Winston Churchill

[Classical Mechanic]

Sure he was. But he didn't advocate for wiping millions off the planet just because he hated their skin color. And also, wtf does he have to do with Churchill?

The conversation has drifted to commenerative statues. Plenty of people want Ghandi's statues removed too in fairness.

 

[pierrethesnack]

So, it's an issue of mathematics. Not about slavery or profiting from it. Got it.

Sorry, you've lost me. I compared Churchill and Gandhi in terms of having achieved great things in the same era despite both being racist, and how that doens't make either of them unworthy of statues. Not sure why you compare that to two men who didn't even live in the same century.

 

[King7Eric]

Nehru was officially Congress president at the time and he would 100% have wanted to fight against the fascists. (Previously he had refused to meet Mussolini, had visited Barcelona during the civil war, and he had denounced Chamerlain for appeasment.) He had the backing of Gandhi politically but in my mind I find it hard to believe Gandhi sanctioning a war. Based on this Gandhi might have stayed on the sidelines.

Again, with Jinnah I don't know.

For the British Indian Army, one indication is that during the 1946 Naval Mutiny, a lot of the sailors collaborated with the Communists, if that was their leaning then they probably would have continued against the Axis.

I can't really see how the Indian army and indeed the leadership as a whole would have been able to present a united front had the British withdrawn as early as 1940. Nehru would have wanted to fight with the Allies but would he have had enough clout to go against Gandhi and win on this argument?

Similarly, I can't see Bose agreeing to collaborate with Gandhi or Nehru and a large faction of the army would have splintered to his side.

If the British withdrew without partitioning the country, it's more likely India would have been gripped by an insular Civil War because I can't see Nehru, Jinnah, Bose and Gandhi ever coming to an agreement regarding either dividing or ruling the country that would have appeased all parties.

 

[GazTheLegend]

That's what I thought. I wonder how much is taught about that in British school?

Not a lot but then again how many people know the name Eamon de Valera in Ireland or indeed anywhere else and his sympathies for the nazi regime.

 

[entropy]

The conversation has drifted to commenerative statues. Plenty of people want Ghandi's statues removed too in fairness.

Yeah, it is pointless. This thread reminds me of Edward Said's work a lot. You will never get colonizers to agree that they're the bad guys. Because the language of history, media, culture etc that they're exposed to is still told through the lens of an empire. It is never meant to understand a different culture or religion. But only to oversimplify it or dumb it down to the point of stupidity like some of the arguments here. So much of Islamophobia we see across Europe and America is rooted in this culture.

 

[Zlatan 7]

Yeah, it is pointless. This thread reminds me of Edward Said's work a lot. You will never get colonizers to agree that they're the bad guys. Because the language of history, media, culture etc that they're exposed to is still told through the lens of an empire. It is never meant to understand a different culture or religion. But only to oversimplify it or dumb it down to the point of stupidity like some of the arguments here. So much of Islamophobia we see across Europe and America is rooted in this culture.

Who are the colonisers that are not agreeing?

 

[oates]

Not a lot but then again how many people know the name Eamon de Valera in Ireland or indeed anywhere else and his sympathies for the nazi regime.

I know a bit about Eamon de Valera. Am I right that he toddled off to America and left Michael Collins to lead or work with the Republican Army and fight a guerrilla war with the British Army? And then de Valera sent Collins off to negotiate a treaty and was peeved when Collins came back with a truce and the offer of Ireland becoming a Free State?

 

[MoskvaRed]

I don't really like the product of his time argument. This is still that time. Racial opression still exists. If anything these people were responsible for ensuring that that time began or extended it through their racist views. Those systems that they helped to create/instill/continue still remain today. Racism, racial inequality and opression still remains today. Also, not everyone was racist at the time as said above or believed in these types of things. The people with the power did which is why slavery and racism existed to the extent that it did but did that make it okay to be racist? Of course not. Racism has never been okay. By throwing out buzz phrases like product of his time it's almost as if you're putting a wall between now and then and acting like we are far far away from that time of thinking which is far from the truth and is shown in the inequalities that remain.

Regarding your last point, I find this focus on historical figures has precisely the effect of creating a distancing effect, with an unspoken self-congratulatory assumption that such things belong to the bad old days and we are now past all that (rather like the way Hollywood loves a film about the Deep South in the 50s). There are slaves in the UK today (whether women who’ve been trafficked into prostitution or illegal Chinese labourers). In two years time, we’ll watch the World Cup in shiny new stadia built by indentured labour. In normal times, some of us might be going to Sicily or Malta this summer, just a short hop across the Med from slave markets in Libya. By all means educate people about the past but, in terms of effecting meaningful change, spray painting or pulling down a statue of a long-dead, statesman is just cheap, virtue signalling tokenism whose main result will be to enable Boris and Dom to distract people from the Corona virus disaster by starting a culture war.

