WEBVTT - Part Two: A People's History of Potatoes 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.880 Cool Media. 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.280 Hello, and welcome to the History of Potatoes, Part two 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.640 with ren A Rye. I'm your host Margaret Kiljoy, who 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.520 always talks in this voice or it's just the voice 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:18.280 I have because I have a cold. This is cool 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:20.599 people who did cool stuff. I'm your host Margaret Kiljoy, 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.680 but I'm not the host today because Ren's the host today. Hi, Ren, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:24.960 how are you doing good? 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:30.360 I really appreciated that, like intense serious Margaret voice. Yeah, 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:33.360 it's definitely like a mix up from your usually you know, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.519 your usual friendly demeanor. 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.199 Yeah. Yeah, potatoes are serious business. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.400 They are serious business. 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:44.760 Much like serious business. Is Rory our audio engineer who 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:49.560 Hi Rory Hi Rory, an unwoman who wrote our theme music. 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.159 And Sophie, who is our producer, who is not here today, 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.800 so we can do whatever we want and that I 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.480 mean we can try and do our job without Sophie around. 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:04.120 But where we last left off? Wait, I got so 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.839 distracted at the end of last episode. I'm talking about 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.920 other stuff. Where did we last leave off? Where's our cliffhanger? 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:15.960 We actually left off talking about Ireland. So our cliffhanger 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.160 was that there was this Scottish guy McCullough who claimed 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.120 that the Irish had been prevented from rising up because 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.880 they were, you know, so tied to their little plots 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:30.840 of land and their potatoes. They didn't even know that 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:31.680 their lives. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:36.319 Were hard, right, and we're going to learn he's wrong. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:37.800 hell yeah. 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.520 And I should say that there is a lot of 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:46.279 information about potatoes in Ireland, in fact, an overwhelming amount 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:46.880 of information. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.200 What uh huh so much? 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.680 I uh yeah, it was both wonderful and sort of 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.080 deeply I guess I'm just going to repeat the word 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.520 overwhelming here, overwhelming to dig through. So I do want 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:01.640 to say I don't actually know enough to make a 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:06.440 sweeping generalization about whether or not these sort of self 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.240 sufficient life ways of Irish presidents negatively impacted their ability 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.120 to organize with one another. I like can't say overall. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.480 I'm guessing that's wrong. I'm guessing that's some usual like 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:19.400 Marx shit totally. 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.080 So I don't know enough to make a whole sleeping 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:26.320 generalization about you know, self sufficiency and how it impacted 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.800 organizing in rural Ireland. But there was a ton of 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:35.200 resistance to British colonization. The Irish rose up again and 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.839 again over eight hundred plus years, and in fact they 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.920 sometimes even rose up in directly potato related ways. 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:44.320 Oh hell yeah. 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.200 So most notably among these were food riots. So food 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.600 riots were common in Ireland, as they also were in 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.280 other parts of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.680 They were typically in response to sudden price surges and 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.000 other concerns about food and security, and they took different 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.320 They took the form of blockades to prevent food from 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.720 being exported, as well as your classic plundering and looting, 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:11.120 and less common but still notable were price riots, which 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.720 is when protesters would exppropriate a store of food and 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:15.960 then sell it for what they saw as a fair price. 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:18.840 That is so interesting you mentioned that last time. 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:19.240 It is. 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.639 Yeah, that's such a like robinhood, but like it's like 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.080 kind of almost like a liberally robinhood, but not like 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.240 in a bad way, just to like, I don't know, 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:28.080 it's interesting to me. 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.120 Yeah, it's funny, isn't it. I would like to learn 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.160 more about, like some of the dynamics behind why people 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.320 were choosing this Instead of choosing just to like give 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:38.280 away the potatoes. 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:40.800 They probably saw it as like this is well, this 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:42.600 is what the world should be is that things should 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.560 be fairly priced as compared to like, whereas I'm like, well, 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:47.800 everything should be free. That's the fair price for everything, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.240 you know. Yeah, but you know, I don't know they 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:52.560 were willing to throw down for it, So I'm not 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:54.160 going to nitpick, you know, totally. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:55.880 Yeah, And it does seem like they were selling it 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.440 at what was affordable for the peasantry. So it did. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.080 It did people's lives easier. And many of these riots 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.640 targeted grain, oats, and meal, but they also very often 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.920 targeted potatoes, which, as we discussed previously, were becoming an 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.560 increasingly important food stuff at this time. And historian James Kelly, 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.760 who drew on newspaper reports and registers of correspondents to 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.480 write a book about food rights in Ireland during this time, 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.960 offer some examples of potato riots that took place between 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.840 the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It would be 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.000 an entire project in and of itself to go into 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:31.839 all of these riots. There were so many. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.360 Okay, good because I might do an episode later sometime. 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.440 Yeah, So I'm going to keep it pretty basic and 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.720 just mention a few. Okay, So while carts full of 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.400 potatoes were intercepted, and mills and stores of potatoes were plundered. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.920 In coastal areas, writers often block shipments of potatoes from 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.480 leaving the ports. So here's a snippet from a newspaper 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.360 article about one such incident in the town of Clonakilty 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.400 in May seventeen eighty three. A few days ago. The 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.240 inhabitants of Klonakilty have had intelligence that several sloops then 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.719 in that harbor were freighted with potatoes at a time 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.719 when a most dreadful jarth of that useful necessity prevailed, 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.159 assembled in large bodies, and in the first transports of 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.760 their resentment, tore away the rigging, demolished the mast yards, 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.920 et cetera, and cast their anchors overboard. They afterwards unloaded 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.520 several vessels and obliged such masters as informed them of 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.520 their destination for Quark Market, solemnly to swear that they 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.080 would dispose of their cargo there and nowhere else. 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:32.680 Oh, so they would be like, oh, we're not going 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.040 to mess up your ship because you're going to Ireland, 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.200 like you're staying in Ireland. 