And he's back
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Winston Churchill
- Thread starter Cascarino
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I'm very comfortable with my view and how it's expressed.
There is no other valid or moral point of view aside from Churchill is a racist, Brits have been lied to about him, and he is a major cause for institutional racism. If I'm making anything up, challenge it with irrefutable evidence and prove me wrong.
I agree, it's a tough gig if you can't see that truth yet. This forum is simply a reflection on what is happening in society.
If you go 'against the cause' because of some guy writing on the internet, I'd suggest you examine what it says about you, not me.
I have been writing to my (white male) history professor from my time at University of Manchester on this matter; he remains the academic I respected most during my entire education. Was so happy he remembered me.
We've been kicking around a few ideas based on personal views and upbringing as opposed to Churchill facts. His last email was very interesting and thought provoking for me:
We've been kicking around a few ideas based on personal views and upbringing as opposed to Churchill facts. His last email was very interesting and thought provoking for me:
- I’m now 76. I grew up in the immediate post WW2 world in England. We were taught nothing at school about either world war OR about the British Empire. My memory is that the country was in denial about the loss of empire and there was still a strong sense of innate racial white superiority.
- The invasion of the Suez Canal when it was taken back as part of Egypt by Colonel Nasser in 1956 was part of that delusion. I was 12. The earlier abandoning of India at partition was a complete disgrace, and presented at the time with complete dishonesty versus what I learned it my later life
- I believe tribalism is at the root of the British referendum vote to leave the EU. Nothing to do with the economics. Basically a wish to revert to US, ridding ourselves of THEM (muslims, Poles, Romanians etc).
- But then … in the meantime, over the past half century the country HAD TO embrace THEM as immigrants, initially BAME to do the work that the natives didn’t want to do. In recent years, THEY have come in the main from EU countries, so are without the obvious ‘melatonin’ differences brought by previous immigrants from the West Indies and South Asia. Getting used to THEM becoming US seems to be very hard for white people from a certain generation or outlook.
- The most obvious and ever-present ‘racial’ dislike for the Brits remains antipathy to Germans, most of it based on crude stereotyping, I think. You're right that Britain and Germany had similar racist outlooks at WW2.
- While I was taught nothing about races or racism at school, my now 18 year old daughter,
Jane Doe,has emerged (from a state school) as a fervent anti-racist. My sense is that British schools are now dominantly run by multiculturalist/anti-racist teachers. So why do the underlying attitudes from the past persist so tenaciously in the white British population? Probably because resentments about THEM still exist among parents and grandparents at home. - And while anti-racism seems to be the dominant attitude in contemporary Britain, especially among the young, it does not seem to turn into any kind of practical action to deal with the real issues in BAME communities, issues which the current double whammy of epidemic and BLM has exposed. It seems to me that Lammy is the voice to listen to. What do you think?
- There’s no doubt that Churchill was a racist and these views were the foundations of his international decisions. But the other unmistakable truth is we needed his specific skill set at that one moment in time. Identical to Britain needing specifically Boris Johnson to get Brexit over the line.
- So where do I stand? I’ve become a root and branch internationalist, recognising that people are different and that those differences matter to people. And as such, I live in a village in the British Midlands filled with people who voted to leave the EU … I always believed that the work I did was in part a lone longitudinal effort to build cross-cultural understanding … but I know it was nowhere near enough and that I could have done more. Many of my generation are the same. It's now upto white people like my daughter to redress that, if thats our nations desire.
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Have to state that I disagree with this. Any old razzle-dazzle shyster could've pulled off the con, which was likely far more underhand than we'll know for, oh, about a century.
Overpopulation is clearly not the best predictor of inequality if inequality has been high from 1688-1945 and from 1980-today.What’s birth control from 1945 - 1980 got to do with it
I already posted an article about this which you ignored twice.
Anyway it is clear this is going nowhere.
Good grief, they'll be banning people from saying there's a white statue of Father Christmas in our schools next.
I read the article, it said that the generation hoped for a utopian future. There’s a shock, every generation does.
Again it’s not why we went to war. I don’t even know what you think I was implying that rendered the article relevant.
I argued in response to a poster that said he was unhappy about the social divide and that in theory you could argue people were allowed to deface WW11 monuments as a result of that, I said that’s a nonsense because it’s not why we went to war. Then you told me we went to war to create a utopia
Anyway let’s move on and watch the football eh
I was reading today that the Cenotaph was vandalized during the riots that followed the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927.
