

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Speaker 2: were willing to throw down for it, So I'm not

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Speaker 2: going to nitpick, you know, totally.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it does seem like they were selling it

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Speaker 1: at what was affordable for the peasantry. So it did.

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Speaker 1: It did people's lives easier. And many of these riots

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Speaker 1: targeted grain, oats, and meal, but they also very often

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Speaker 1: targeted potatoes, which, as we discussed previously, were becoming an

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Speaker 1: increasingly important food stuff at this time. And historian James Kelly,

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Speaker 1: who drew on newspaper reports and registers of correspondents to

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Speaker 1: write a book about food rights in Ireland during this time,

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Speaker 1: offer some examples of potato riots that took place between

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Speaker 1: the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It would be

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Speaker 1: an entire project in and of itself to go into

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Speaker 1: all of these riots. There were so many.

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Speaker 2: Okay, good because I might do an episode later sometime.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm going to keep it pretty basic and

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Speaker 1: just mention a few. Okay, So while carts full of

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Speaker 1: potatoes were intercepted, and mills and stores of potatoes were plundered.

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Speaker 1: In coastal areas, writers often block shipments of potatoes from

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Speaker 1: leaving the ports. So here's a snippet from a newspaper

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Speaker 1: article about one such incident in the town of Clonakilty

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Speaker 1: in May seventeen eighty three. A few days ago. The

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Speaker 1: inhabitants of Klonakilty have had intelligence that several sloops then

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Speaker 1: in that harbor were freighted with potatoes at a time

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Speaker 1: when a most dreadful jarth of that useful necessity prevailed,

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Speaker 1: assembled in large bodies, and in the first transports of

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Speaker 1: their resentment, tore away the rigging, demolished the mast yards,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, and cast their anchors overboard. They afterwards unloaded

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Speaker 1: several vessels and obliged such masters as informed them of

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Speaker 1: their destination for Quark Market, solemnly to swear that they

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Speaker 1: would dispose of their cargo there and nowhere else.

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Speaker 2: Oh, so they would be like, oh, we're not going

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Speaker 2: to mess up your ship because you're going to Ireland,

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Speaker 2: like you're staying in Ireland.

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Speaker 1: In this case. Yes, that wasn't actually always the case.

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Speaker 2: Oh but that's interesting. That's kind of like you get

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Speaker 2: this again, like these like rioters who are like, well,

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Speaker 2: it's about an ethic and not just like I went wild,

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Speaker 2: you know, yes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, And like there's this idea that food riots

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Speaker 1: are spontaneous uprisings and they're often caused by crises, but

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Speaker 1: also they're often the result of like a lot of

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Speaker 1: careful thinking and planning about access to food. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: since city dwellers had to purchase most of the provisions,

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Speaker 1: they couldn't grow them. Food riots in Dublin often took

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Speaker 1: the form of riotous mobs that plundered and redistributed food.

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Speaker 1: There were also demonstrations, including one in seventeen ninety six

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Speaker 1: in which protesters gathered at the Dublin Quays near the

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Speaker 1: potato boats to voice their anger at the price of potatoes.

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Speaker 1: They chanted bread or potatoes, we are starving.

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Speaker 2: That goes hard.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. In his book, Kelly talks about food scarcity leading

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Speaker 1: to an intense localism and othering of people from elsewhere,

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Speaker 1: even of other Irish people. So in Skibboreine, a town

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Speaker 1: and County Cork, in eighteen twelve, potato cargo from a

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Speaker 1: sloop bound for Dublin was expropriated and then sold locally

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Speaker 1: at a cheaper rate. Several decades later, residents of Sligo

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Speaker 1: Town barred people from a neighboring county from buying potatoes

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Speaker 1: at their market, and the eighteen forty two Claire massacre,

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Speaker 1: rooted in a similar impulse, left five people, including three

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Speaker 1: protesters dead. Interestingly, while food protesters were certainly met with

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Speaker 1: violence and arrest, as was the case in Claire, Kelly

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Speaker 1: mentions that the authorities were inconsistent in their responses, that

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Speaker 1: they were sort of softer on food riots and other

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Speaker 1: forms of revolts and protest. Only a fraction of participants

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Speaker 1: in food riots were prosecuted, and Kelly argues that this

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Speaker 1: is because food was seen as a necessity, so participants

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Speaker 1: had a moral right to riot in the eyes of

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Speaker 1: the ruling class.

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Speaker 2: That that makes some sense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I remember reading a while ago about I don't want

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Speaker 2: to say what country it was, because I'm not sure

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Speaker 2: if it was true or not. I never looked it up.

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Speaker 2: I was reading about a country that it wasn't illegal

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Speaker 2: to try to break out of prison. They would catch you,

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Speaker 2: they would stop you, and they put you back in prison.

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Speaker 2: And if you hurt people in the process, that was

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Speaker 2: a separate crime. But the actual physical act of trying

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Speaker 2: to leave prison was seen as like a human like

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Speaker 2: not right, but like natural instinct that is like, well, well, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I locked you in a cage, you tried to get out.

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Speaker 2: I could get mad at you about that, you know,

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Speaker 2: and I feel like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The idea that like, well, whatever, you were starving, and

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Speaker 2: I'm still going to stop you from stealing this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still not going to go out and distribute

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Speaker 1: food to you. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I see why you're mad, and I'm not

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Speaker 2: going to change anything, is what they're saying. Yeah, just

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Speaker 2: still somehow still more human than like the US system totally.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, slightly more human for sure. And it wasn't

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Speaker 1: every single case, but that was sort of like in general,

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Speaker 1: And from about eighteen fifteen until eighteen forty five there

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Speaker 1: was an uptick in social protest and rebellion in Ireland

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Speaker 1: in general, and it included in some of those years

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Speaker 1: a dramatic increase in food riots. They were particularly widespread

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Speaker 1: in the counties of North Munster, including Claire and Limerick.