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.440 In this case. Yes, that wasn't actually always the case. 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:41.640 Oh but that's interesting. That's kind of like you get 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.120 this again, like these like rioters who are like, well, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.000 it's about an ethic and not just like I went wild, 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:49.239 you know, yes. 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.560 Yeah, totally, And like there's this idea that food riots 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.520 are spontaneous uprisings and they're often caused by crises, but 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.279 also they're often the result of like a lot of 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:03.200 careful thinking and planning about access to food. Yeah, and 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.359 since city dwellers had to purchase most of the provisions, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.320 they couldn't grow them. Food riots in Dublin often took 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.400 the form of riotous mobs that plundered and redistributed food. 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.400 There were also demonstrations, including one in seventeen ninety six 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.160 in which protesters gathered at the Dublin Quays near the 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.000 potato boats to voice their anger at the price of potatoes. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.839 They chanted bread or potatoes, we are starving. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:26.360 That goes hard. 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.599 Yeah. In his book, Kelly talks about food scarcity leading 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.039 to an intense localism and othering of people from elsewhere, 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:38.039 even of other Irish people. So in Skibboreine, a town 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.080 and County Cork, in eighteen twelve, potato cargo from a 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:44.000 sloop bound for Dublin was expropriated and then sold locally 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.760 at a cheaper rate. Several decades later, residents of Sligo 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.600 Town barred people from a neighboring county from buying potatoes 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.160 at their market, and the eighteen forty two Claire massacre, 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.839 rooted in a similar impulse, left five people, including three 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:03.039 protesters dead. Interestingly, while food protesters were certainly met with 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.080 violence and arrest, as was the case in Claire, Kelly 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.760 mentions that the authorities were inconsistent in their responses, that 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.000 they were sort of softer on food riots and other 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.600 forms of revolts and protest. Only a fraction of participants 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.080 in food riots were prosecuted, and Kelly argues that this 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.680 is because food was seen as a necessity, so participants 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:24.960 had a moral right to riot in the eyes of 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:26.200 the ruling class. 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:28.960 That that makes some sense. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:30.040 Yeah. 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.840 I remember reading a while ago about I don't want 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:34.080 to say what country it was, because I'm not sure 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.000 if it was true or not. I never looked it up. 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.400 I was reading about a country that it wasn't illegal 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.960 to try to break out of prison. They would catch you, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.239 they would stop you, and they put you back in prison. 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.000 And if you hurt people in the process, that was 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.840 a separate crime. But the actual physical act of trying 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.600 to leave prison was seen as like a human like 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.960 not right, but like natural instinct that is like, well, well, yeah, 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:58.480 I locked you in a cage, you tried to get out. 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.560 I could get mad at you about that, you know, 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:01.840 and I feel like that. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:02.200 Yeah. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.120 The idea that like, well, whatever, you were starving, and 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.360 I'm still going to stop you from stealing this. 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.680 Yeah, I'm still not going to go out and distribute 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:09.680 food to you. Yeah. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.200 Yeah, yeah, I see why you're mad, and I'm not 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.160 going to change anything, is what they're saying. Yeah, just 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:20.000 still somehow still more human than like the US system totally. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.760 Yeah. Yeah, slightly more human for sure. And it wasn't 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.160 every single case, but that was sort of like in general, 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.840 And from about eighteen fifteen until eighteen forty five there 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.680 was an uptick in social protest and rebellion in Ireland 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:35.920 in general, and it included in some of those years 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.000 a dramatic increase in food riots. They were particularly widespread 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.640 in the counties of North Munster, including Claire and Limerick. 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.880 In an article that looks at these two counties, Andres 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.959 Erickson reports on food related unrest and protests that occurred 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.839 in the eighteen thirties and forties, many of which had 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.000 to do with potatoes. So beginning in the eighteen twenties, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.240 the price of potatoes rose steeply, which Ericson argues related 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.920 to greater consumption in Ireland rather than because they were 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.719 being exported. I think there's a little bit like a 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.439 lot of these things have like tensions between different historians 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.480 about what some of the causes were right. The population boom, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.160 coupled with the unjust distribution of land, probably caused a 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.520 rising demand for potatoes that couldn't be met. In the 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.200 late eighteen thirties and early eighteen forties, potato harvest made 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.439 the situation even more acute. In those years, June and 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.720 July were referred to as the hungry weeks because it 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:30.559 was common for the World War to run out of 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.880 potatoes by that time and depend on purchased spuds and 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.240 other purchased food. In an effort to make sure potato 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.840 prices remained affordable for the poor, groups of men organized 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:45.560 attacks on wealthy farmers and posted threatening notices demanding ceilings 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.280 on potato prices. And so those actions would typically get 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.360 carried out between March and early June, before or right 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.960 as the hungry weeks began and the cost of potatoes 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.600 started to rise. And this really points to the fact 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.079 what we were talking about before. These weren't taneous uprisings, 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.880 but well planned operations that were based on knowledge of 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.720 the potato harvest and the market. Yeah. And they were often, 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.079 although not always, carried out by secret societies and militant 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.560 rebels who were referred to as the White Boys, the 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.280 Rock Heights, the Terry Alts, or the Men of Lady Claire. 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.440 And I know you talked about the White Boys, which 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.120 have a very weird name and complicated history on your 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.719 show before right the Molly Maguire episode. 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:29.400 Yeah, there's a bunch of different Ireland got stuff done 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:34.680 through secret societies while England got stuff done through unions. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.040 Is like kind of a rough It's an unfair dichotomy 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.800 to draw, but like Ireland was all about the like 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.320 you get together in the pub with your friends, you 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.439 decide to go cross dress and fuck some stuff up totally. Yeah, 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.280 And I hadn't heard about it specifically as relates to 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.200 the food riots. I only read about it as relates 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.200 to like killing landlords and stuff, but it makes sense 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:58.720 that the same groups would also go and do food riots. 