Australia’s ‘special’ relationship with America; While Australia has remained mute about President Tumps criminal behaviour, Umair Haque has spoken up for people like me.
An Irish Aussies perspective!
by Gaeilge Hannigan
Ireland’s ‘The Great Hunger,’ or ‘Potato Famine’ as it is more commonly known, began in 1845, when a fungus-like organism called Phytophthora infestation rapidly spread throughout Ireland. The infestation ruined up to one-half of that years potato crop, and about three-quarters of the crop over the following seven years.
For us Irish, the glaring cause of the ‘The Great Hunger’, was not the fungus infestation, but rather England’s long-running political hegemony over an invaded and conquer Ireland.
‘Let them starve’ were the words of William Ewart Gladstone, 22nd Duke of Newcastle and later Prime Minister of England, when told of the potato famine in Ireland. Apparently, my family was of so little ‘value’ that the leader of the then British Empire, could not give them a few potatoes to saves their miserable lives. But then, he would say that! The Duke’s first speech to Parliament was in support slavery. Slavery was part of the family business, so we can understand his position; self interest first!
Sound familiar?
In passing, Australia unbelievably went on to name a now large city after Lord Gladstone. The city of Gladstone is on the east coast of Australia, in the state of Queensland. The name Queensland should give you a clue as to why we did this.
Hiberno-Rome had been in Hibernia-Ireland long before British occupation.
Ireland was one of the few regions of Western Europe, not conquered by Rome. From the first to the fifth century, the relationship between Rome and Ireland was one of mutual respect and cooperation (often characterised as commercial and cultural).
This innocuous description of Rome’s relationship however, does not translate to the relationship that existed over centuries, between the English and its occupation of Ireland. The invading English took ownership of vast agricultural lands, across Ireland. Generally, only the ‘best lands’ were ‘stolen’ from the Irish people and transferred to English gentry. Food grown on these extensive English estates was shipped back to the motherland, rather then supplied to the starving Irish peoples during ‘The Great Hunger’.
The British policy of mass starvation, inflicted on the Ireland people from 1845 to 1850 would be described as genocide, in today’s language. Approximately one million Irish men, women and children starved to death; and over a million Irish, who sort to avoid that grisly fate, emigrated to countries like America and the British colony of Australia.
My great grandfather and great grandmother were some of those immigrants who arrived in the British colony of Australia in 1849, and went on to establish an apple and stone fruit orchards. This highly productive farm has remained in my ‘farmer family’, ever since.
I fondly remember by grandparents kneeling around the kitchen table with their extended family, all reciting their nightly prayers. The ‘prayer’ sessions always ended with the family reciting “before I lay me down to sleep, please God may England sink beneath the sea”.
I’m not really sure if this sentiment was strongly held, but it certainly impacted my father and the rest of his family. Until the day he died, my Irish Australian father continued to make unflattering critique of the English. These utterances are too
rebellious to recite here, perhaps another time.
While this barely disguised ‘hatred’ of the English has mostly faded over time, my family continues to regard ourselves, as ‘Irish really’.
I rarely display such pluralistic ignorance, but I have never forgotten my grandparents life experience of being forced to leave their homeland, a country to which they never returned during their long lives of over ninety years.
The 2011 census listed 2.08 million Australians identifying themselves as having Irish ancestry; ‘Irish Australians’, as we fondly refer to ourselves. This figure of more then two million ancestors of the Irish peoples, represented 30% of Australia’s then population.
So, why don’t Australians, and even more so Irish Australians, speak out about the genocide currently being committed in America, by its President.
Aren’t we witnessing the implementation of the same polices in America, as we saw implemented in Ireland, during ‘The Great Hunger’. Policies that were designed to commit genocide in Ireland are the very same ones President Trump is inflicting on the American people.
The British Empire, the Superpower of its time, through negligence, neglect, and barely disguised indifference, murdered more then one million Irish, by starving them to death. It was genocide in Ireland, and what’s happening in America now, is also genocide. The negligence, neglect and the barely disguised indifference of America’s President, has resulted in over 100,000 COVID-19 related unnecessary and avoidable deaths.
This ‘Irish really’ writer contends it is a combination of Australian Irish heritage and a fixation with this ‘special’ relationship that is said to exist between Australian and America, that ensures Australia’s silence.
No country wants to be invaded and occupied! More so is the case for Irish Australians. The memory of being forced to leave your homeland by invading England, remains vivid for me and my extended families. I am sure it is the same for many Irish Aussies.
It was the strident leadership of Irish born Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, that successfully led a rebellion against the then Austrian governments attempts to introduce national military conscription, in order to raise forces to fight in World War One.
Archbishop Daniel Patric Mannix was born in Ireland in 1864, and became one of the most influential public figures in 20th-century Australia. He died in Australia in 1963, one year short of reaching 100 years, after spending 46 years in a clerical role in Australia.
Where is Daniel Patrick Mannix now? In Australia’s hour of need for moral leadership, we have to rely on the script of writers like Umair Haque, to draw the worlds attention to the catastrophe that is currently America. I don’t know which country Umair is from, but he’s speaking up for me!
Australians live in relative isolation on a continent located in the Asia-Pacific, on the other side of the world from both Britain or America. I’m no Oracle, I haven’t even been to Delphi, but I argue that Australians believe they have a ‘special’ relationship with the United States. Simply put, this relationship is basically about Australia being ‘militarily dependent’ on the United States, for national security.
Consequently, I litigate the argument that this belief in a ‘special’ relationship has only ever been about Australians staying safe. Its always been about ‘not being invaded’ or ‘occupied’ by an alien force. This desire to ‘stay safe’ is infused into Australian culture, especially us Aussie Irish.