 

[Grinner]

I can't really see how the Indian army and indeed the leadership as a whole would have been able to present a united front had the British withdrawn as early as 1940. Nehru would have wanted to fight with the Allies but would he have had enough clout to go against Gandhi and win on this argument?

Similarly, I can't see Bose agreeing to collaborate with Gandhi or Nehru and a large faction of the army would have splintered to his side.

If the British withdrew without partitioning the country, it's more likely India would have been gripped by an insular Civil War because I can't see Nehru, Jinnah, Bose and Gandhi ever coming to an agreement regarding either dividing or ruling the country that would have appeased all parties.

Plus the army would have been in a shambles with the command structure decimated and presumably lack of supplies and munitions without the Royal Navy. Malaya/Singapore wouldn't have happened, Japan would have been unopposed since the US were staying out of it.

 

[sullydnl]

Not a lot but then again how many people know the name Eamon de Valera in Ireland or indeed anywhere else and his sympathies for the nazi regime.

The syntax must be strange here. Are you asking how many people within Ireland know the name of one of the single most well known figures in Irish history?

When I was studying Irish history for the leaving cert we covered The Emergency, which included De Valera and Ireland's relationship with both Germany and the UK during that period.

It's not like De Valera is a figure people are slow to criticize either given he is not infrequently characterised as a villain of Irish history rather than some sort of hero.

Strange comparison really.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

Strange comparison really.

I doubt there's a single Irish political figure of the last century for whom there doesn't exist two completely divergent narratives held by sizeable proportions of the population. No comparison whatsoever to how Churchill is seen in the UK.

 

[Rhyme Animal]

Human Beings are always flawed.

Human Beings who rise to positions of leadership in leading nations are nearly always assholes in some way or another - often sociopaths.

The only Human Beings who should be celebrated for war efforts are those who fought / nursed during them - and they should always be celebrated collectively.

 

[sammsky1]

Who are the colonisers that are not agreeing?

Eg: Recent filmmakers like Teplitzky or authors like Boris on Churchill don't mention Bengal famine or his utter conviction in white supremacy even once.

The notion that Churchill fought a war against 'racism' is also a very impressive piece of whitewashing. In reality Britain vs Germany was a war between the two most white supremacist nations at the time, Britain having had 300 years of mastery in the subject. Britain had to enter the war to survive, and not because it embarking on a humanitarian mission to save the world.

And the virtue of being on the winning side didn't mean Britain became less racist or white supremacist in its beliefs. Germany endured di-nazification, whereas Britain has never undergone a similar de-colonialisation program, parroting a triumphalist only propaganda agenda instead, which would have you believe that Churchill and white British soldiers won the war alone, whereas the truth is that it was USSR and USA interventions that sealed Hitlers fate.

Post war, it took 20 years for 1965 Race Relations Act, despite blacks and Indians being invited by Government to migrate specifically to rebuild their colonial master state, and its been just as slow moving since.

UK may have eliminated the crude overt racism that was commonplace until the 1990s, and some have changed their behaviours, or like majority of urban millennials and GenZ whom have only known a multi cultural society.

But a significant number have simply disguised their racism and practice it through hidden and insidious Amy Cooper type acts and micro aggressions, which every person of colour in Uk has experienced at some point.

From the perspective of people of colour, UK still has a long way to go.

 

[GazTheLegend]

Strange comparison really.

How's it a strange comparison

Don't get me wrong I'm not actually weighing in to any debate on Churchill as some sort of moral authority, I just find history a lot more nuanced than things are ever made out to be

I've cousins in cork where the black and tans burned the city center and they will NEVER forgive the English -however- knowing my history somewhat I appreciate that the darker side of Ireland, England, and Spain goes back as far as the inquisition and probably further than that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada_in_Ireland

I don't like erasing our histories and theres a lot there to learn from if we stop thinking of things in black and white modern terms - Winston Churchill deserves his statue and hopefully with the caveat that anyone that does look into his past can learn from his mistakes as a leader and human being.