That's the problem rams, Churchill was and still is a rallying cry for those nationalists that you don't like.
From all the history I've seen, once it was clear Chamberlin was not up to the task of fighting Hitler ( a bit like we felt when we realised Moyes was a dud), their was almost unanimous agreement that only Churchill was a big enough cnut to face off vs Hitler. He was hired because of his vicious and uncompromising views, and if the Nazi's could be framed as the real racists, that would give him the sharp purpose to exert his character. It was evidently the right choice, and he is rightly heralded as the man that saved Britain (whatever its national traits were) from the Nazi's. Even as his most devout critic, I credit him with that and agree it was a remarkable achievement in its singular context.
I see Boris and Brexit in the same light. I don't think any other Brexiter had the 'razzle-dazzle shyster' skills; the ability to lie, obfuscate, abuse and bully parliament and convert a a minority Government into an 80 seat majority Government through an unscheduled election is an amazing political feat.
Boris is inspired by Churchill as I am a lifelong student and devotee in the ways and methods of Sir Alex Ferguson. Its clear Boris has styled himself in Churchill's doctrine, with finishing indoctrination touches from Trump.
So I'm not sure if another shyster could've pulled off the con as well as Boris. Who else do you have in mind?
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I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who gets prosecuted for vandalising war memorials. It's a line that shouldn't be crossed. Statues of famous people are one thing, but the remembrance of ordinary people who died in wars not of their making is quite different. That applies to any war memorial in any country.
My father and his brothers spent years and years fighting in foreign countries in the last war. They didn't want to go, they were all peaceful men, but they were called up. My father came through it unscathed (at least physically), but the fact that he would never talk about his experiences showed the impact it had on him. This is recent history, people are still around who remember first-hand what it was like.
My father and his brothers spent years and years fighting in foreign countries in the last war. They didn't want to go, they were all peaceful men, but they were called up. My father came through it unscathed (at least physically), but the fact that he would never talk about his experiences showed the impact it had on him. This is recent history, people are still around who remember first-hand what it was like.
Simon Cowell? No, you're probably right, mate.
So am i, and you talk just as much nonsense as you do in the Poch&Ole threads...
I learned of the negatives around Churchill before I was 16 from textbooks, that was 14 years so am not sure where you are basing your argument off about people being lied too... Were you actually born in the UK to make such claims?
Since then the internet has exploded to be a easy source of information so its not like anything is being censored for people to find out themselves.
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NSFW?
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I don't think many disagree with you. Objections are about people calling other people sub-human , well we know where that led us.
Don't care about statues, good or bad as long as the whole truth is told of what they represent.
My problem is people only using part of the truth, the myth to further their current agenda. Most don't have a clue that their beliefs are wrong, they believe what's been spoon fed to them. Question is should the myths be shattered once and for all or let them carry on believing the myths because the truth is too painful.
Personally I'm sick of the lies.
Just curious what myths Being shattered and what people believing them you mean?
My South is rising again.
It's supposed to be a mother offering food to her children. Apparently.
Let's start with Churchill as we're in that thread - I'd credit him with upholding the morale of the British people and being an inspirational leader at the time - did he win the war , did he even want to launch the attack across the channel, did he make ghastly errors of judgement, do we ignore all the rest of his history , some of which has been decribed in this thread, why was it that he so popular that he lost the election soon after the war, do we just ignore everything else and just celebrate him because he raised the morale of the people?
Shortly, nothing in the teaching of history will reflect what really happened, the 'airbrushing' brigade seem to be in full flow.
The phrase about "if history teaches us anything its is that we never learn anything from history..."will become gloriously true!
You are actually unbelievable
You'd do the cause you're trying to serve a favour by staying silent. But please do go on sowing discord.Well said.
Let's face the facts:
Nobody is perfect.
Humans make mistakes.
We hear what we want to hear (hence social media).
Times change as do attitudes.
Politics are mainly about power and personal gain.
The list goes on.
So. Why should we not accept history for what it is. The past. Good or bad is the past.
Far far more relevant and important is to shape the future. And the future holds numerous significant challenges. Both individually and collectively.
That is where we should be focusing our efforts.
Make the future better than the past.
That is the real priority.
