Petition for non-Irish people never to use term: Potato Famine
Petition for non-Irish people never to use term: Potato Famine
Why this petition matters
To the United Nations
We the undersigned, citizens of the world, earnestly beseech your honorable body to adopt measures for so amending the UN Charter on Human Rights as to discourage, disenfranchise or prohibit the use of the term "Potato Famine" or "Famine" to describe the events that took place in Ireland from the years 1845-1852.
If it cannot, or will not use the term "Genocide" to describe it, we encourage the United Nations to adopt the terms "An Gorta Mór" or "Great Hunger."
The use of the term "potato famine" or "famine" is the language of the perpetrators of a brutal, colonial force that exported grain, wheat and cattle from Ireland, which lead to over a million deaths from starvation, and over a million more to emigrate. The blight on a single crop, the potato, could not be responsible for such devastation.
The Act of Union that came into effect January 1, 1801, joining Ireland to Great Britain, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, put the citizens of Ireland in the trust of Great Britain. Instead of helping the Irish people at their time of greatest need, Great Britain moved them off the land in great numbers to their financial benefit: to allow cattle to graze on the same land.
With grace and humility,
Citizens of the world