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Speaker 1: In an article that looks at these two counties, Andres

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Speaker 1: Erickson reports on food related unrest and protests that occurred

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties and forties, many of which had

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Speaker 1: to do with potatoes. So beginning in the eighteen twenties,

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Speaker 1: the price of potatoes rose steeply, which Ericson argues related

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Speaker 1: to greater consumption in Ireland rather than because they were

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Speaker 1: being exported. I think there's a little bit like a

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Speaker 1: lot of these things have like tensions between different historians

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Speaker 1: about what some of the causes were right. The population boom,

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Speaker 1: coupled with the unjust distribution of land, probably caused a

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Speaker 1: rising demand for potatoes that couldn't be met. In the

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Speaker 1: late eighteen thirties and early eighteen forties, potato harvest made

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Speaker 1: the situation even more acute. In those years, June and

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Speaker 1: July were referred to as the hungry weeks because it

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Speaker 1: was common for the World War to run out of

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Speaker 1: potatoes by that time and depend on purchased spuds and

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Speaker 1: other purchased food. In an effort to make sure potato

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Speaker 1: prices remained affordable for the poor, groups of men organized

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Speaker 1: attacks on wealthy farmers and posted threatening notices demanding ceilings

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Speaker 1: on potato prices. And so those actions would typically get

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Speaker 1: carried out between March and early June, before or right

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Speaker 1: as the hungry weeks began and the cost of potatoes

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Speaker 1: started to rise. And this really points to the fact

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Speaker 1: what we were talking about before. These weren't taneous uprisings,

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Speaker 1: but well planned operations that were based on knowledge of

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Speaker 1: the potato harvest and the market. Yeah. And they were often,

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Speaker 1: although not always, carried out by secret societies and militant

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Speaker 1: rebels who were referred to as the White Boys, the

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Speaker 1: Rock Heights, the Terry Alts, or the Men of Lady Claire.

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Speaker 1: And I know you talked about the White Boys, which

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Speaker 1: have a very weird name and complicated history on your

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Speaker 1: show before right the Molly Maguire episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a bunch of different Ireland got stuff done

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Speaker 2: through secret societies while England got stuff done through unions.

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Speaker 2: Is like kind of a rough It's an unfair dichotomy

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Speaker 2: to draw, but like Ireland was all about the like

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Speaker 2: you get together in the pub with your friends, you

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Speaker 2: decide to go cross dress and fuck some stuff up totally. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And I hadn't heard about it specifically as relates to

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Speaker 2: the food riots. I only read about it as relates

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Speaker 2: to like killing landlords and stuff, but it makes sense

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Speaker 2: that the same groups would also go and do food riots.

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Speaker 1: Make sure that potato prices weren't getting too high.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like kind of like an Yeah, it's funny

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Speaker 2: because it's like sort of an organized crime, you know.

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Speaker 2: But it's also I don't know, Yeah, it's interesting, and

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Speaker 2: it's not like I'm not even like saying like, and

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Speaker 2: that's the correct organizing method, you know, but I don't

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Speaker 2: have a this is a different one.

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Speaker 1: You know, totally. Yeah, Yeah, and it's really interesting and

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Speaker 1: I'd like it. I read about it in this one

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Speaker 1: article and that's enough. Like all of these things are

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Speaker 1: just things I want to know so much more about.

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Speaker 2: But well, and even the like one of the things

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Speaker 2: that I can't remember enough, and so I'm like afraid

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Speaker 2: I'll be wrong. So if you're listening, don't take this

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Speaker 2: as necessarily the truth. But you're saying about how the

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Speaker 2: like land distribution was getting worse. I'm under the impression

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Speaker 2: that traditionally Irish land would be divided amongst all of

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Speaker 2: the kids, and then the Protestant method was like, no,

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Speaker 2: you have to only give it to one kid, So

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Speaker 2: you start having these like disenfranchised people, and you have

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Speaker 2: this like rise in landless people, and that's like where

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Speaker 2: some of the uh where a lot of the diaspora

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Speaker 2: comes from. But I don't know the timing of that.

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Speaker 2: And then part of me is like, wait, what if

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Speaker 2: I haven't inverted right, because I know that there's the

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Speaker 2: oh lord, I just don't have my notes in front

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Speaker 2: of me. There's like the system by which traditionally Irish

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Speaker 2: people would like elect their ruler after one ruler died, right,

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Speaker 2: and you know, the way that things would get divvied

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Speaker 2: up is just like different than the western capitalist system.

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Speaker 1: It's not totally.

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Speaker 2: Inherently better, but it was certainly worked better in Ireland.

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Speaker 2: And when it got disrupted, then you started having all

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Speaker 2: these landless people and stuff. That's my Yeah, don't take

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Speaker 2: my details on that, but the overall thrust of it

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Speaker 2: I feel confident about.

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Speaker 1: And I do know by the time that we're talking

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Speaker 1: about I don't know the exact reasons, but there were

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Speaker 1: a ton of landless labors in Ireland. So there definitely

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Speaker 1: was like a vast landlessness that was happening, Like people

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Speaker 1: that didn't even have like a tiny little plot of

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Speaker 1: land to grow potatoes. Yeah, so I wanted to share

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Speaker 1: one instance of this sort of secret society Potato organized

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Speaker 1: crime patrol. In eighteen thirty seven, twenty men in County

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Speaker 1: Limerick broke into the homes of seven farmers, smashing their

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Speaker 1: doors and windows, and ordered those farmers to sell potatoes

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Speaker 1: at an affordable price and rent out their land to

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Speaker 1: cottiers on the Konaker system. And so that's that system

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Speaker 1: where laborers could rent a plot of land for the

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Speaker 1: season to grow potatoes, and for some of them that

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Speaker 1: was the only way to survive. Two years later, in

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Speaker 1: nearby County Claire, a farmer was dragged outside and forced

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Speaker 1: to swear an oath that he would have the price

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Speaker 1: of his potatoes, and he actually was forced to refund

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Speaker 1: money to the people he had already overcharged. And these

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Speaker 1: roping bands also sent letters to the homes of targeted

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Speaker 1: farmers and posted notices in public places, and one notice

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Speaker 1: posted in the town of Fakeal and County Clare read,

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Speaker 1: all persons are hereby required to take due notice that

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Speaker 1: any person or persons having the assurance to charge over

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Speaker 1: three pence for white potatoes three and a half pence

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Speaker 1: per cups his coffe will be his doom if he

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Speaker 1: goes beyond the rule of the terry alts. As for strangers,

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Speaker 1: they are welcome here so long as they won't go

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Speaker 1: beyond the rules of the country. If they do, their

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Speaker 1: cars will be cut. And then it signed corffin boys

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Speaker 1: with the PS. Any person that takes this down will

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Speaker 1: be sorry.

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Speaker 2: Hell yeah. It just don't make fucking threatening letters like

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Speaker 2: they used to. Totally yeah. Also, I love the like

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Speaker 2: shout out that being like, look, hey, this isn't a

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Speaker 2: this isn't a nationalist thing. If you're not from here,

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Speaker 2: it's fine. You just still can't sell potatoes for a lot.