Fear of invasion has continued to be a live issue, especially for older Australians. During World War Two, Japanese forces bombed the remote far northern mainland city of Darwin, a precursor to a full invasion. It was American military might, not the English, that save this former British colony from Japanese aggression.
This so-called ‘special’ relationship accelerated and solidified around this period, and has only strengthened ever since. Australians have eagerly courted America in the hope it will provide protection from invasion.
It certainly is a ‘special’ relationship that has consistently seen Australian support America’s wars. America’s wars, where our soldiers have fought and die in far off places; representing no conceivable security threat to Australia. Armed forces from Australia have fought alongside US soldiers in two world wars and regional conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (unbelievably both times!), and Afghanistan. We’re not exactly clear about what we have done in Syria. National security apparently!
Where America goes, Australian is said to unquestionably follow! Some may eloquently argue, blindly!
Harold Holt, one of our former conservative Prime Ministers, famously shouted “All the way with LBJ” when enthusiastically announcing agreement to American President Lyndon Baynes Johnson’s request for Australia’s ‘participation’ in the Vietnam.
Even more cringeworthy; three decades after Harold Holts arguably Ill advised comments, another conservative Prime Minister, John Winston Howard fawningly characterisation Australia as the ‘deputy sheriff’ of the US in the Asia-Pacific region.
Not to be upstaged, American President GW Bush when asked prior to his arrival in Australia for a State Visit, if he ‘agreed’ with this characterisation replied:
“We don’t see it (Australia) as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff. There’s a difference. Equal partners, friends and allies. There’s nothing deputy about this relationship”
So how has this ‘special’ relationship role worked out so far for Australian? Forget the publicity avowed utterance of our leaders! Really, how has it work out?
Not good.
The word ‘participation’ is actually shorthand for sending approximately 60,000 eighteen-year-old boys (‘soldiers’) to fight in Vietnam in another of America’s wars; 521 of whom never came home, well not alive! Dead! There were approximately 3000 Australian ‘soldiers’ wounded.
These 521 dead teenagers didn’t even have the right to vote! At eighteen, they were too young to vote, but apparently not too young to die!
Currently, Australia’s largest international military commitment comprises of approximately 1550 military personnel (“ADF”) being deployed to assist in America’s longest ever war, Afghanistan. ADF personal are still deployed to Iraq and the Middle East, nearly two decades after invasion and occupation of Iraq, by Coalition forces. No, not Iran, Iraq; well not yet!
Deputy Sheriff John Winston Howard, couldn’t wait to get involved in the invasion of Iraq. Promotion to an ‘equal’ partner status in the “Coalition of the Willing” invasion forces must have clinched the ‘deal’, for the recently promoted Sheriff. Did our Prime Minister really believe Australian was an ‘equal’ partner? I argue it was a desire to ‘service’ this illusionary ‘Special’ relationship, that was fundamental to his desire to fight alongside American forces.
Iraq represented no strategic risk to Australia’s national security. It does now, with terrorists and misfits displaced from the Iraq ‘Crusade’, infiltrating our borders with malice intent.
Thanks ‘Deputy Sheriff’ John! or should I say thanks Sheriff John Winston Howard?
Australian is now permanently hosting US military bases in northern Australia. The defence personal associated with these military institutions, have access to all major ADF training areas, northern Australian RAAF airfields, and port facilities in Darwin, the Northern Territory and Fremantle, Western Australia. It is highly likely future access will be enthusiastically granted to an expanded Stirling naval base in Perth, and Australia’s airfield on the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
What was the view of our neighbours in Asia Pacific region, to Howards fawning comments about being a deputy sheriff?
Again, not good.
Malaysian Deputy Defence Minister Shafie Apdal said: “I suppose America wants a puppet of its own in this region whom they can trust who will do whatever they wish.
“America can appoint anyone to be their representative or their agent, or their puppet in this region, but we will never recognise them,” he said, at a summit of Islamic nations, in Malaysia.”
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar offered an Australian reporter congratulations: “I am sure you are very happy to be promoted (from deputy sheriff).”
It is little wonder, Australians closely observe who’s running the world’s only superpower. Rarely a week passes, without the mass media screening an event involving the President of the United States.
Is an American President going to lead this ‘special’ relationship friend into yet another folly? Another war to fight in some far off place; places we Aussies can barely spell the name of, let alone understand why we are there fighting.
Our ten year pointless fighting with American forces in Vietnam, has taught many of us to question this so called ‘Special’ relationship with the United States of America. No need to discuss the middle east wars here; you get the idea.
Australians see America through the prism of this ‘special’ relationship, an almost starry-eyed view! Australia supports, some may argue unquestionably, America sustaining a world leadership role, especially on issues of global significance, commensurate with its superpower status. It does not, however, support this superpower behaving as a war munger, invading and occupying other countries, just like the English did to the Irish! The tragic outcomes in these invaded countries are strikingly similar to what is ‘still’ unfolding in Iraq and Syria.
Hopefully, the picture I have attempted to frame will enhance your understanding of Australia’s ‘special’ relationship with America, why we stand mute in the face of President Trump’s murder of his own people!
At least the World can rely on brilliant writers like Umair Haque to speak on our behalf.
Australian is complicit in this unforgivable crime through negligence, neglect and indifference. The intern affairs of other countries are ‘nothin’ to do with Australia; Well until America tells us otherwise, and which usually ends in Australia participating in another of America’s wars.
Please don’t criticise Umair for his brilliant dissertation of what is really happening in America. He’s one of the good guys; he’s outraged about an outrage! If we fail to listen to people like Umair, history will judge us harshly, just as it has for the genocide committed by England, on my Irish family.
Gaeilge
