When the British government forced the nation of Ireland to become part of their colonial system; they should have also accepted responsibility and offered help for its people in the midst of the disaster. The British, however, tolerated the mass deaths as a cost of their unsympathetic governmental policies, therefore resulting in passive genocide. The destructive and exploitive ways of the British definitely had ulterior motives, such as “clearance, death, and forced emigration.” The English were using food as a weapon against the Irish. England, not only, had the resources to considerably lessen the effects of the potato blight, but also selfishly chose not to offer help because of their anti-Irish way of thinking. These actions are said to have been worse than a direct extermination.VIII. Academics have negatively influenced historical perceptions of “the Great StarvationA revision of history is necessary in bringing out the true accounts of what really happened in Ireland. The problem lies with many historians who wrote from the perspective of the ruling power and did not tell the stories objectively of the oppressed Irish. This skewed historical account takes away from Irish history and it’s heroes, undermining the basis of Irish nationalism. It also de-emphasizes the role that Great Britain took in depriving Ireland of food. The estimated number of people who died had been downplayed considerably. Some death toll estimates were as low as 250,000, while others have said over one million died. According to authors such as Roy Foster, nothing that occurred in the past of the Irish has any importance today. Many revisionist authors suggest that the death and starvation was unavoidable and what God had intended for nation of Ireland. Anglo-Irish revisionists use so-called scholarly writings to disguise sociopolitical propaganda. These writings place fault on the victim and overlook the fact that viol...