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Speaker 1: Respect the rules of the country. Yeah, totally yeah. And

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Speaker 1: this all becomes far more acute with the onset of

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Speaker 1: the Great Hunger. So the Great Hunger, which is also

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Speaker 1: referred to as the Irish Potato Famine, was caused by

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Speaker 1: a potato blight that originated in North America and spread

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Speaker 1: across Europe starting the summer of eighteen forty five, and

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Speaker 1: thousands of people actually died in other countries, including the Netherlands,

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Speaker 1: Prussia and Belgium, but no place was quite as effected

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Speaker 1: as Ireland. And this is partially because of how hea

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Speaker 1: the Irish poor depended on the potato. Between forty and

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Speaker 1: sixty percent of the population subsisted almost entirely on the

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Speaker 1: potato by the eighteen forties, and the lumper, the primary

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Speaker 1: variety of potato grown in Ireland around the time of

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Speaker 1: the famine, was chosen to be grown so widely because

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Speaker 1: it produced huge crops, but it wasn't very blight resistant.

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Speaker 1: The famine was also really bad in Ireland because of

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Speaker 1: Britain's response to the situation. By eighteen forty six, the

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Speaker 1: Irish were in a desperate situation, but the English ruling

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Speaker 1: class stock cries for help is classic Irish exaggeration.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Charles Treveillyon, the Assistant Secretary to the Treasury who oversaw

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Speaker 1: the British response to the famine, viewed it as a

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Speaker 1: wage to reduce the surplus Irish population. The Irish who

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Speaker 1: survived would, he hoped, join the ranks of the proletariat

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Speaker 1: instead of eking out subsistence on the conager system and

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Speaker 1: lazy beds. They would become wage laborers who primarily ate

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Speaker 1: purchase grain and then, even like half hearted English attempts

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Speaker 1: to ameliorate the famine, didn't work. The English refused to

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Speaker 1: send grain because it might mess with the free market.

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Speaker 1: I tried to figure out exactly, like map out exactly

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Speaker 1: what they're thinking was around this, and I couldn't. People

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Speaker 1: have written about it, and I couldn't quite figure it out.

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Speaker 2: I know, I had always read that they were subsisting

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Speaker 2: off potatoes because they were more or less economically forced

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Speaker 2: to export all of their other crops, and so yeah,

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Speaker 2: that was why when the crop that they actually ate

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Speaker 2: for themselves at home, when that one failed, and England

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Speaker 2: didn't let them like throw up some trade protectionism or whatever,

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Speaker 2: you know, totally yeah, and didn't limit exports.

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Speaker 1: But it also seemed like the English could have sent

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Speaker 1: additional food and decided not to, And that had to

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Speaker 1: do with some like thinking around free market capitalism.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And they sent like weird corn that you couldn't

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Speaker 2: really eaten. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they sent the hard flint corn that the Irish

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Speaker 1: didn't have the rightquipment to mill.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And another English suggestion was to strain rutting potatoes and

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Speaker 1: bake them, so the rotten part was baked off, which

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Speaker 1: sounds disgusting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, these the potatoes. I grew some rotten I grew

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Speaker 2: blite potatoes this year, as we're saying, and yeah, they're

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Speaker 2: one of the nastiest things in this world I've ever seen,

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Speaker 2: like little I don't even like a little whatever I

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Speaker 2: might even describe as too gross.

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Speaker 1: Well, there were like gross little bugs on them, right,

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Speaker 1: were the bugs good? Well?

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Speaker 2: And like I pulled, there was bugs in my stupid

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Speaker 2: and the bugs were nasty. Anyway, it was all bad

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Speaker 2: and I starved to death. That's what happened.

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Speaker 1: Wait, no, as you're eating your your takeout.

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Speaker 2: Yeah huh, yeah that someone delivered to me. Yeah no, yeah, totally.

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Speaker 1: And as you were talking about, Ireland was actually producing

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Speaker 1: enough grain to feed the entire population, but most of it,

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Speaker 1: alongside barley, oats and other crops, were exported to England

354
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Speaker 1: while the Irish people start. So in eighteen forty six

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Speaker 1: and eighteen forty seven you have this wave of riots

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Speaker 1: that are related to securing food and famine relief, and

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Speaker 1: there was also an increase in this tradition of plundering

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Speaker 1: of provisions of just taking food that was needed. Of course,

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Speaker 1: these food riots weren't centered on the potato because the

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Speaker 1: potatoes were rotting in the fields, right, so they were

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Speaker 1: focused on meal and grain and later on influencing how

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Speaker 1: soup kitchens were run. In April eighteen forty six, in

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Speaker 1: the southern part of County Tipperary and adjacent areas of

364
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Speaker 1: County Waterford and Cork Town, dwellers and the rural poor

365
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Speaker 1: rated cart convoys, cargo boats, meal stores, mills and bakeries

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Speaker 1: for food. Food riots and next proporations spread across the

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Speaker 1: country in eighteen forty six and forty seven, and there

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Speaker 1: was a real emphasis on the western half of the island,

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Speaker 1: which is where famine hit the hardest. County Cork alone

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Speaker 1: saw one hundred and forty one food riots in eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty seven, while Galway, Tipperary and Limerick all had over

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Speaker 1: one hundred. There were also marches, including one in County

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Speaker 1: May in which ten thousand to forty thousand, which is

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Speaker 1: a huge range of numbers, but that's what I got.

375
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Speaker 1: Starving peasants walked to the town of Castle Bar to

376
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Speaker 1: protest that there is not a stone of sound potatoes

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Speaker 1: among the whole of us.

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Speaker 2: What they should have done is that they should have

379
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Speaker 2: marched to these deals services that advertise and asked to

380
00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:34,480
Speaker 2: purchase here's ads and we're back.

381
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Speaker 1: So from March to May eighteen forty seven, protesters fought

382
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Speaker 1: against the closure of the public works and the indignity

383
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Speaker 1: of soup kitchens.

384
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Speaker 2: What is that? What is the public works?

385
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Speaker 1: Like, that's a great question. The public works is like

386
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Speaker 1: people getting hired to maintain roads and stuff.

387
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it made me think of.

388
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Speaker 1: Like works progress administration stuff during the Great Depression. Yeah yeah,

389
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Speaker 1: just like you know, digging ditches and building roads, doing

390
00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:03,480
Speaker 1: like work for the state that would get folks who

391
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:07,919
Speaker 1: are otherwise unemployed paid. Cool, but they did it. Seems

392
00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:10,080
Speaker 1: like sometime in eighteen forty seven most of the public

393
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:14,480
Speaker 1: works were closed. They were also protesting against the indignity

394
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Speaker 1: of soup kitchens, but then sort of shifted to being like,

395
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Speaker 1: let's make these soup kitchens better, demanding bigger and better

396
00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:23,439
Speaker 1: rations as well as uncooked meals that they could prepare

397
00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:26,479
Speaker 1: in the privacy of their own homes. There was a

398
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:30,480
Speaker 1: very strong stigma against things like having to beg for

399
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:33,800
Speaker 1: food or show up and ask for aid, at least

400
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:36,080
Speaker 1: within the parts of Ireland that were really hard hit

401
00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:38,159
Speaker 1: by the famine, and so people really wanted to be

402
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:40,480
Speaker 1: able to take food and cook it in their own homes.