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.280 Make sure that potato prices weren't getting too high. 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.720 Yeah, it's like kind of like an Yeah, it's funny 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.360 because it's like sort of an organized crime, you know. 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.160 But it's also I don't know, Yeah, it's interesting, and 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.440 it's not like I'm not even like saying like, and 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.440 that's the correct organizing method, you know, but I don't 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:17.720 have a this is a different one. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.800 You know, totally. Yeah, Yeah, and it's really interesting and 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.719 I'd like it. I read about it in this one 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.160 article and that's enough. Like all of these things are 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:26.880 just things I want to know so much more about. 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.240 But well, and even the like one of the things 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:33.320 that I can't remember enough, and so I'm like afraid 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.320 I'll be wrong. So if you're listening, don't take this 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.520 as necessarily the truth. But you're saying about how the 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.880 like land distribution was getting worse. I'm under the impression 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:46.360 that traditionally Irish land would be divided amongst all of 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.840 the kids, and then the Protestant method was like, no, 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:50.560 you have to only give it to one kid, So 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.520 you start having these like disenfranchised people, and you have 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.880 this like rise in landless people, and that's like where 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.559 some of the uh where a lot of the diaspora 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.240 comes from. But I don't know the timing of that. 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:04.520 And then part of me is like, wait, what if 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.720 I haven't inverted right, because I know that there's the 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:09.559 oh lord, I just don't have my notes in front 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.160 of me. There's like the system by which traditionally Irish 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.240 people would like elect their ruler after one ruler died, right, 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.480 and you know, the way that things would get divvied 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.600 up is just like different than the western capitalist system. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:24.200 It's not totally. 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.439 Inherently better, but it was certainly worked better in Ireland. 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.640 And when it got disrupted, then you started having all 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.120 these landless people and stuff. That's my Yeah, don't take 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.000 my details on that, but the overall thrust of it 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:37.040 I feel confident about. 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:39.240 And I do know by the time that we're talking 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.319 about I don't know the exact reasons, but there were 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.559 a ton of landless labors in Ireland. So there definitely 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.520 was like a vast landlessness that was happening, Like people 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:49.720 that didn't even have like a tiny little plot of 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:54.640 land to grow potatoes. Yeah, so I wanted to share 0:12:54.720 --> 0:13:00.600 one instance of this sort of secret society Potato organized 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.720 crime patrol. In eighteen thirty seven, twenty men in County 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.839 Limerick broke into the homes of seven farmers, smashing their 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.480 doors and windows, and ordered those farmers to sell potatoes 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.320 at an affordable price and rent out their land to 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.800 cottiers on the Konaker system. And so that's that system 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.440 where laborers could rent a plot of land for the 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.559 season to grow potatoes, and for some of them that 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.960 was the only way to survive. Two years later, in 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.560 nearby County Claire, a farmer was dragged outside and forced 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.320 to swear an oath that he would have the price 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.439 of his potatoes, and he actually was forced to refund 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:38.160 money to the people he had already overcharged. And these 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.240 roping bands also sent letters to the homes of targeted 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:45.840 farmers and posted notices in public places, and one notice 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.559 posted in the town of Fakeal and County Clare read, 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.040 all persons are hereby required to take due notice that 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.240 any person or persons having the assurance to charge over 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.360 three pence for white potatoes three and a half pence 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.240 per cups his coffe will be his doom if he 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.520 goes beyond the rule of the terry alts. As for strangers, 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:06.320 they are welcome here so long as they won't go 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.400 beyond the rules of the country. If they do, their 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.120 cars will be cut. And then it signed corffin boys 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:17.079 with the PS. Any person that takes this down will 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:18.000 be sorry. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.720 Hell yeah. It just don't make fucking threatening letters like 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.400 they used to. Totally yeah. Also, I love the like 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:27.280 shout out that being like, look, hey, this isn't a 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.360 this isn't a nationalist thing. If you're not from here, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.000 it's fine. You just still can't sell potatoes for a lot. 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.520 Respect the rules of the country. Yeah, totally yeah. And 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.080 this all becomes far more acute with the onset of 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.400 the Great Hunger. So the Great Hunger, which is also 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.400 referred to as the Irish Potato Famine, was caused by 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.920 a potato blight that originated in North America and spread 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.680 across Europe starting the summer of eighteen forty five, and 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.360 thousands of people actually died in other countries, including the Netherlands, 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.760 Prussia and Belgium, but no place was quite as effected 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.920 as Ireland. And this is partially because of how hea 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.480 the Irish poor depended on the potato. Between forty and 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.120 sixty percent of the population subsisted almost entirely on the 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.120 potato by the eighteen forties, and the lumper, the primary 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.360 variety of potato grown in Ireland around the time of 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.880 the famine, was chosen to be grown so widely because 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.239 it produced huge crops, but it wasn't very blight resistant. 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.920 The famine was also really bad in Ireland because of 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.920 Britain's response to the situation. By eighteen forty six, the 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.760 Irish were in a desperate situation, but the English ruling 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.800 class stock cries for help is classic Irish exaggeration. 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:36.280 Yeah. 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.240 Charles Treveillyon, the Assistant Secretary to the Treasury who oversaw 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:42.960 the British response to the famine, viewed it as a 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.840 wage to reduce the surplus Irish population. The Irish who 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.280 survived would, he hoped, join the ranks of the proletariat 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.960 instead of eking out subsistence on the conager system and 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.960 lazy beds. They would become wage laborers who primarily ate 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.720 purchase grain and then, even like half hearted English attempts 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.920 to ameliorate the famine, didn't work. The English refused to 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.320 send grain because it might mess with the free market. 