I know its hard to admit what you thought was was not. Else lets see your facts that disprove me.You are actually unbelievable
Do you find it effective to argue facts with fanatical race ideologues on the right? It's equally fruitless with the ones on the left, I assure you.
So you cant. Thought so. And thanks for admitting your identity too.
And if you think I'm 'leftist', then you have real issues of empathy and comprehension about political ideology.
I've tried both, rarely works. Better to let them expose their own ideology. Please go on.
Agree with both of you.
The truth is out there though (sounds like the X Files).
The future though is shaped by the past and if the past is in denial and no lessons are learnt then the errors of the past continue into the future.
You are right.
The problem I have with trying to learn from the past is to not judge it by today's standards.
Every generation will have a different perspective on what is right and what is not.
Very little I’d disagree with here:
The history wars
The statues erected at the height of imperial power and prejudice do not belong in 21st-century Britain. But toppling monuments will not help us properly understand our past or resolve our present troubles.
https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/06/history-wars
The history wars
The statues erected at the height of imperial power and prejudice do not belong in 21st-century Britain. But toppling monuments will not help us properly understand our past or resolve our present troubles.
https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/06/history-wars
Couldn’t they have just done her handing out a couple of plates of turkey twizzlers, chips and bean?
1 bean, a bit mean
Women like winners.
You'd think right? But then the Health & Safety get involved, start asking about Use By dates, safe storage, rat droppings. Nah, can't get fresher than the booby food Pexbo, you should know this stuff.
Of course I agree with you. But it seems it's selective outrage in UK.
I don't remember the vociferous and sustained outrage when the below happened. There was about 2 days of vague condemnation, but no 'protectors of statues' protest was organised, nor did Government officials try to rush through new laws to punish the scribblers.
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2.5million Indians volunteered for service in WW2 (and yet Churchill still wilfully allowed 2-4millions Bengali Indians to starve to death). Many from the West Indies too. All of those families have equally compelling stories to yours, and yet their stories are never celebrated in British culture's memorial of its war that defines its narrative.
Indian Sikhs got one token chap included for a few minutes in the recent movie 1917, despite having Indians contributing 1M soldiers in that war. I haven't seen any mention of Colony soldiers in the various movies on Churchill either. Neither did I hear about British Colony soldiers being mentioned recently by all those who decried that British war history was being insulted because of some scribbles on the Cenotaph.
Why do you think that is?
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I don't really mind what statues stay or go, they are only statues in the end, provided there's some due process for it. I'm not a massive fan of mobs in general. If crowds are taking it into their own hands, that's probably because of an absent or failing, or unrepresentative due process.
Thanks for posting. The bit about Gove demonstrates that historical whitewashing remains an active Tory Government strategy, and must be fought at every step.
He covers so many themes I've tried to express in the thread, albeit with much more eloquence and objectivity.
Am very glad such essays are now circulating amongst the educated and power classes, though am sure right wingers will have selective amnesia or brain freezes when they read.
Which part do you disagree with? I feel like getting rid of statues is barely anything if we are to actually address the issue. I also think the latter part of the article is kinda unnecessary. Instead, he should've shed more light on the works of people like Tuhiwai Smith and others who have spent their entire lives developing ways to specifically address this issue.
I wouldn’t be sure about labeling Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland “genocide” - but then again, I’m a bit skeptical of the utility of this term in any kind of pre-modern context (a discussion for a different thread maybe), and I’m unsure where exactly Cromwell would fall. I’d also need to think a bit more about the examples he uses in the last part of the article and their relation to each other. But as I implied, these are minor quibbles.
I’m not familiar with Smith, how does her work relate to this issue do you think?
Well..the solution is decolonization, isn’t it? The trap that we keep falling into is expecting historians to offer some sort of solution. But it isn’t their job to do so. The solution lies with black, indigenous researchers like Smith who not just studied but developed techniques to decolonize.
Her work is a lot to take in. But in essence, she strips away the BS of scientific thought that we hold sacred, and links it with europe, colonialism, dehumanizing of natives and other cultures. She tracks multiple disciplines such as biology, medicine, history, anthropology, etc, their long history of scientific racism, and how it remains fundamental to these fields to this day. She cites several methods academics, researchers, can use to get rid of the euro-centric nonsense and how we can get closer to the actual truth.
Honestly, getting rid of statues is nothing. And the usual rhetoric of “well...what is the solution?” is mostly noise and deflection. The solutions have been around for ages and it begins with listening to those you've long oppressed.