403
00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:45,280
Speaker 2: That makes sense, Yeah, I mean, there shouldn't be that stigma,

404
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:47,159
Speaker 2: but it doesn't surprise me that there is.

405
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:51,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And so by the end of eighteen forty seven,

406
00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:54,480
Speaker 1: these protests had largely waned. Ericson attributes this to an

407
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:56,760
Speaker 1: increased in hunger, disease, and fatigue.

408
00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:57,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

409
00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:01,720
Speaker 1: But also after the conic or system lapses, the public

410
00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:05,360
Speaker 1: works close, there's no longer jobs, wages, or even potato

411
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:09,439
Speaker 1: growing land to fight for. So even the famine evictions

412
00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:13,160
Speaker 1: of eighteen forty eight met with little resistance, which followed

413
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: on the footsteps of other mass evictions that had happened

414
00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:18,840
Speaker 1: over the previous decade. More than one hundred thousand families

415
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:21,720
Speaker 1: lost their homes because they couldn't pay rent, or because

416
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:24,040
Speaker 1: their landlords wanted to use the land for grazing and

417
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:30,560
Speaker 1: other large scale agricultural activities. I know. Yeah, that's how

418
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:33,640
Speaker 1: at least some of my ancestors ended up turning into

419
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:36,720
Speaker 1: settlers in this country. So yeah.

420
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Speaker 2: Yeah.

421
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 1: While a lot of genuine solidarity poured in from around

422
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,159
Speaker 1: the world, the results of the famine were devastating. In

423
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:46,920
Speaker 1: the end, over one million Irish people died from hunger

424
00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:52,119
Speaker 1: and disease, and one point twenty five million emigrated.

425
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Speaker 2: Which is like a together, that's like a quarter of

426
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:54,879
Speaker 2: their population.

427
00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:59,240
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's a huge number. And many of these emigrees,

428
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 1: of course came to the United States, where they became

429
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:05,560
Speaker 1: the settlers and colonizers, and according to Earle, the Italian

430
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 1: economist Francesco Nitty believed that a shift from potatoes to

431
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:12,440
Speaker 1: meet likewise explained why the Irish workers, who in their

432
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 1: homeland were idle, week and whimsical, were transformed into energetic

433
00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:20,120
Speaker 1: and productive workers on emigration to the United States, which

434
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:24,879
Speaker 1: leads into my terrible, terrible joke, which is does eating

435
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 1: meat turn people into cops? Oh?

436
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 2: Sh I mean, it's one of the sadder things in

437
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 2: history is watching the political shift from the Irish person

438
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:42,359
Speaker 2: in Ireland to the second generation Irish diaspora in the

439
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 2: United States in the nineteenth century, because, I mean a

440
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 2: ton of the Irish nationalists lived in the United States

441
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:53,160
Speaker 2: for a while, but like, yeah, overall, pretty quickly, one

442
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 2: of the most politically annoying groups in history is the

443
00:22:56,840 --> 00:22:58,120
Speaker 2: Irish American So.

444
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:03,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally yeah, And I think, I don't know, it

445
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 1: makes me sad. I feel like I have a personal

446
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: relationship to it, and it makes me sad, and that's

447
00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:09,959
Speaker 1: all I can really say about it at this moment.

448
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:15,199
Speaker 1: So yeah, So now we're going to leave Ireland and

449
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 1: we're going to jump ahead in time. We're going to

450
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 1: talk about the world wars and the years in between them.

451
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 1: And there were times when potatoes played a role in

452
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 1: both perseverance and revolts. During World War One, Sweden, which

453
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 1: was a neutral country, exported goods, including potatoes and other

454
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 1: food stuff to Germany, and while this made wealthy traders

455
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: and farmers even richer, it led first to food rationing

456
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 1: for working people, and then to these rations being cut

457
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 1: and to widespread food shortages. At the end of April

458
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:47,919
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, riots and protests spread across Sweden, starting in

459
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,879
Speaker 1: the small towns, where women rallied to demand more rations

460
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 1: as well as a fair price for potatoes and milk.

461
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:57,160
Speaker 1: In both rural and urban places, these protests often included

462
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: the plundering of provisions. For example, women would force their

463
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: way into a grocery store and if they found food hoarded,

464
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,120
Speaker 1: they would demand the grocer sell it at the posted prices.

465
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 1: Conscriptive soldiers joined the protests, which really alarmed the authorities,

466
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,159
Speaker 1: but their officers did disarm them before they hit the street,

467
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: so they weren't quite as that's funny. Their potential for

468
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:20,640
Speaker 1: rebellion wasn't quite as strong as it could have been.

469
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 2: But it's like the officers didn't stop them from going.

470
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 2: They was like, all right, you can go, but you

471
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 2: gotta leave your rifle at home.

472
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 1: That seems to be, yeah, what the case was.

473
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:34,400
Speaker 2: Which makes some sense honestly, like, yeah, there's many situations

474
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 2: where having a gun around makes everything worse, and riots

475
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 2: are among those situations.

476
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah, I feel like in a lot of cases

477
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:47,360
Speaker 1: that is absolutely true. And there were these workers committees

478
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:51,160
Speaker 1: that often included a Narcho, synaclists and socialists that formed

479
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: in about forty Swedish cities and towns. In the city

480
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: of Ostervik, the Workers Committee released a manifesto that called for,

481
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: in addition to an eight Tom day, the release of

482
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: all those arrested during hunger protests, and of course food,

483
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 1: the distribution of land to grow potatoes. And although it

484
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: was eventually quell due to infighting, repression and a decline

485
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: and leftist organizing, all the things that we see time

486
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: and time again over two hundred and fifty thousand people

487
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,640
Speaker 1: participated in Sweden's Potato Revolution.

488
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things that it's interesting

489
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 2: about that is again, like I know we kind of

490
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 2: mentioned it earlier, but you know this idea that the

491
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 2: right wing worries about like lawless looting, right, and that

492
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,200
Speaker 2: happens sometimes and people, you know, and there's times when

493
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 2: crowds like lose their mind and hurt people and all

494
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 2: of this. But it's like you're bringing up time after

495
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 2: time where they're like, look, we just want the food

496
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 2: to be sold at not price gouged prices. You know.