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.760 I tried to figure out exactly, like map out exactly 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.920 what they're thinking was around this, and I couldn't. People 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.400 have written about it, and I couldn't quite figure it out. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.240 I know, I had always read that they were subsisting 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.040 off potatoes because they were more or less economically forced 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.440 to export all of their other crops, and so yeah, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:32.040 that was why when the crop that they actually ate 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.760 for themselves at home, when that one failed, and England 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:40.240 didn't let them like throw up some trade protectionism or whatever, 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.520 you know, totally yeah, and didn't limit exports. 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.120 But it also seemed like the English could have sent 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.200 additional food and decided not to, And that had to 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.680 do with some like thinking around free market capitalism. 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.160 Yeah. And they sent like weird corn that you couldn't 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:55.600 really eaten. Yeah. 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:58.960 Yeah, they sent the hard flint corn that the Irish 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:00.680 didn't have the rightquipment to mill. 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:01.720 Yeah. 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.239 And another English suggestion was to strain rutting potatoes and 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.680 bake them, so the rotten part was baked off, which 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:09.760 sounds disgusting. 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.600 Yeah, these the potatoes. I grew some rotten I grew 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.280 blite potatoes this year, as we're saying, and yeah, they're 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.080 one of the nastiest things in this world I've ever seen, 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.879 like little I don't even like a little whatever I 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:25.600 might even describe as too gross. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.240 Well, there were like gross little bugs on them, right, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.160 were the bugs good? Well? 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.719 And like I pulled, there was bugs in my stupid 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.720 and the bugs were nasty. Anyway, it was all bad 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:39.119 and I starved to death. That's what happened. 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.520 Wait, no, as you're eating your your takeout. 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:48.480 Yeah huh, yeah that someone delivered to me. Yeah no, yeah, totally. 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.800 And as you were talking about, Ireland was actually producing 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.760 enough grain to feed the entire population, but most of it, 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.560 alongside barley, oats and other crops, were exported to England 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.920 while the Irish people start. So in eighteen forty six 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.240 and eighteen forty seven you have this wave of riots 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.639 that are related to securing food and famine relief, and 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.200 there was also an increase in this tradition of plundering 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.800 of provisions of just taking food that was needed. Of course, 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.159 these food riots weren't centered on the potato because the 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.320 potatoes were rotting in the fields, right, so they were 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.800 focused on meal and grain and later on influencing how 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.159 soup kitchens were run. In April eighteen forty six, in 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.919 the southern part of County Tipperary and adjacent areas of 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.680 County Waterford and Cork Town, dwellers and the rural poor 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.560 rated cart convoys, cargo boats, meal stores, mills and bakeries 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.320 for food. Food riots and next proporations spread across the 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.360 country in eighteen forty six and forty seven, and there 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:46.639 was a real emphasis on the western half of the island, 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.840 which is where famine hit the hardest. County Cork alone 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.040 saw one hundred and forty one food riots in eighteen 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.080 forty seven, while Galway, Tipperary and Limerick all had over 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.760 one hundred. There were also marches, including one in County 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.560 May in which ten thousand to forty thousand, which is 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.040 a huge range of numbers, but that's what I got. 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.359 Starving peasants walked to the town of Castle Bar to 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.879 protest that there is not a stone of sound potatoes 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:12.120 among the whole of us. 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.040 What they should have done is that they should have 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:22.840 marched to these deals services that advertise and asked to 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:34.480 purchase here's ads and we're back. 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.880 So from March to May eighteen forty seven, protesters fought 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.800 against the closure of the public works and the indignity 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:42.960 of soup kitchens. 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:44.800 What is that? What is the public works? 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.280 Like, that's a great question. The public works is like 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.800 people getting hired to maintain roads and stuff. 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:52.760 Oh yeah, it made me think of. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.240 Like works progress administration stuff during the Great Depression. Yeah yeah, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.440 just like you know, digging ditches and building roads, doing 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.480 like work for the state that would get folks who 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.919 are otherwise unemployed paid. Cool, but they did it. Seems 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.080 like sometime in eighteen forty seven most of the public 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.480 works were closed. They were also protesting against the indignity 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.000 of soup kitchens, but then sort of shifted to being like, 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.880 let's make these soup kitchens better, demanding bigger and better 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.439 rations as well as uncooked meals that they could prepare 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.479 in the privacy of their own homes. There was a 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.480 very strong stigma against things like having to beg for 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.800 food or show up and ask for aid, at least 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.080 within the parts of Ireland that were really hard hit 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.159 by the famine, and so people really wanted to be 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.480 able to take food and cook it in their own homes. 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.280 That makes sense, Yeah, I mean, there shouldn't be that stigma, 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.159 but it doesn't surprise me that there is. 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:51.120 Yeah, totally. And so by the end of eighteen forty seven, 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.480 these protests had largely waned. Ericson attributes this to an 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.760 increased in hunger, disease, and fatigue. 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:57.400 Yeah. 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.720 But also after the conic or system lapses, the public 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.360 works close, there's no longer jobs, wages, or even potato 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:09.439 growing land to fight for. So even the famine evictions 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:13.160 of eighteen forty eight met with little resistance, which followed 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.560 on the footsteps of other mass evictions that had happened 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.840 over the previous decade. More than one hundred thousand families 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.720 lost their homes because they couldn't pay rent, or because 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.040 their landlords wanted to use the land for grazing and 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:30.560 other large scale agricultural activities. I know. Yeah, that's how 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.640 at least some of my ancestors ended up turning into 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.720 settlers in this country. So yeah. 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:38.480 Yeah. 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.000 While a lot of genuine solidarity poured in from around 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.159 the world, the results of the famine were devastating. In 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.920 the end, over one million Irish people died from hunger 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:52.119 and disease, and one point twenty five million emigrated. 