 

[sammsky1]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[oates]

I don't know but I seem to recall that Churchill led a country fighting against Fascism and entered the war as part of their pact with other European countries including Poland and France. Regardless of any difficulty to survive Britain fulfilled its commitments and long before ultimately they stood against a Germany sat just across the channel while also joining with allies in the Far-East. I don't think I like the way certain facts have been misrepresented or the motive.

Now, I could take on other points but what purpose would it serve other than to highlight when already shown the habit of painting false pictures mixed with a little truth, often the best way to shape mistakes. Bit distasteful I'm afraid.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

How's it a strange comparison

Don't get me wrong I'm not actually weighing in to any debate on Churchill as some sort of moral authority, I just find history a lot more nuanced than things are ever made out to be

I've cousins in cork where the black and tans burned the city center and they will NEVER forgive the English -however- knowing my history somewhat I appreciate that the darker side of Ireland, England, and Spain goes back as far as the inquisition and probably further than that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada_in_Ireland

I don't like erasing our histories and theres a lot there to learn from if we stop thinking of things in black and white modern terms - Winston Churchill deserves his statue and hopefully with the caveat that anyone that does look into his past can learn from his mistakes as a leader and human being.

It's a strange comparison because you're comparing De Valera, whose faults have been part of the national conversation in Ireland for decades, with Winston Churchill, who most Brits hadn't heard a bad word about until a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Grinner]

It's a strange comparison because you're comparing De Valera, whose faults have been part of the national conversation in Ireland for decades, with Winston Churchill, who most Brits hadn't heard a bad word about until a couple of weeks ago.

do you think him being a rude alcoholic equates to a bad word about him? Because everybody knew that at least.

 

[nimic]

I don't know but I seem to recall that Churchill led a country fighting against Fascism and entered the war as part of their pact with other European countries including Poland and France. Regardless of any difficulty to survive Britain fulfilled its commitments and long before ultimately they stood against a Germany sat just across the channel while also joining with allies in the Far-East. I don't think I like the way certain facts have been misrepresented or the motive.

Now, I could take on other points but what purpose would it serve other than to highlight when already shown the habit of painting false pictures mixed with a little truth, often the best way to shape mistakes. Bit distasteful I'm afraid.

This (mostly) isn't related to Churchill, but I feel it's important to remind you that before Britain (and France) bravely entered the war to defend Poland, they actively sold out Czechoslovakia, to whom they also had a commitment.

 

[oates]

This (mostly) isn't related to Churchill, but I feel it's important to remind you that before Britain (and France) bravely entered the war to defend Poland, they actively sold out Czechoslovakia, to whom they also had a commitment.

Sold out? Perhaps, but not by Churchill.

 

[Grinner]

A total and unmitigated defeat

 

[oates]

A total and unmitigated defeat

Yes. Churchill castigated Neville Chamberlain.

 

[Grinner]

Yes. Churchill castigated Neville Chamberlain.

Chambo had his reasons though.

 

[nimic]

Chambo had his reasons though.

Definitely, too much is made of appeasement as a negative. The real answer is probably that Chamberlain knew where it was headed, and knew Britain was not ready for war. Of course, Germany wasn't ready for war either. Nor was the Soviet Union. Weird set of circumstances.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

do you think him being a rude alcoholic equates to a bad word about him? Because everybody knew that at least.

Being a rude alcoholic is one of his biggest selling points, multiple authors have made their livings off of how much we appreciate a good rude drunk in this country.

 

[oates]

Chambo had his reasons though.

Yes he did but one of them was that he believed that Hitler could be trusted. Peace in our time blah blah.

 

[nimic]

Yes he did but one of them was that he believed that Hitler could be trusted. Peace in our time blah blah.

Peace in our time was a terrible look for him, but I don't think he was that naive. I think he was buying time any way he could, which turned out to be a really bad thing for Czechoslovakia (and if we believe an earlier war would have stopped Hitler, a really bad thing for the world).

 

[oates]

Peace in our time was a terrible look for him, but I don't think he was that naive. I think he was buying time any way he could, which turned out to be a really bad thing for Czechoslovakia (and if we believe an earlier war would have stopped Hitler, a really bad thing for the world).

Either way we are clear that Britain declared war, with France upon Germany in response to the invasion of Poland and not as two white supremacist countries duking it out over 'Racism'?

 

[entropy]

Human Beings are always flawed.

Human Beings who rise to positions of leadership in leading nations are nearly always assholes in some way or another - often sociopaths.

The only Human Beings who should be celebrated for war efforts are those who fought / nursed during them - and they should always be celebrated collectively.