497
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 2: It's not like, oh, we want everything for free, although

498
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 2: I mean again I have no problem with everyone getting

499
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 2: everything for free, but like, it's not about entitlement. It's

500
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 2: just literally about hey, you can't just keep jacking up

501
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 2: the prices while we're all starving.

502
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:05,120
Speaker 1: Totally, it's about survival.

503
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

504
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. That same year, in early July, there were also

505
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: potato rides in Amsterdam, and I had trouble finding too

506
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 1: much information about them in English, but this is what

507
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 1: he did find. When hungry women and children tried to

508
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: ride a potato ship, they were assured a new shipment

509
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: of potatoes for sale was coming in soon, but the

510
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: potatoes in that shipment were priced too high, and on

511
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: July second, crowd started plundering shops and warehouses. On July four,

512
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: three hundred women armed with bayonets, revolvers, and stones tried

513
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: to expropriate a stored potatoes that were being guarded by troops,

514
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: and on July five, a clash with the army resulted

515
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: in nine people kills and one hundred and fourteen injured.

516
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:48,959
Speaker 2: I feel like since we currently live in a country

517
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 2: where the price of basic goods not only went up

518
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 2: a lot in the past few years, but ye, if

519
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 2: Trump gets its way his way, then they are going

520
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 2: to go up way more real soon, totally with tariffs,

521
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,880
Speaker 2: you know, I feel like this is relatable content.

522
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 1: Oh for sure.

523
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep the food prices reasonable or otherwise people will

524
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:08,719
Speaker 2: find bayonets.

525
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 1: Yes, although it might be hard to like literally find

526
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: a bayonet in this day and age, but you know equivalence.

527
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,159
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know there's bayonets up through the

528
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 2: world Wars and yeah, totally, my dad has a bayonet,

529
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 2: you know, So if.

530
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: Anyone needs to expropriate potatoes, Margaret's dad has a bayonet. Yeah, yeah, totally.

531
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 1: During World War Two, potatoes help people across Europe survive.

532
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: They were the single most important food in aiding survival

533
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: during the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted for almost two

534
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 1: and a half years and killed over eight hundred thousand

535
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 1: Soviet civilians.

536
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 2: Thank god.

537
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, really really really sad in a move that I mean,

538
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: so much of this is all just actually so sad.

539
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: In a move that harkens back to James Scott, at

540
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: least one poor family outside Rome replanted their entire garden

541
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: with potatoes is a way to prevent the German military

542
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: from taking their crops. Back to that underground food thing.

543
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 1: And also Jewish children living in the Warsaw Ghetto would

544
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: sneak past the guards on a daily basis, an incredibly

545
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: brave and dangerous endeavor to find food outside of the

546
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: ghetto's walls. In addition to begging, this included digging up

547
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 1: potatoes that grew on the outskirts of the city.

548
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 2: Wow.

549
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 1: So earlier we talked about state evating potatoes in early

550
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: modern Europe, and interestingly, potatoes played a similar role in

551
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: China many centuries later. Potatoes likely arrived in China in

552
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century and were first grown by peasants eking

553
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: out a living on marginal mountainous land in the north

554
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: of the country, like in so many other places, a

555
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: way to survive, you know, kind of on the fringes.

556
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: And that Chang dynasty, which ruled China at the time,

557
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: was interested in preventing famine, but thought the path to

558
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: doing so is through growing rice and other grains, not potatoes.

559
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: Three centuries later, under Mao, potatoes became a method of

560
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: survival and communities where they were grown. During the Great

561
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: Leap Forward of nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty two,

562
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: the state appropriated grains, but they didn't appropriate potatoes well.

563
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: The famine that resulted is considered by submetrics to be

564
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: the largest famine of all time. Entire villages survived on potatoes,

565
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: and there was also another state evating element at play

566
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,719
Speaker 1: in MAOIs China, in which there was a certain quota

567
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: of wheat that farmers were required to grow, and instead

568
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: of switching to wheat, farmers would convert the number of

569
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 1: potatoes they grew into what they believed would be an

570
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: equivalent amount of wheat and report that to the authorities.

571
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: Instead Okay, So there's this interesting history of potato growing

572
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: areas continuing to grow potatoes and just saying they were

573
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: growing wheat.

574
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, no, they're like, no, we were quite happy

575
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 2: with this thing that it's harder for you to tax

576
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 2: and this, yeah, takes less work and feeds us better.

577
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. So I want to end by talking about

578
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: the South Africa potato boycott of nineteen fifty nine.

579
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 2: Well, before we talk about that, boy, what you shouldn't

580
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 2: boycott is these goods and services unless they're for bad things,

581
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 2: in which case you should boycott them. We have no

582
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 2: legions to advertisers. Ye. Yeah, we just have to do

583
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 2: it in order to eat potatoes. You're the ads and

584
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 2: we're back. Yeah.

585
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: So, as I mentioned, I want to end by talking

586
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: about the South Africa potato boycott, which happened in nineteen

587
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: fifty nine. And I do want to say that in

588
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: an episode about sad, hard things, this felt like one

589
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: of the absolute hardest to research, and I want to

590
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: give listeners a heads up about the intensity of violence involved.

591
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: But it also feels like a really important sort of

592
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: historical episode to talk about it. We're talking about potatoes

593
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: from a people's history perspective. So before I go into

594
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: the boycott itself, it feels important to discuss the historical

595
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: circumstances that gave brise to this. And to do this

596
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: it depended pretty heavily on a book called These Potatoes

597
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: Look Like Humans. The Contested Future of Land, Home and

598
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: Death in South Africa by Umbuso Wacosi, which I definitely

599
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: recommend folks check out to learn more about the political

600
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: and spiritual components of black farm workers struggles from early

601
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: colonial South Africa to the present day. And I've also

602
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: used several other sources, but I want to be sure

603
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: to mention this book by name. Okay, So, the Potato

604
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: boycott was a response to the South African apartheid state,

605
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 1: in which segregation as well as political and economic discrimination

606
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: were codified into law to uphold the power of the

607
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: country's minority white population. While only given the name apartheid

608
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: after is that if super racist laws were passed in

609
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight. Segregation and white supremacy had long been

610
00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: part and parcel of life and the legal system in

611
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: South Africa since it's settlement by Dutch and English colonists

612
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: starting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the history

613
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: of South Africa apartheid and the whole scope of this

614
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: decade's long anti apartheid movement are more than I can

615
00:31:57,360 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: talk about in this episode, but I'll sort of be

616
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: touching on these topics here and there while discussing the boycott. So,

617
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: the boycott centered on a town called Bethel, which is

618
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: in a region that was then called the East trans

619
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: Fall and that's now part of Malonga, where large white

620
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: owned potato farms employed a black workforce comprised of locals

621
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: who had been dispossessed by colonialism and white land ownership,

622
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 1: contract workers from elsewhere in South Africa and neighboring countries,

623
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: and prisoners. Throughout the forties and fifties, these farms gained

624
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: a reputation for brutality, which included owners for men and

625
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: boss boys, which were kind of like local workers who

626
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: were employed in intermediary physician murdering and beating to death

627
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: workers and burying their bodies in the fields.