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:54.119 Which is like a together, that's like a quarter of 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:54.879 their population. 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:59.240 Yes, yeah, it's a huge number. And many of these emigrees, 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:01.600 of course came to the United States, where they became 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.560 the settlers and colonizers, and according to Earle, the Italian 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.560 economist Francesco Nitty believed that a shift from potatoes to 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.440 meet likewise explained why the Irish workers, who in their 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:16.440 homeland were idle, week and whimsical, were transformed into energetic 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.120 and productive workers on emigration to the United States, which 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:24.879 leads into my terrible, terrible joke, which is does eating 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.359 meat turn people into cops? Oh? 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:33.480 Sh I mean, it's one of the sadder things in 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:38.280 history is watching the political shift from the Irish person 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.359 in Ireland to the second generation Irish diaspora in the 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:44.840 United States in the nineteenth century, because, I mean a 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.520 ton of the Irish nationalists lived in the United States 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:53.160 for a while, but like, yeah, overall, pretty quickly, one 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.800 of the most politically annoying groups in history is the 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:58.120 Irish American So. 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:03.439 Yeah, totally yeah, And I think, I don't know, it 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:05.960 makes me sad. I feel like I have a personal 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.080 relationship to it, and it makes me sad, and that's 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:09.959 all I can really say about it at this moment. 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:15.199 So yeah, So now we're going to leave Ireland and 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:17.600 we're going to jump ahead in time. We're going to 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:20.200 talk about the world wars and the years in between them. 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:22.320 And there were times when potatoes played a role in 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:26.960 both perseverance and revolts. During World War One, Sweden, which 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:31.040 was a neutral country, exported goods, including potatoes and other 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.200 food stuff to Germany, and while this made wealthy traders 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:37.560 and farmers even richer, it led first to food rationing 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:40.679 for working people, and then to these rations being cut 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:44.520 and to widespread food shortages. At the end of April 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.919 nineteen seventeen, riots and protests spread across Sweden, starting in 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:50.879 the small towns, where women rallied to demand more rations 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:53.399 as well as a fair price for potatoes and milk. 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:57.160 In both rural and urban places, these protests often included 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.119 the plundering of provisions. For example, women would force their 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:03.240 way into a grocery store and if they found food hoarded, 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:06.120 they would demand the grocer sell it at the posted prices. 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:11.399 Conscriptive soldiers joined the protests, which really alarmed the authorities, 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:15.159 but their officers did disarm them before they hit the street, 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:18.480 so they weren't quite as that's funny. Their potential for 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:20.640 rebellion wasn't quite as strong as it could have been. 0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:23.160 But it's like the officers didn't stop them from going. 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:24.359 They was like, all right, you can go, but you 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:25.560 gotta leave your rifle at home. 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:29.080 That seems to be, yeah, what the case was. 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:34.400 Which makes some sense honestly, like, yeah, there's many situations 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:38.399 where having a gun around makes everything worse, and riots 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:40.320 are among those situations. 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:43.600 Totally. Yeah, I feel like in a lot of cases 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:47.360 that is absolutely true. And there were these workers committees 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:51.160 that often included a Narcho, synaclists and socialists that formed 0:24:51.200 --> 0:24:54.720 in about forty Swedish cities and towns. In the city 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:58.560 of Ostervik, the Workers Committee released a manifesto that called for, 0:24:59.040 --> 0:25:01.240 in addition to an eight Tom day, the release of 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:04.280 all those arrested during hunger protests, and of course food, 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.840 the distribution of land to grow potatoes. And although it 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:12.520 was eventually quell due to infighting, repression and a decline 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:15.320 and leftist organizing, all the things that we see time 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:19.840 and time again over two hundred and fifty thousand people 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.640 participated in Sweden's Potato Revolution. 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:24.359 And I think one of the things that it's interesting 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:26.280 about that is again, like I know we kind of 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:29.520 mentioned it earlier, but you know this idea that the 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:33.200 right wing worries about like lawless looting, right, and that 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:37.200 happens sometimes and people, you know, and there's times when 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:39.399 crowds like lose their mind and hurt people and all 0:25:39.440 --> 0:25:41.440 of this. But it's like you're bringing up time after 0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:45.280 time where they're like, look, we just want the food 0:25:45.320 --> 0:25:48.560 to be sold at not price gouged prices. You know. 0:25:49.080 --> 0:25:52.480 It's not like, oh, we want everything for free, although 0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:54.280 I mean again I have no problem with everyone getting 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:58.080 everything for free, but like, it's not about entitlement. It's 0:25:58.080 --> 0:26:01.679 just literally about hey, you can't just keep jacking up 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:03.200 the prices while we're all starving. 0:26:03.640 --> 0:26:05.120 Totally, it's about survival. 0:26:05.640 --> 0:26:05.920 Yeah. 0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:10.480 Yeah. That same year, in early July, there were also 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:14.119 potato rides in Amsterdam, and I had trouble finding too 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:16.399 much information about them in English, but this is what 0:26:16.560 --> 0:26:19.399 he did find. When hungry women and children tried to 0:26:19.440 --> 0:26:22.080 ride a potato ship, they were assured a new shipment 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:24.960 of potatoes for sale was coming in soon, but the 0:26:24.960 --> 0:26:28.280 potatoes in that shipment were priced too high, and on 0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:32.800 July second, crowd started plundering shops and warehouses. On July four, 0:26:33.359 --> 0:26:37.160 three hundred women armed with bayonets, revolvers, and stones tried 0:26:37.160 --> 0:26:40.840 to expropriate a stored potatoes that were being guarded by troops, 0:26:41.080 --> 0:26:43.520 and on July five, a clash with the army resulted 0:26:43.520 --> 0:26:46.040 in nine people kills and one hundred and fourteen injured. 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:48.959 I feel like since we currently live in a country 0:26:48.960 --> 0:26:52.040 where the price of basic goods not only went up 0:26:52.080 --> 0:26:53.760 a lot in the past few years, but ye, if 0:26:53.840 --> 0:26:55.560 Trump gets its way his way, then they are going 0:26:55.640 --> 0:26:58.880 to go up way more real soon, totally with tariffs, 0:26:58.880 --> 0:27:01.880 you know, I feel like this is relatable content. 0:27:02.520 --> 0:27:03.280 Oh for sure. 0:27:03.520 --> 0:27:07.480 Yeah, keep the food prices reasonable or otherwise people will 0:27:07.800 --> 0:27:08.719 find bayonets. 0:27:09.440 --> 0:27:12.480 Yes, although it might be hard to like literally find 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:16.080 a bayonet in this day and age, but you know equivalence. 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:19.159 Well, I mean, you know there's bayonets up through the 0:27:19.520 --> 0:27:23.280 world Wars and yeah, totally, my dad has a bayonet, 0:27:23.400 --> 0:27:25.200 you know, So if. 0:27:25.119 --> 0:27:30.560 Anyone needs to expropriate potatoes, Margaret's dad has a bayonet. Yeah, yeah, totally. 0:27:32.520 --> 0:27:35.680 During World War Two, potatoes help people across Europe survive. 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:39.080 They were the single most important food in aiding survival 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:41.800 during the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted for almost two 0:27:41.800 --> 0:27:44.880 and a half years and killed over eight hundred thousand 0:27:44.920 --> 0:27:45.919 Soviet civilians. 0:27:46.040 --> 0:27:46.560 Thank god. 