Feel free to include those killed, and oppressed by these leaders. It's not like countries are still ravaged by their acts.

 

[nimic]

Either way we are clear that Britain declared war, with France upon Germany in response to the invasion of Poland and not as two white supremacist countries duking it out over 'Racism'?

I don't know, was the original claim? There are many reasons for World War 2. I doubt "duking it out over racism" was one of them, though.

 

[oates]

I don't know, was the original claim? There are many reasons for World War 2. I doubt "duking it out over racism" was one of them, though.

I paraphrase.

 

[Brwned]

I find it pretty strange that the BBC still aren't comfortable calling him a racist. The most they can muster is "some critics say he is". If all these statue shenanigans move conversations like that further forward then I think it's pretty important. In general I find the UK to be among the least willing to talk about the darker side of their history.

 

[MoskvaRed]

Eg: Recent filmmakers like Teplitzky or authors like Boris on Churchill don't mention Bengal famine or his utter conviction in white supremacist even once.

The notion that Churchill fought a war against 'racism' is also a very impressive piece of whitewashing. In reality Britain vs Germany was a war vs the two most white supremacist nations at the time, Britain having had 300 years of practice in the subject. Britain had to enter the war to survive, and not because it embarking on a humanitarian mission to save the world.

Germany then endured di-nazification, whereas Britain has never undergone a similar de-colonialisation program, parroting a triumphalist only propaganda agenda instead, which would have you believe that Churchill and white British soldiers won the war alone, whereas the truth is that it was USSR and USA interventions that sealed Hitlers fate.

Post war, it took 20 years for 1965 Race Relations Act 1965, despite blacks and Indians migrating specifically to rebuild their colonial master state, and its been just as slow moving since. UK may have eliminated the crude overt racism that was commonplace until the 1990s, and some have changed their behaviours, or like majority of urban millennials and GenZ whom have only known a multi cultural society. But a significant number have simply disguised their racism and practice it through hidden acts and micro aggressions (Amy Cooper type which every person of colour has experienced at some point in UK/USA) which is arguably more dangerous and insidious.

From the perspective of people of colour, UK has a long way to go.

Who argues Churchill fought a war against racism? It was the age old British objective of preventing hegemony on the continent.

As for white supremacism, the two other Allied countries you mention were both expansionary white empires (everyone knows the story of the native Americans, not so many about when the Russians under Yermolev drove into Muslim areas like Circassia - or at least it used to be before they deported the entire population to Turkey). Even in WWII, it was the age of Jim Crow in the US while the Soviet Union, despite the rhetoric, was a essentially a Slavic centre with a largely despised Muslim periphery which grew cotton and provided minerals. On the Allied side, France and Belgium (as well as the overrun Netherlands) had empires based on white supremacy. If you also consider China on the Allied side, that state was and continues to be a land empire dominated by Han at the expense of the likes of Tibetans and Uighurs.

Your equivalence of the process of denazification and decolonialisation is also way over the top. There should definitely be more educational focus on the Empire (particularly the slave plantations growing sugar in the West Indies and the huge damage caused to India by cotton-driven economics) but comparing it to the Third Reich is gratuitously insulting, as my Russian in-laws or my Jewish Hungarian friend who is the daughter of a camps survivor would surely testify, no matter how many times you bring up the brutal ‘needs must’ resource allocation that caused the Bengal famine. At least you didn’t come up with the “British invented concentration camps” line as though the (again admittedly very cruel) Boer War Transvaal population control camps were the same thing as designing industrial machinery specifically with the aim of gassing people.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

I find it pretty strange that the BBC still aren't comfortable calling him a racist. The most they can muster is "some critics say he is". If all these statue shenanigans move conversations like that further forward then I think it's pretty important. In general I find the UK to be among the least willing to talk about the darker side of their history.

I think it will take another 10-20 years to move on from Churchill. My parents generation are still deeply connected to the war narrative because they grew up straight after it and their parents were directly involved in it. The generations after mine will have much less of a connection to it because of never having a living link to it like I did growing up.

I think going after Churchill is a bad move for BLM personally. It’s massively divisive because of what he means to those generations. I don’t think talking about his very mixed legacy, to be polite, will result in any shift from the attachment that those generations have to him.

If this culture war becomes even further embittered, as I fear it will this weekend, then I think you’ll see a Nigel Farage type fire up a political movement standing in opposition to BLM, this will draw a significant number of socially conservative Tory voters away, the ones that are disgusted with the police response to the protests last week and so on. As a result The Tories will adopt a more right wing position In the next election that disenfranchises minority voters in order to win them back.