628
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 2: Jesus. Yeah.

629
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: While abuse and brutality weren't unique to Bethel, the town's

630
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: potato farms were considered so violent that recruiters looking for

631
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 1: workers along the border with Rhodesia, a former colonial state

632
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: that bordered South Africa, regularly changed their vehicle registration plates

633
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: so that workers didn't know that they'd be going to

634
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: the East.

635
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 2: Trons Fall Jesus.

636
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: In the early fifties, three laborers found out that they

637
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 1: were being taken to Bethel instead of the place they

638
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: thought they were going, and they jumped off the train

639
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: they were on, and at least one of them died

640
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: in the act. Throughout the forties and fifties, exposes were

641
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: published that revealed conditions on Bethel potato farms. In nineteen

642
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: forty seven, Anglican priest and anti apartheid activist Michael Scott

643
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: and journalists Ruth First, working as a photographer, collaborated on

644
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 1: an expose about the Bethel farms with help from investigative

645
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: journalist Henry Nukmalo. They were horrified to find child laborers

646
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: working in the fields alongside contract workers from Nyassaland, which

647
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: is now Malawi. These workers had signed contracts that promised

648
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: poor pay and few protections, either because they were illiterate

649
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: and were told deceitful information about what the contracts contained,

650
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: or because they were so desperate for work that they

651
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: knew they were terrible deals, but they signed them anyway.

652
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 2: Happens all over the world now, Yeah.

653
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: And other workers included prisoners who were sent to the

654
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: farms for the duration of their sentences. On some farms,

655
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: these prisoners had their clothes confiscated and were forced to

656
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: wear potato sacks, a measure that the landowners believed would

657
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: prevent them from running away.

658
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:18,439
Speaker 2: Fuck.

659
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,720
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty two, Nukmalo built on first in Scott's

660
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 1: work by publishing another expose and Drum magazine. Unlike Scott

661
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 1: and First, who were white, Nucmalo was a Black African,

662
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: which allowed him to go undercover for the assignment. Additionally,

663
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 1: laborers spoke to Nucmala more freely than they had to

664
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: Scott and articulated their fears of speaking up against the

665
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: farmers into the police. And This expose includes quotes from

666
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 1: Bethel based organizer and African National Congress member Gert Sabandi,

667
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: who may have also helped First in Scott and their

668
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 1: reporting and is often considered to have played an organizing

669
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: role in the boycott, although the scope of his contributions

670
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: stopped fully known. Nonetheless, to Bendi's work exposing the case,

671
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: conditions of farms and Bethel and organizing labors there played

672
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: an important role in laying the groundwork for the boycott.

673
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,439
Speaker 1: So while prison labor had long been used on South

674
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 1: African farms, including in Bethel, in nineteen fifty three the

675
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 1: petty offender scheme landed on the books. As part of

676
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 1: this scheme, black South Africans who are found guilty of

677
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,479
Speaker 1: petty apartheid crimes either had to serve a three month

678
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: jail sentence or spend that time working on a farm

679
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 1: for a pittance, a scheme device to ameliorate both overcrowding

680
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: in jails and labor shortages on farms.

681
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 2: When you say like apartheid crimes, is this like I

682
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 2: don't understand enough about a parteid South Africa's It's like, oh,

683
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 2: you were in the wrong part of town where black

684
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 2: people aren't allowed or something.

685
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: Essentially, yes, yeah, okay. Petty apartheid crimes were any of

686
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 1: any crime that transgressed the laws that kept South Africans

687
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: of different racial groups apart. But one of those is

688
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: breaking the past laws which required non white South Africans

689
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: to carry documents that authorize them to travel through a

690
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: work in white classified areas, and these his laws actually

691
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: had a particular impact on black South Africans, and when

692
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty two Natives Act instituted reference books in

693
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: the place of passes, every black man sixteen years of

694
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: age or older was required to have his on him

695
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: at all times.

696
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 2: Jesus uh huh, So you.

697
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: Could, yeah, you could end up sent to one of

698
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: these farms because you didn't have the proper documentation on you.

699
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: And although theoretically offenders were given the choice to work

700
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: on farms versus serving their sentences in jails, in reality

701
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: they were often coerced. He j the Bear, the public

702
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: prosecutor who put this scheme into motion, was known to have,

703
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: at least in certain instances, sent to restues straight to

704
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: the farm without them appearing in court first. And he

705
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,920
Speaker 1: also told arrestees that if they didn't accept work on farms,

706
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 1: they'd be punished by their ancestors, which is a threat

707
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: that Ukosi describes as eschatological terror.

708
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 2: WHOA, that's yeah, I mean, it's funny because it's like

709
00:36:57,800 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 2: this is the way that people are going to talk

710
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 2: about the United States. It's hopefully soon. You know, the

711
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 2: prison labor systems that exist within the United States of

712
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 2: like you're more or less coerced into these jobs that

713
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 2: pay basically nothing and all of these things.

714
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was a whole there's a whole sort

715
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,919
Speaker 1: of thread to this story that in this book These

716
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: Potatoes Look like Humans really goes into thinking about like

717
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: the spiritual violence. And I don't get too much into

718
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: that in this section, but if you are interested in that,

719
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 1: there's like a lot more within the book talking about

720
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: like sort of the yeah, eschatological terror that was wielded

721
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 1: against people. So the potato boycott itself was catalyzed by

722
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: a few different factors. So by nineteen fifty nine, almost

723
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,239
Speaker 1: all other forms of political action had been outlawed by

724
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: the government, so boycotts were among the only options that

725
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: anti apartheid activists had, huh.

726
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 2: And so that probably ties into the broader like because

727
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 2: one of the main things that thought apartheid global he

728
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:06,760
Speaker 2: was you know, sanctions or boycott's yes, boycott, devestment, sanction.