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:50.919 Yeah, really really really sad in a move that I mean, 0:27:51.040 --> 0:27:53.520 so much of this is all just actually so sad. 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:56.720 In a move that harkens back to James Scott, at 0:27:56.800 --> 0:27:59.800 least one poor family outside Rome replanted their entire garden 0:27:59.840 --> 0:28:02.240 with potatoes is a way to prevent the German military 0:28:02.240 --> 0:28:05.760 from taking their crops. Back to that underground food thing. 0:28:06.520 --> 0:28:09.440 And also Jewish children living in the Warsaw Ghetto would 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:12.760 sneak past the guards on a daily basis, an incredibly 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:15.000 brave and dangerous endeavor to find food outside of the 0:28:15.000 --> 0:28:17.800 ghetto's walls. In addition to begging, this included digging up 0:28:17.800 --> 0:28:19.879 potatoes that grew on the outskirts of the city. 0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:20.960 Wow. 0:28:22.119 --> 0:28:26.120 So earlier we talked about state evating potatoes in early 0:28:26.119 --> 0:28:29.320 modern Europe, and interestingly, potatoes played a similar role in 0:28:29.400 --> 0:28:33.560 China many centuries later. Potatoes likely arrived in China in 0:28:33.600 --> 0:28:36.960 the seventeenth century and were first grown by peasants eking 0:28:37.000 --> 0:28:39.360 out a living on marginal mountainous land in the north 0:28:39.400 --> 0:28:42.160 of the country, like in so many other places, a 0:28:42.200 --> 0:28:45.040 way to survive, you know, kind of on the fringes. 0:28:45.920 --> 0:28:48.680 And that Chang dynasty, which ruled China at the time, 0:28:48.760 --> 0:28:51.400 was interested in preventing famine, but thought the path to 0:28:51.480 --> 0:28:54.640 doing so is through growing rice and other grains, not potatoes. 0:28:55.560 --> 0:28:58.560 Three centuries later, under Mao, potatoes became a method of 0:28:58.600 --> 0:29:01.840 survival and communities where they were grown. During the Great 0:29:01.920 --> 0:29:05.120 Leap Forward of nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty two, 0:29:05.960 --> 0:29:09.840 the state appropriated grains, but they didn't appropriate potatoes well. 0:29:09.880 --> 0:29:13.400 The famine that resulted is considered by submetrics to be 0:29:13.440 --> 0:29:17.360 the largest famine of all time. Entire villages survived on potatoes, 0:29:18.240 --> 0:29:21.040 and there was also another state evating element at play 0:29:21.040 --> 0:29:23.719 in MAOIs China, in which there was a certain quota 0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:27.080 of wheat that farmers were required to grow, and instead 0:29:27.080 --> 0:29:29.400 of switching to wheat, farmers would convert the number of 0:29:29.440 --> 0:29:31.720 potatoes they grew into what they believed would be an 0:29:31.760 --> 0:29:34.560 equivalent amount of wheat and report that to the authorities. 0:29:34.640 --> 0:29:39.720 Instead Okay, So there's this interesting history of potato growing 0:29:39.760 --> 0:29:42.680 areas continuing to grow potatoes and just saying they were 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:43.360 growing wheat. 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:45.640 Yeah. Yeah, no, they're like, no, we were quite happy 0:29:45.680 --> 0:29:47.720 with this thing that it's harder for you to tax 0:29:47.760 --> 0:29:50.280 and this, yeah, takes less work and feeds us better. 0:29:50.400 --> 0:29:54.960 Yeah, totally. So I want to end by talking about 0:29:54.960 --> 0:29:57.840 the South Africa potato boycott of nineteen fifty nine. 0:29:58.080 --> 0:30:01.400 Well, before we talk about that, boy, what you shouldn't 0:30:01.400 --> 0:30:05.920 boycott is these goods and services unless they're for bad things, 0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:08.080 in which case you should boycott them. We have no 0:30:08.160 --> 0:30:11.680 legions to advertisers. Ye. Yeah, we just have to do 0:30:11.720 --> 0:30:23.560 it in order to eat potatoes. You're the ads and 0:30:23.640 --> 0:30:25.720 we're back. Yeah. 0:30:25.800 --> 0:30:28.040 So, as I mentioned, I want to end by talking 0:30:28.040 --> 0:30:30.640 about the South Africa potato boycott, which happened in nineteen 0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:32.680 fifty nine. And I do want to say that in 0:30:32.720 --> 0:30:36.200 an episode about sad, hard things, this felt like one 0:30:36.240 --> 0:30:38.440 of the absolute hardest to research, and I want to 0:30:38.480 --> 0:30:41.480 give listeners a heads up about the intensity of violence involved. 0:30:42.040 --> 0:30:44.680 But it also feels like a really important sort of 0:30:45.240 --> 0:30:47.640 historical episode to talk about it. We're talking about potatoes 0:30:47.680 --> 0:30:51.120 from a people's history perspective. So before I go into 0:30:51.120 --> 0:30:54.680 the boycott itself, it feels important to discuss the historical 0:30:54.720 --> 0:30:57.200 circumstances that gave brise to this. And to do this 0:30:57.280 --> 0:31:00.560 it depended pretty heavily on a book called These Potatoes 0:31:00.600 --> 0:31:03.080 Look Like Humans. The Contested Future of Land, Home and 0:31:03.120 --> 0:31:07.560 Death in South Africa by Umbuso Wacosi, which I definitely 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:10.040 recommend folks check out to learn more about the political 0:31:10.040 --> 0:31:14.040 and spiritual components of black farm workers struggles from early 0:31:14.040 --> 0:31:17.040 colonial South Africa to the present day. And I've also 0:31:17.120 --> 0:31:19.160 used several other sources, but I want to be sure 0:31:19.200 --> 0:31:22.440 to mention this book by name. Okay, So, the Potato 0:31:22.480 --> 0:31:25.600 boycott was a response to the South African apartheid state, 0:31:26.160 --> 0:31:29.320 in which segregation as well as political and economic discrimination 0:31:29.440 --> 0:31:32.120 were codified into law to uphold the power of the 0:31:32.120 --> 0:31:36.640 country's minority white population. While only given the name apartheid 0:31:37.000 --> 0:31:39.240 after is that if super racist laws were passed in 0:31:39.320 --> 0:31:43.160 nineteen forty eight. Segregation and white supremacy had long been 0:31:43.200 --> 0:31:45.240 part and parcel of life and the legal system in 0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:49.000 South Africa since it's settlement by Dutch and English colonists 0:31:49.040 --> 0:31:52.520 starting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the history 0:31:52.520 --> 0:31:54.760 of South Africa apartheid and the whole scope of this 0:31:54.880 --> 0:31:57.320 decade's long anti apartheid movement are more than I can 0:31:57.360 --> 0:31:59.160 talk about in this episode, but I'll sort of be 0:31:59.240 --> 0:32:03.000 touching on these topics here and there while discussing the boycott. So, 0:32:03.080 --> 0:32:06.520 the boycott centered on a town called Bethel, which is 0:32:06.520 --> 0:32:08.600 in a region that was then called the East trans 0:32:08.720 --> 0:32:13.120 Fall and that's now part of Malonga, where large white 0:32:13.120 --> 0:32:16.520 owned potato farms employed a black workforce comprised of locals 0:32:16.560 --> 0:32:19.680 who had been dispossessed by colonialism and white land ownership, 0:32:20.120 --> 0:32:24.160 contract workers from elsewhere in South Africa and neighboring countries, 0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:28.200 and prisoners. Throughout the forties and fifties, these farms gained 0:32:28.200 --> 0:32:31.680 a reputation for brutality, which included owners for men and 0:32:31.800 --> 0:32:34.920 boss boys, which were kind of like local workers who 0:32:34.920 --> 0:32:38.960 were employed in intermediary physician murdering and beating to death 0:32:39.000 --> 0:32:41.640 workers and burying their bodies in the fields. 0:32:42.080 --> 0:32:43.160 Jesus. Yeah. 0:32:44.000 --> 0:32:47.440 While abuse and brutality weren't unique to Bethel, the town's 0:32:47.440 --> 0:32:51.320 potato farms were considered so violent that recruiters looking for 0:32:51.360 --> 0:32:55.000 workers along the border with Rhodesia, a former colonial state 0:32:55.040 --> 0:32:59.640 that bordered South Africa, regularly changed their vehicle registration plates 0:33:00.040 --> 0:33:01.760 so that workers didn't know that they'd be going to 0:33:01.800 --> 0:33:02.120 the East. 0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:04.160 Trons Fall Jesus. 0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:06.760 In the early fifties, three laborers found out that they 0:33:06.760 --> 0:33:09.440 were being taken to Bethel instead of the place they 0:33:09.440 --> 0:33:11.400 thought they were going, and they jumped off the train 0:33:11.480 --> 0:33:13.680 they were on, and at least one of them died 0:33:13.720 --> 0:33:18.240 in the act. Throughout the forties and fifties, exposes were 0:33:18.280 --> 0:33:21.960 published that revealed conditions on Bethel potato farms. In nineteen 0:33:22.000 --> 0:33:25.720 forty seven, Anglican priest and anti apartheid activist Michael Scott 0:33:26.120 --> 0:33:29.800 and journalists Ruth First, working as a photographer, collaborated on 0:33:29.880 --> 0:33:34.080 an expose about the Bethel farms with help from investigative 0:33:34.160 --> 0:33:38.920 journalist Henry Nukmalo. They were horrified to find child laborers 0:33:38.960 --> 0:33:43.160 working in the fields alongside contract workers from Nyassaland, which 0:33:43.200 --> 0:33:47.120 is now Malawi. These workers had signed contracts that promised 0:33:47.160 --> 0:33:51.080 poor pay and few protections, either because they were illiterate 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:54.280 and were told deceitful information about what the contracts contained, 0:33:54.680 --> 0:33:56.640 or because they were so desperate for work that they 0:33:56.720 --> 0:33:59.080 knew they were terrible deals, but they signed them anyway. 0:34:00.200 --> 0:34:03.440 Happens all over the world now, Yeah. 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:06.000 And other workers included prisoners who were sent to the 0:34:06.000 --> 0:34:09.520 farms for the duration of their sentences. On some farms, 0:34:09.560 --> 0:34:12.600 these prisoners had their clothes confiscated and were forced to 0:34:12.600 --> 0:34:16.040 wear potato sacks, a measure that the landowners believed would 0:34:16.040 --> 0:34:17.480 prevent them from running away. 0:34:18.239 --> 0:34:18.439 Fuck. 0:34:19.480 --> 0:34:22.720 In nineteen fifty two, Nukmalo built on first in Scott's 0:34:22.760 --> 0:34:27.320 work by publishing another expose and Drum magazine. Unlike Scott 0:34:27.320 --> 0:34:30.800 and First, who were white, Nucmalo was a Black African, 0:34:30.920 --> 0:34:34.000 which allowed him to go undercover for the assignment. Additionally, 0:34:34.080 --> 0:34:36.759 laborers spoke to Nucmala more freely than they had to 0:34:36.800 --> 0:34:40.160 Scott and articulated their fears of speaking up against the 0:34:40.160 --> 0:34:44.000 farmers into the police. And This expose includes quotes from 0:34:44.040 --> 0:34:47.759 Bethel based organizer and African National Congress member Gert Sabandi, 0:34:48.200 --> 0:34:50.239 who may have also helped First in Scott and their 0:34:50.280 --> 0:34:52.920 reporting and is often considered to have played an organizing 0:34:53.040 --> 0:34:56.000 role in the boycott, although the scope of his contributions 0:34:56.080 --> 0:34:59.960 stopped fully known. Nonetheless, to Bendi's work exposing the case, 0:35:00.000 --> 0:35:03.719 conditions of farms and Bethel and organizing labors there played 0:35:03.760 --> 0:35:06.440 an important role in laying the groundwork for the boycott. 