 

[Rhyme Animal]

I find it pretty strange that the BBC still aren't comfortable calling him a racist. The most they can muster is "some critics say he is". If all these statue shenanigans move conversations like that further forward then I think it's pretty important. In general I find the UK to be among the least willing to talk about the darker side of their history.

Agree.

We (the U.K) view ourselves, historically, as the 'civilized' Democratic cousin to the U.S' gibbering Republican redneck yokel.

Recent Political movements pushed by the new far-Right, culminating in Brexit and the current climate of renewed division have essentially lifted the rock up... and underneath it are the worms and woodlice and creepy crawlies that are currently swarming every inch of media (no offense to insects) and News.

I'd also add, that it's incredibly expedient to the current Government that these issues have suddenly ROARED into life just as they're being called to be held to account for the innocent deaths of thousands of Britons - many of whom are old and of Churchillian original.

It has completely taken over the narrative of the Nation, which, as I said, is incredibly fortuitous for them...

 

[entropy]

Who argues Churchill fought a war against racism? It was the age old British objective of preventing hegemony on the continent.

As for white supremacism, the two other Allied countries you mention were both expansionary white empires (everyone knows the story of the native Americans, not so many about when the Russians under Yermolev drove into Muslim areas like Circassia - or at least it used to be before they deported the entire population to Turkey). Even in WWII, it was the age of Jim Crow in the US while the Soviet Union, despite the rhetoric, was a essentially a Slavic centre with a largely despised Muslim periphery which grew cotton and provided minerals. On the Allied side, France and Belgium (as well as the overrun Netherlands) had empires based on white supremacy. If you also consider China on the Allied side, that state was and continues to be a land empire dominated by Han at the expense of the likes of Tibetans and Uighurs.

Your equivalence of the process of denazification and decolonialisation is also way over the top. There should definitely be more educational focus on the Empire (particularly the slave plantations growing sugar in the West Indies and the huge damage caused to India by cotton-driven economics) but comparing it to the Third Reich is gratuitously insulting, as my Russian in-laws or my Jewish Hungarian friend who is the daughter of a camps survivor would surely testify, no matter how many times you bring up the brutal ‘needs must’ resource allocation that caused the Bengal famine. At least you didn’t come up with the “British invented concentration camps” line as though the (again admittedly very cruel) Boer War Transvaal population control camps were the same thing as designing industrial machinery specifically with the aim of gassing people.

Not sure how one can talk about decolonization, educational focus on the empire, by not mentioning those who help perpetuate it.

 

[sammsky1]

Your equivalence of the process of denazification and decolonialisation is also way over the top. There should definitely be more educational focus on the Empire (particularly the slave plantations growing sugar in the West Indies and the huge damage caused to India by cotton-driven economics) but comparing it to the Third Reich is gratuitously insulting, as my Russian in-laws or my Jewish Hungarian friend who is the daughter of a camps survivor would surely testify, no matter how many times you bring up the brutal ‘needs must’ resource allocation that caused the Bengal famine. At least you didn’t come up with the “British invented concentration camps” line as though the (again admittedly very cruel) Boer War Transvaal population control camps were the same thing as designing industrial machinery specifically with the aim of gassing people.

I guess it must be insulting if you value a Russian or Jewish life more than a slowly starving to death Indian life.

Also not sure how you can criticise equivalence when literally no educational focus on the empire has ever happened within normal UK education system. I've had to learn everything about Churchill outside of UK education system and mainstream culture (aside from his role as war time leader)

PS: sincere thanks for the other historical overview: never knew a lot of that and will expand my reading.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

I thought the Spanish invented the concentration camp?

 

[sammsky1]

I find it pretty strange that the BBC still aren't comfortable calling him a racist. The most they can muster is "some critics say he is". If all these statue shenanigans move conversations like that further forward then I think it's pretty important. In general I find the UK to be among the least willing to talk about the darker side of their history.

It's a brilliant observation and I've never really understood why.

Is it simply a vote bank? Why do you think this is?

 

[Zlatan 7]

I guess it must be insulting if you value a Russian or Jewish life more than a slowly starving to death Indian life, I'm sure it is.

Also not sure how you can criticise equivalence when literally no educational focus on the empire has ever happened within normal UK education system. I've had to learn everything about Churchill outside of UK education system (aside from his role as war time leader)

It’s not a game, valuing certain life over other lives.
I’m not sure why you repeatedly project this on people as part of your argument argument