729
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 2: That's interesting.

730
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it really was spurred by this this moment

731
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: where like everything else had basically been outlining criminalized. Yeah,

732
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:20,239
Speaker 1: and yeah, the exposs that had covered Bethel had put

733
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,359
Speaker 1: a spotlight on the plight of farm laborers there when

734
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,839
Speaker 1: Cosey argues that the death of Cornelius Mogoko, a twenty

735
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 1: four year old farm laborer who died on the Lake

736
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: Dar farm on March five, nineteen fifty nine, also played

737
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: a particularly decisive role. He was seen as a slow worker,

738
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: which was unacceptable on the potato farms, and because of this,

739
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: Mokogo was beaten dehydrated and he was made to keep

740
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,280
Speaker 1: working in the full sun until he collapsed and died.

741
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 1: The boycott was initially called for by activists Robert Reisha

742
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 1: at the African National Congress's annual Anti pass conference, which

743
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: took place at the end of May nineteen fifty nine.

744
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: And the ANC is actually now the governing party of Africa, Yeah,

745
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: but at the time it was an opposition party that

746
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: was extremely instrumental in the fight against apartheid. So the

747
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: call goes out at the end of May and the

748
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: boycott begins on June twenty six, and according to historian

749
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: Cornelis Muller, it took some time to gain steam. Things

750
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 1: picked up after several protest marches in which activists made

751
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:25,479
Speaker 1: their way to Johannesburg markets dressed in potato sacks and

752
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: potato necklaces bearing banners with slogans like potatoes are produced

753
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: as slave labor and donate potatoes don't buy chips, meaning

754
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: of course chips in the British English.

755
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 2: Sense of funch fries.

756
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: I guess they're both actually made of potatoes. But yeah,

757
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually matter, but it totally yeah. And it

758
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 1: was also effective because there was this belief that potatoes

759
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: were taking on the shape of the humans that had

760
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: been buried in the fields.

761
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:53,439
Speaker 2: Oh shit, so this is where the book gets its name.

762
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And for some this was a metaphor, while

763
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 1: for others it was, according to Whenkosi, seen as the

764
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: spiritual return of a dead worker, embodying that which was

765
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: buried in the land. And according to trade unionist and

766
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,320
Speaker 1: ANTSI organizer Francis Bard, we used to contemn a potato

767
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:12,719
Speaker 1: when we see one that had a hole or of

768
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: black mark. We used to tell the people in the

769
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: public meetings, you see this mark here, it's where your

770
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: child's blood went in. You see this mark here, it's

771
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: the blood of our children. That's why the potato is

772
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,919
Speaker 1: So the people started hating potatoes like anything, and even

773
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: the whites when they heard that we are boycotting the

774
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 1: potatoes and that we say that these potatoes are full

775
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: of the blood of the African people, then they also

776
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: began boycotting them. That boycott was very affective, you know,

777
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: the farmers couldn't sell their potatoes anywhere, and that the

778
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: market the workers wouldn't even carry the potatoes.

779
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 2: Were the white people boycotting because they were like, oh,

780
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 2: this is a simple thing we can do against apartheid,

781
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 2: or are they like I just don't want to eat

782
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 2: African blood in my food.

783
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,399
Speaker 1: I think it was the latter, is how I'm reading this.

784
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 2: There, No, that makes sense.

785
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, there certainly were white anti apartheid activists, but I

786
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 1: don't think they were the majority by an So yeah totally.

787
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 1: And bard Ward about the economic success of the boycotts

788
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: and the fact that it was called off in August

789
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine because the farmers gave up this business

790
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: of making the boys work on the farms, The economic

791
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,240
Speaker 1: impacts of the boycott are debated. It seems like different

792
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: newspapers with different political viewpoints are reporting different things. Though

793
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: I strongly sort of air on believing the anti apartheid

794
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: and farm labor.

795
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:28,280
Speaker 2: Activists who said it worked, who.

796
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: Said that it worked. Yeah, you just see this kind

797
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 1: of like sort of semantic war in the press about

798
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: you know, how effective the boycott is. And even before

799
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: the boycott began, farmers had started sending farm workers back

800
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: to the labor bureaus driven by the negative media attention,

801
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 1: and the South African government decided to end the petty

802
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: offender scheme on June sixteenth, nineteen fifty nine, shortly before

803
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,319
Speaker 1: the boycott began, in the wake of mounting pressure and

804
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: ongoing media attention, and a memo was issued that August

805
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: requiring farmers to real workers covered by the scheme.

806
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: Cool.

807
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one thing I found interesting was that the

808
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: boycott also had an impact on the stabilization scheme of

809
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,399
Speaker 1: the South Africa Potato Board. In this scheme, the board

810
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: would get rid of third rate potatoes by selling them

811
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:17,760
Speaker 1: for cheaper and black communities. And because of the boycott,

812
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 1: these potatoes were piling up in markets, and one article

813
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: published in the wake of the boycott mentioned that the

814
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: Potato Board had started encouraging farmers to buy these potatoes

815
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: as feed. The research I found felt a little bit unclear,

816
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: but it was suggested that the Potato Board also stopped

817
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:36,280
Speaker 1: selling these scratching potatoes on the market for human consumption

818
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 1: in general, So that might have been another impact of

819
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: the boycott, But for sure, the biggest impact of the

820
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: boycott was the role that it played in catalyzing international

821
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 1: support for the anti apartheid movement. So a British boycott

822
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: of South African goods kicked off in the same day

823
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: June twenty sixth, nineteen fifty nine. It became a large

824
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: scale mobilizing force for the next eight months, and it

825
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 1: laid the groundwork for future British anti apartheid actions, and

826
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:04,439
Speaker 1: you see international solidarity, boycotts and sanctions that would grow

827
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: over the coming years to become a major part of

828
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:10,320
Speaker 1: the anti apartheid movement. Apartheid only ended in a formal

829
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 1: political sense in the nineteen nineties, although of course the political, social,

830
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 1: and other effects of racism and white supremacy linger on

831
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 1: in South Africa. As of twenty nineteen, whites, who make

832
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: up less than ten percent of the country's population, still

833
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 1: own seventy two percent of individually owned land in South Africa.

834
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was expecting you to say, like fifty percent.

835
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: I don't know you know, yeah, and the struggle, you know,

836
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: the struggle for liberation continues as well, and there's been

837
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:42,359
Speaker 1: I think a lot of tensions recently actually between like

838
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 1: white landowners and like wealthy farmers and labors in the area.