0:35:07.760 --> 0:35:10.439 So while prison labor had long been used on South 0:35:10.480 --> 0:35:13.799 African farms, including in Bethel, in nineteen fifty three the 0:35:13.880 --> 0:35:17.880 petty offender scheme landed on the books. As part of 0:35:17.920 --> 0:35:20.880 this scheme, black South Africans who are found guilty of 0:35:20.960 --> 0:35:24.479 petty apartheid crimes either had to serve a three month 0:35:24.600 --> 0:35:27.279 jail sentence or spend that time working on a farm 0:35:27.320 --> 0:35:30.560 for a pittance, a scheme device to ameliorate both overcrowding 0:35:30.560 --> 0:35:32.800 in jails and labor shortages on farms. 0:35:33.320 --> 0:35:35.840 When you say like apartheid crimes, is this like I 0:35:35.840 --> 0:35:38.680 don't understand enough about a parteid South Africa's It's like, oh, 0:35:38.719 --> 0:35:40.080 you were in the wrong part of town where black 0:35:40.120 --> 0:35:41.200 people aren't allowed or something. 0:35:42.040 --> 0:35:45.600 Essentially, yes, yeah, okay. Petty apartheid crimes were any of 0:35:45.719 --> 0:35:48.440 any crime that transgressed the laws that kept South Africans 0:35:48.440 --> 0:35:51.600 of different racial groups apart. But one of those is 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:54.920 breaking the past laws which required non white South Africans 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:57.400 to carry documents that authorize them to travel through a 0:35:57.480 --> 0:36:00.600 work in white classified areas, and these his laws actually 0:36:00.680 --> 0:36:04.200 had a particular impact on black South Africans, and when 0:36:04.239 --> 0:36:08.239 the nineteen fifty two Natives Act instituted reference books in 0:36:08.280 --> 0:36:11.040 the place of passes, every black man sixteen years of 0:36:11.120 --> 0:36:13.200 age or older was required to have his on him 0:36:13.239 --> 0:36:14.080 at all times. 0:36:14.600 --> 0:36:16.160 Jesus uh huh, So you. 0:36:16.120 --> 0:36:18.920 Could, yeah, you could end up sent to one of 0:36:18.960 --> 0:36:22.040 these farms because you didn't have the proper documentation on you. 0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:25.759 And although theoretically offenders were given the choice to work 0:36:25.760 --> 0:36:28.920 on farms versus serving their sentences in jails, in reality 0:36:28.960 --> 0:36:32.480 they were often coerced. He j the Bear, the public 0:36:32.520 --> 0:36:35.040 prosecutor who put this scheme into motion, was known to have, 0:36:35.160 --> 0:36:38.759 at least in certain instances, sent to restues straight to 0:36:38.800 --> 0:36:42.799 the farm without them appearing in court first. And he 0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:45.920 also told arrestees that if they didn't accept work on farms, 0:36:45.960 --> 0:36:49.760 they'd be punished by their ancestors, which is a threat 0:36:49.800 --> 0:36:52.880 that Ukosi describes as eschatological terror. 0:36:53.719 --> 0:36:56.960 WHOA, that's yeah, I mean, it's funny because it's like 0:36:57.800 --> 0:36:59.120 this is the way that people are going to talk 0:36:59.120 --> 0:37:02.640 about the United States. It's hopefully soon. You know, the 0:37:03.600 --> 0:37:06.560 prison labor systems that exist within the United States of 0:37:07.440 --> 0:37:09.920 like you're more or less coerced into these jobs that 0:37:09.960 --> 0:37:12.520 pay basically nothing and all of these things. 0:37:13.080 --> 0:37:15.120 Yeah, and there was a whole there's a whole sort 0:37:15.120 --> 0:37:18.919 of thread to this story that in this book These 0:37:18.920 --> 0:37:22.120 Potatoes Look like Humans really goes into thinking about like 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:25.239 the spiritual violence. And I don't get too much into 0:37:25.280 --> 0:37:29.120 that in this section, but if you are interested in that, 0:37:29.160 --> 0:37:31.640 there's like a lot more within the book talking about 0:37:31.680 --> 0:37:36.080 like sort of the yeah, eschatological terror that was wielded 0:37:36.080 --> 0:37:41.400 against people. So the potato boycott itself was catalyzed by 0:37:41.400 --> 0:37:45.000 a few different factors. So by nineteen fifty nine, almost 0:37:45.040 --> 0:37:48.239 all other forms of political action had been outlawed by 0:37:48.239 --> 0:37:51.920 the government, so boycotts were among the only options that 0:37:51.960 --> 0:37:55.000 anti apartheid activists had, huh. 0:37:55.040 --> 0:37:57.800 And so that probably ties into the broader like because 0:37:57.800 --> 0:38:00.160 one of the main things that thought apartheid global he 0:38:00.200 --> 0:38:06.760 was you know, sanctions or boycott's yes, boycott, devestment, sanction. 0:38:07.719 --> 0:38:08.360 That's interesting. 0:38:09.280 --> 0:38:12.240 Yeah, and it really was spurred by this this moment 0:38:12.280 --> 0:38:16.120 where like everything else had basically been outlining criminalized. Yeah, 0:38:16.719 --> 0:38:20.239 and yeah, the exposs that had covered Bethel had put 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:23.359 a spotlight on the plight of farm laborers there when 0:38:23.440 --> 0:38:26.839 Cosey argues that the death of Cornelius Mogoko, a twenty 0:38:26.880 --> 0:38:29.759 four year old farm laborer who died on the Lake 0:38:29.840 --> 0:38:33.080 Dar farm on March five, nineteen fifty nine, also played 0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:37.000 a particularly decisive role. He was seen as a slow worker, 0:38:37.080 --> 0:38:40.200 which was unacceptable on the potato farms, and because of this, 0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:43.600 Mokogo was beaten dehydrated and he was made to keep 0:38:43.600 --> 0:38:46.280 working in the full sun until he collapsed and died. 0:38:47.560 --> 0:38:50.560 The boycott was initially called for by activists Robert Reisha 0:38:50.600 --> 0:38:54.279 at the African National Congress's annual Anti pass conference, which 0:38:54.280 --> 0:38:56.920 took place at the end of May nineteen fifty nine. 0:38:57.400 --> 0:39:01.239 And the ANC is actually now the governing party of Africa, Yeah, 0:39:01.320 --> 0:39:03.279 but at the time it was an opposition party that 0:39:03.400 --> 0:39:07.799 was extremely instrumental in the fight against apartheid. So the 0:39:07.800 --> 0:39:09.880 call goes out at the end of May and the 0:39:09.880 --> 0:39:14.080 boycott begins on June twenty six, and according to historian 0:39:14.120 --> 0:39:17.800 Cornelis Muller, it took some time to gain steam. Things 0:39:17.800 --> 0:39:21.560 picked up after several protest marches in which activists made 0:39:21.600 --> 0:39:25.479 their way to Johannesburg markets dressed in potato sacks and 0:39:25.680 --> 0:39:29.920 potato necklaces bearing banners with slogans like potatoes are produced 0:39:29.920 --> 0:39:34.000 as slave labor and donate potatoes don't buy chips, meaning 0:39:34.040 --> 0:39:36.000 of course chips in the British English. 0:39:35.760 --> 0:39:37.360 Sense of funch fries. 0:39:37.480 --> 0:39:40.480 I guess they're both actually made of potatoes. But yeah, 0:39:40.520 --> 0:39:44.040 it doesn't actually matter, but it totally yeah. And it 0:39:44.160 --> 0:39:47.360 was also effective because there was this belief that potatoes 0:39:47.400 --> 0:39:49.520 were taking on the shape of the humans that had 0:39:49.520 --> 0:39:51.000 been buried in the fields. 0:39:51.480 --> 0:39:53.439 Oh shit, so this is where the book gets its name. 0:39:53.840 --> 0:39:57.080 Yes, yeah, And for some this was a metaphor, while 0:39:57.120 --> 0:40:00.840 for others it was, according to Whenkosi, seen as the 0:40:00.840 --> 0:40:04.120 spiritual return of a dead worker, embodying that which was 0:40:04.160 --> 0:40:07.480 buried in the land. And according to trade unionist and 0:40:07.520 --> 0:40:11.320 ANTSI organizer Francis Bard, we used to contemn a potato 0:40:11.360 --> 0:40:12.719 when we see one that had a hole or of 0:40:12.719 --> 0:40:14.680 black mark. We used to tell the people in the 0:40:14.680 --> 0:40:17.680 public meetings, you see this mark here, it's where your 0:40:17.760 --> 0:40:20.160 child's blood went in. You see this mark here, it's 0:40:20.200 --> 0:40:22.960 the blood of our children. That's why the potato is 0:40:23.000 --> 0:40:26.919 So the people started hating potatoes like anything, and even 0:40:26.920 --> 0:40:28.680 the whites when they heard that we are boycotting the 0:40:28.719 --> 0:40:30.960 potatoes and that we say that these potatoes are full 0:40:31.040 --> 0:40:33.920 of the blood of the African people, then they also 0:40:34.080 --> 0:40:38.160 began boycotting them. That boycott was very affective, you know, 0:40:38.400 --> 0:40:41.560 the farmers couldn't sell their potatoes anywhere, and that the 0:40:41.600 --> 0:40:44.160 market the workers wouldn't even carry the potatoes. 0:40:45.040 --> 0:40:47.200 Were the white people boycotting because they were like, oh, 0:40:47.200 --> 0:40:48.920 this is a simple thing we can do against apartheid, 0:40:49.000 --> 0:40:50.279 or are they like I just don't want to eat 0:40:50.360 --> 0:40:52.360 African blood in my food. 0:40:52.800 --> 0:40:55.399 I think it was the latter, is how I'm reading this. 0:40:55.480 --> 0:40:56.359 There, No, that makes sense. 0:40:56.480 --> 0:40:59.319 Yeah, there certainly were white anti apartheid activists, but I 0:40:59.320 --> 0:41:02.960 don't think they were the majority by an So yeah totally. 0:41:03.760 --> 0:41:06.759 And bard Ward about the economic success of the boycotts 0:41:06.800 --> 0:41:08.880 and the fact that it was called off in August 0:41:08.960 --> 0:41:12.719 nineteen fifty nine because the farmers gave up this business 0:41:12.719 --> 0:41:15.560 of making the boys work on the farms, The economic 0:41:15.600 --> 0:41:18.240 impacts of the boycott are debated. It seems like different 0:41:18.239 --> 0:41:21.480 newspapers with different political viewpoints are reporting different things. Though 0:41:21.520 --> 0:41:24.520 I strongly sort of air on believing the anti apartheid 0:41:24.560 --> 0:41:25.520 and farm labor. 0:41:25.360 --> 0:41:28.280 Activists who said it worked, who. 0:41:28.080 --> 0:41:30.480 Said that it worked. Yeah, you just see this kind 0:41:30.480 --> 0:41:34.240 of like sort of semantic war in the press about 0:41:34.320 --> 0:41:38.640 you know, how effective the boycott is. And even before 0:41:38.680 --> 0:41:42.200 the boycott began, farmers had started sending farm workers back 0:41:42.239 --> 0:41:45.600 to the labor bureaus driven by the negative media attention, 0:41:46.280 --> 0:41:48.719 and the South African government decided to end the petty 0:41:48.719 --> 0:41:52.520 offender scheme on June sixteenth, nineteen fifty nine, shortly before 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:55.319 the boycott began, in the wake of mounting pressure and 0:41:55.360 --> 0:41:59.040 ongoing media attention, and a memo was issued that August 0:41:59.040 --> 0:42:01.600 requiring farmers to real workers covered by the scheme. 0:42:02.360 --> 0:42:02.640 Cool. 0:42:03.440 --> 0:42:05.400 Yeah, And one thing I found interesting was that the 0:42:05.400 --> 0:42:08.160 boycott also had an impact on the stabilization scheme of 0:42:08.200 --> 0:42:11.399 the South Africa Potato Board. In this scheme, the board 0:42:11.400 --> 0:42:13.600 would get rid of third rate potatoes by selling them 0:42:13.680 --> 0:42:17.760 for cheaper and black communities. And because of the boycott, 0:42:17.800 --> 0:42:20.640 these potatoes were piling up in markets, and one article 0:42:20.680 --> 0:42:23.600 published in the wake of the boycott mentioned that the 0:42:23.600 --> 0:42:26.640 Potato Board had started encouraging farmers to buy these potatoes 0:42:26.680 --> 0:42:30.000 as feed. The research I found felt a little bit unclear, 0:42:30.080 --> 0:42:32.840 but it was suggested that the Potato Board also stopped 0:42:32.840 --> 0:42:36.280 selling these scratching potatoes on the market for human consumption 0:42:36.400 --> 0:42:39.360 in general, So that might have been another impact of 0:42:39.400 --> 0:42:42.680 the boycott, But for sure, the biggest impact of the 0:42:42.719 --> 0:42:45.560 boycott was the role that it played in catalyzing international 0:42:45.560 --> 0:42:48.880 support for the anti apartheid movement. So a British boycott 0:42:48.920 --> 0:42:51.040 of South African goods kicked off in the same day 0:42:51.160 --> 0:42:54.520 June twenty sixth, nineteen fifty nine. It became a large 0:42:54.520 --> 0:42:56.960 scale mobilizing force for the next eight months, and it 0:42:57.040 --> 0:43:00.719 laid the groundwork for future British anti apartheid actions, and 0:43:00.760 --> 0:43:04.439 you see international solidarity, boycotts and sanctions that would grow 0:43:04.480 --> 0:43:06.480 over the coming years to become a major part of 0:43:06.480 --> 0:43:10.320 the anti apartheid movement. Apartheid only ended in a formal 0:43:10.320 --> 0:43:14.000 political sense in the nineteen nineties, although of course the political, social, 0:43:14.080 --> 0:43:17.279 and other effects of racism and white supremacy linger on 0:43:17.320 --> 0:43:20.719 in South Africa. As of twenty nineteen, whites, who make 0:43:20.800 --> 0:43:24.200 up less than ten percent of the country's population, still 0:43:24.239 --> 0:43:28.080 own seventy two percent of individually owned land in South Africa. 0:43:28.160 --> 0:43:31.600 Yeah, I was expecting you to say, like fifty percent. 0:43:31.719 --> 0:43:35.719 I don't know you know, yeah, and the struggle, you know, 0:43:35.760 --> 0:43:38.960 the struggle for liberation continues as well, and there's been 0:43:39.120 --> 0:43:42.359 I think a lot of tensions recently actually between like 0:43:42.840 --> 0:43:46.560 white landowners and like wealthy farmers and labors in the area. 0:43:47.480 --> 0:43:51.319 But yeah, so that's the South Africa potato boycott, and 0:43:51.960 --> 0:43:54.560 that's sort of where we're ending for today. So we've 0:43:54.600 --> 0:43:58.320 talked about potatoes over a span of thousands of years 0:43:58.360 --> 0:44:01.279 and in more than a dozen cultures and resisted spoovements, 0:44:01.360 --> 0:44:03.759 and I'm wondering at the end of all this, what 0:44:03.840 --> 0:44:04.840 you think about the potato. 0:44:05.880 --> 0:44:08.120 I still like the potato, although right now I'm like 0:44:08.200 --> 0:44:10.160 so sick that I'm like, food is I know, I 0:44:10.239 --> 0:44:11.960 just ate some, but that's because I need to in 0:44:12.040 --> 0:44:12.720 order to survive. 0:44:12.840 --> 0:44:13.240 Totally. 0:44:13.320 --> 0:44:15.800 Like right now I'm like, oh, I ate food, and 0:44:15.880 --> 0:44:18.160 I feel terrible, even though it's not the potato's fault. 0:44:18.200 --> 0:44:24.080 It's the cold virus's fault. But it's so fascinating, like 0:44:24.120 --> 0:44:25.440 I was saying at the end of the first episode, 0:44:25.480 --> 0:44:27.800 like the fact that it's like all of these different things, 0:44:28.200 --> 0:44:31.000 you know, the potato is being used for all of 0:44:31.040 --> 0:44:33.080 these different things. And then even like this last one 0:44:33.080 --> 0:44:36.359 with the you know, the potato boycott. It's like, well, 0:44:36.360 --> 0:44:38.279 that's not the potato's fault. And everyone knows that it's 0:44:38.320 --> 0:44:41.040 not the potato's fault. Do you It's okay if you don't, 0:44:41.040 --> 0:44:43.960 But like, do you know how that affected like potato 0:44:44.080 --> 0:44:47.440 consumption and potato culture in South Africa after the boycott? 0:44:47.880 --> 0:44:51.120 I don't. Okay, yeah, unfortunately not. 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:54.719 But it's just no, it's just interesting to me how 0:44:54.800 --> 0:44:59.319 all over the world this uh is very effective food. 0:45:00.080 --> 0:45:02.319 You know. Yeah. 0:45:02.400 --> 0:45:05.879 Yeah, It's just I don't know. That's all I got. 0:45:05.920 --> 0:45:07.319 That's all I got. I guess a lot of stuff 0:45:07.320 --> 0:45:09.480 I'm gonna be thinking about for a while. As potatoes. 0:45:09.480 --> 0:45:11.120 Maybe I'm gonna bring it back as a sponsor of 0:45:11.160 --> 0:45:12.759 the show. You know. I think part of the reason 0:45:12.800 --> 0:45:15.480 I kind of dropped that bit talking about this show 0:45:15.520 --> 0:45:17.759 is brought to you by Potatoes is because I was like, 0:45:18.200 --> 0:45:20.080 is it just a tool of colonization? And now I 0:45:20.120 --> 0:45:23.279 know the answers is no, you know, yeah, and it's 0:45:23.760 --> 0:45:28.319 it's a complicated thing and we should embrace all of 0:45:28.320 --> 0:45:33.200 our weird complications, like just like being you know, white 0:45:33.200 --> 0:45:35.880 person in North America is complicated and we need to 0:45:36.080 --> 0:45:38.719 for sure accept that complication rather than like, you know, 0:45:38.960 --> 0:45:41.400 wallowing and guilty not doing anything. You know, we just 0:45:41.400 --> 0:45:45.240 need to like accept that it is complicated and continue 0:45:45.239 --> 0:45:49.160 on with it. And that's how I feel about potatoes. 0:45:49.200 --> 0:45:51.640 It's the same as white people. No, this metaphor didn't 0:45:51.680 --> 0:45:55.160 really work, but I'm going to blame that on how 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:56.360 sick I am. 0:45:56.760 --> 0:45:59.520 Totally. I also asked your ridiculous question, which was to 0:45:59.560 --> 0:46:02.399 have the singular opinion about a really complicated thing. 0:46:02.719 --> 0:46:05.640 So oh no, no, it's all right. Normally that's like 0:46:05.719 --> 0:46:07.000 my job, right, Yeah. 0:46:07.040 --> 0:46:08.680 You know, what do you think about the potato? 0:46:09.040 --> 0:46:12.399 Yeah, potato, Yeah, it's all right, that's how I feel. 0:46:12.480 --> 0:46:15.000 Yeah, it's all kind of I want. Yeah, I want 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:18.400 to live in a world where potatoes are in the 0:46:18.440 --> 0:46:21.960 service of everyday people in resisting states, and you know, 0:46:22.040 --> 0:46:24.280 may that be so as we move forward. 0:46:24.760 --> 0:46:28.560 Totally, I love that they're are the anarchy vegetable that rules. 0:46:29.040 --> 0:46:31.360 Yeah, potatoes canonically anarchist. 0:46:31.840 --> 0:46:36.200 Yeah. Well, if people want to know more about your 0:46:36.280 --> 0:46:38.319 work or want to follow you on the internet or 0:46:38.400 --> 0:46:40.319 read your book, or what do you got for them? 0:46:41.200 --> 0:46:44.000 Yeah? Right now, I'm mostly only on the internet on Instagram, 0:46:44.040 --> 0:46:46.880 just under my name at ren A Rye and I 0:46:47.000 --> 0:46:50.520 edited an anthology called Nourishing Resistance. I also work on 0:46:50.880 --> 0:46:53.640 a project called Living and Fighting out of Tucson. 0:46:54.719 --> 0:46:59.120 Yeah awesome. And if you want to follow me, I'm 0:46:59.160 --> 0:47:02.440 trying to not be on Twitter anymore, and so you 0:47:02.440 --> 0:47:05.320 can yell at me if you see me there. Maybe 0:47:05.440 --> 0:47:08.319 I don't know. Probably I am on Blue Sky. I 0:47:08.360 --> 0:47:09.800 got on it early enough that my name is just 0:47:09.880 --> 0:47:13.560 Margaret on Blue Sky. I'm very proud of that. I 0:47:13.560 --> 0:47:16.719 don't know why I am because I'm sick and my 0:47:16.760 --> 0:47:19.719 brain doesn't work, that's why. But you can follow me there. 0:47:19.719 --> 0:47:22.040 You can follow me on Instagram at Margaret Kiljoy. You 0:47:22.040 --> 0:47:25.920 can follow me on substack at Marter Kiljoy. And you 0:47:25.960 --> 0:47:31.040 can organize with your friends to build networks of mutual 0:47:31.080 --> 0:47:34.640 aid and solidarity, because that's all what good things are 0:47:34.640 --> 0:47:38.279 built on. Yeah, and you can take care of each 0:47:38.280 --> 0:47:41.800 other during bad times totally. 0:47:42.040 --> 0:47:46.080 And I'll also say throughout this whole working on this episode, 0:47:46.120 --> 0:47:48.200 I've been thinking a lot about the people of Gaza 0:47:48.239 --> 0:47:52.439 who are facing huge like starvation in a huge way 0:47:52.480 --> 0:47:55.600 and lack of food access in a huge way. And 0:47:56.160 --> 0:47:58.959 I've given some money to this project called the Santabel Team, 0:47:59.040 --> 0:48:02.000 which does like food distribution in Gaza, so I kind 0:48:02.000 --> 0:48:04.040 of wanted to shout them out too, or like supporting 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:06.359 in any way the folks over there, you know, as 0:48:06.360 --> 0:48:09.000 we're talking about famine, and that's not the only place, 0:48:09.080 --> 0:48:12.040 right there are famines happening all over the world. Ye, 0:48:12.200 --> 0:48:15.279 but yeah, I have been thinking a lot about that 0:48:16.040 --> 0:48:18.440 while I've been writing and working through this, and I 0:48:18.640 --> 0:48:19.600 just wanted to mention. 0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:23.520 It isn't there Some fiction book I just read has 0:48:23.640 --> 0:48:27.040 people of different religious faiths making the statement to save 0:48:27.080 --> 0:48:30.040 one person is to save all of humanity, and I 0:48:30.040 --> 0:48:35.880 don't know which religion said it first. That concept, I 0:48:35.920 --> 0:48:39.200 think is a good example of that. It's like, oh, 0:48:39.320 --> 0:48:42.239 you can't save everyone, so you shouldn't save anyone. That 0:48:42.360 --> 0:48:46.160 is the least sensical thing anyone has ever said. Totally, 0:48:46.600 --> 0:48:49.399 there's a lot of us. If everyone saves someone, then 0:48:49.440 --> 0:48:53.920 we've saved twice as many people as there are, you know, Yeah, 0:48:54.480 --> 0:48:58.120 just find a way to help and start helping. What 0:48:58.200 --> 0:48:59.480 is the name of the place that you just said that? 0:48:59.560 --> 0:49:03.440 What the Suna Belt Team. It's s A N A 0:49:03.600 --> 0:49:06.040 B E L. And you can find them on Instagram 0:49:06.040 --> 0:49:08.280 and I think they also have a website awesome. 0:49:08.600 --> 0:49:10.960 So yeah, all right, and yeah and if you want, 0:49:11.320 --> 0:49:14.560 there's going to be show notes in with sources in 0:49:14.600 --> 0:49:18.759 the show notes. That's this is why Ren had to 0:49:18.760 --> 0:49:24.279 be the host today, is that my brain is totally Yeah. 0:49:24.320 --> 0:49:25.520 But you're a great guest. 0:49:25.880 --> 0:49:29.320 Thank you. I thanks. I watch a lot of guests 0:49:29.360 --> 0:49:33.279 on this show. So yeah, and we'll be back when 0:49:33.480 --> 0:49:42.200 my brain works soon. Take care of each other. Bye. 0:49:43.840 --> 0:49:46.320 Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of 0:49:46.360 --> 0:49:49.480 cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, 0:49:49.640 --> 0:49:52.879 visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out 0:49:53.000 --> 0:49:56.359 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get 0:49:56.400 --> 0:49:57.560 your podcasts.