839
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's the South Africa potato boycott, and

840
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: that's sort of where we're ending for today. So we've

841
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:58,320
Speaker 1: talked about potatoes over a span of thousands of years

842
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 1: and in more than a dozen cultures and resisted spoovements,

843
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering at the end of all this, what

844
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 1: you think about the potato.

845
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 2: I still like the potato, although right now I'm like

846
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 2: so sick that I'm like, food is I know, I

847
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 2: just ate some, but that's because I need to in

848
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:12,720
Speaker 2: order to survive.

849
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:13,240
Speaker 1: Totally.

850
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 2: Like right now I'm like, oh, I ate food, and

851
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 2: I feel terrible, even though it's not the potato's fault.

852
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 2: It's the cold virus's fault. But it's so fascinating, like

853
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 2: I was saying at the end of the first episode,

854
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:27,800
Speaker 2: like the fact that it's like all of these different things,

855
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 2: you know, the potato is being used for all of

856
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 2: these different things. And then even like this last one

857
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,359
Speaker 2: with the you know, the potato boycott. It's like, well,

858
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 2: that's not the potato's fault. And everyone knows that it's

859
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 2: not the potato's fault. Do you It's okay if you don't,

860
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 2: But like, do you know how that affected like potato

861
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 2: consumption and potato culture in South Africa after the boycott?

862
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: I don't. Okay, yeah, unfortunately not.

863
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 2: But it's just no, it's just interesting to me how

864
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 2: all over the world this uh is very effective food.

865
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah.

866
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's just I don't know. That's all I got.

867
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 2: That's all I got. I guess a lot of stuff

868
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be thinking about for a while. As potatoes.

869
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm gonna bring it back as a sponsor of

870
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 2: the show. You know. I think part of the reason

871
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 2: I kind of dropped that bit talking about this show

872
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 2: is brought to you by Potatoes is because I was like,

873
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 2: is it just a tool of colonization? And now I

874
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 2: know the answers is no, you know, yeah, and it's

875
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:28,319
Speaker 2: it's a complicated thing and we should embrace all of

876
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 2: our weird complications, like just like being you know, white

877
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 2: person in North America is complicated and we need to

878
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 2: for sure accept that complication rather than like, you know,

879
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 2: wallowing and guilty not doing anything. You know, we just

880
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:45,240
Speaker 2: need to like accept that it is complicated and continue

881
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 2: on with it. And that's how I feel about potatoes.

882
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 2: It's the same as white people. No, this metaphor didn't

883
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 2: really work, but I'm going to blame that on how

884
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 2: sick I am.

885
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: Totally. I also asked your ridiculous question, which was to

886
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,399
Speaker 1: have the singular opinion about a really complicated thing.

887
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 2: So oh no, no, it's all right. Normally that's like

888
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 2: my job, right, Yeah.

889
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 1: You know, what do you think about the potato?

890
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:12,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, potato, Yeah, it's all right, that's how I feel.

891
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all kind of I want. Yeah, I want

892
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 1: to live in a world where potatoes are in the

893
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: service of everyday people in resisting states, and you know,

894
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,280
Speaker 1: may that be so as we move forward.

895
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 2: Totally, I love that they're are the anarchy vegetable that rules.

896
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:31,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, potatoes canonically anarchist.

897
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, if people want to know more about your

898
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 2: work or want to follow you on the internet or

899
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 2: read your book, or what do you got for them?

900
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right now, I'm mostly only on the internet on Instagram,

901
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:46,880
Speaker 1: just under my name at ren A Rye and I

902
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: edited an anthology called Nourishing Resistance. I also work on

903
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: a project called Living and Fighting out of Tucson.

904
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 2: Yeah awesome. And if you want to follow me, I'm

905
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,440
Speaker 2: trying to not be on Twitter anymore, and so you

906
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 2: can yell at me if you see me there. Maybe

907
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,319
Speaker 2: I don't know. Probably I am on Blue Sky. I

908
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:09,800
Speaker 2: got on it early enough that my name is just

909
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 2: Margaret on Blue Sky. I'm very proud of that. I

910
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 2: don't know why I am because I'm sick and my

911
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 2: brain doesn't work, that's why. But you can follow me there.

912
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 2: You can follow me on Instagram at Margaret Kiljoy. You

913
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 2: can follow me on substack at Marter Kiljoy. And you

914
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 2: can organize with your friends to build networks of mutual

915
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 2: aid and solidarity, because that's all what good things are

916
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 2: built on. Yeah, and you can take care of each

917
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,800
Speaker 2: other during bad times totally.

918
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: And I'll also say throughout this whole working on this episode,

919
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about the people of Gaza

920
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:52,439
Speaker 1: who are facing huge like starvation in a huge way

921
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: and lack of food access in a huge way. And

922
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:58,959
Speaker 1: I've given some money to this project called the Santabel Team,

923
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: which does like food distribution in Gaza, so I kind

924
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: of wanted to shout them out too, or like supporting

925
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,359
Speaker 1: in any way the folks over there, you know, as

926
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: we're talking about famine, and that's not the only place,

927
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 1: right there are famines happening all over the world. Ye,

928
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: but yeah, I have been thinking a lot about that

929
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: while I've been writing and working through this, and I

930
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: just wanted to mention.

931
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 2: It isn't there Some fiction book I just read has

932
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 2: people of different religious faiths making the statement to save

933
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 2: one person is to save all of humanity, and I

934
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:35,880
Speaker 2: don't know which religion said it first. That concept, I

935
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 2: think is a good example of that. It's like, oh,

936
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 2: you can't save everyone, so you shouldn't save anyone. That

937
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 2: is the least sensical thing anyone has ever said. Totally,

938
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:49,399
Speaker 2: there's a lot of us. If everyone saves someone, then

939
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 2: we've saved twice as many people as there are, you know, Yeah,

940
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 2: just find a way to help and start helping. What

941
00:48:58,200 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 2: is the name of the place that you just said that?

942
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 1: What the Suna Belt Team. It's s A N A

943
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: B E L. And you can find them on Instagram

944
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:08,280
Speaker 1: and I think they also have a website awesome.

945
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 2: So yeah, all right, and yeah and if you want,

946
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 2: there's going to be show notes in with sources in

947
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 2: the show notes. That's this is why Ren had to

948
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 2: be the host today, is that my brain is totally Yeah.

949
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: But you're a great guest.

950
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:29,320
Speaker 2: Thank you. I thanks. I watch a lot of guests

951
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 2: on this show. So yeah, and we'll be back when

952
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 2: my brain works soon. Take care of each other. Bye.

953
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,320
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

954
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,

955
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,879
Speaker 1: visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

956
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

957
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: your podcasts.