The racism of Winston Churchill

[Markhor]

The so-called 'liberator' of the free world,was a crank racist and extremely bigoted white supremacist and Zionist.Whilst a great wartime leader,was a poor peace time leader,clouded by his imperialist ideals.

The media and school education has indoctrinated the masses into thinking he was a great democrat,bringing peace and goodwill wherever he went.

Yet he was a man who always wanted to safeguard his 'honour'.His ego was as important as his so-called democratic principle.

When visiting Stalin in Moscow during the Second World War,Churchill went to his hotel after the first day of talks regarding a second front in Europe.Churchill had made an informal agreement with Stalin.He drove back to his 'dacha' and crowed ''MY strategy was sound''! ''I know how to deal with peasants like Stalin''!

An aide warned him that the Russian secret service may have had the hotel bugged.Churchill then proceeded to start shouting in the likely places where there were microphones.

''The Russians I have been told are not human beings at all,they are lower in the scale of nature than the orangutan,now let them take that down and translate it into Russian''.

Churchill had extremely disparaging views about Islam too.

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

Churchill was also a eugenicist.

He believed that whites are superior and that blacks are inferior. He believed that it was right for the Indians of America and the blacks of Australia to be displaced by superior races. The inferior races deserve to disappear.

Churchill wanted to forcibly sterilize a hundred thousand Britons and he wanted to send tens of thousands more to forced labour camps.

He tried to introduce forced sterilization in 1910 when he was Home Secretary. "Criminals, paupers and unemployables, prostitutes and ne’er do wells" should not be allowed to breed.

In 1943, Winston Churchill, then prime minister, was speaking to the British Cabinet about the famine that was raging through Bengal, India. Churchill told the secretary of state for India, Leo Amery, that the Indians were "the beastliest people in the world, next to the Germans." and would continue to breed "like rabbits." After another such outburst somewhat later, Amery was prompted to remark of Churchill that he, Amery, "didn't see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's."

He also describes Hindus as "a foul race protected by their pollution from the doom that is their due."

His most bigoted views are towards black people.

"Someone once asked Churchill if he had seen the film Carmen Jones, which starred Dorothy Dandridge. Winston replied that he didn't like blackamoors and had walked out early in the proceedings."

"When he was told that there was a very high mortality among Negroes from measels he growled 'Well there are plenty left. They've a high rate of production'".

"Churchill was irritated by Harold Macmillan's 1960 'Wind of Change' speech. 'Harold should not have gone to Africa encouraging the black men.'

During the war a black official of the Colonial Office had been stopped dining at a London club when American officers took it over. It was brought to Mr. Churchill’s attention. He quipped, “That’s alright. Tell him to take a banjo, they will think he is one of the band”.

Just before he gave up the Premiership in 1955 Mr. Churchill told Spectator owner and editor Ian Gilmour that West Indian immigration "is the most important subject facing this country, but I cannot get any of my ministers to take any notice".

In cabinet in October 1954 Mr. Churchill warned Maxwell Fyfe, “that the problems arising from the immigration of coloured people required urgent and serious consideration.” Maxwell-Fyfe emphasised that there is no power to prevent these people entering no matter how much the number may increase.

On immigration Mr. Churchill remarked to Sir Hugh Foot, Governor of Jamaica, in 1954, “It would be a Magpie society: that would never do.”

Harold Macmillan entered in his diary for January 20th 1955, "More discussion about the West Indian immigrants. A Bill is being drafted - but it's not an easy problem. P.M. thinks 'Keep England White' a good slogan!

Churchill also had deep hatred for Arabs and accused Cairo of being a hub of 'Hun spies'.

He once shouted

''If they (Egyptians) did not look out we will set the Jews on them and drive them into the gutter''.

From the backbenches,he fully endorsed the attack on Egypt in 1956 in order to retake the Suez Canal.His successor Anthony Eden was no better,he once told a junior minister.

What's all this poppycock about isolating and quarantining Nasser ? Can't you understand that I want Nasser killed ?

Charmers aren't they ?

 

[Tera Gawaandi]

Bengal famine of 1943

Total deaths - 4 million

Well its unfortunate if people from the sub-continent don't know their own history and what Churchill did. May Winston Churchill's soul burn in hell forever for this.

Read more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

 

[AlizeeFan]

In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India Archibald Wavell, to release food stocks for India, Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of that time responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn’t died yet." Initially during the famine he was more concerned with the civilians of Greece (who were also suffering from a famine) compared with the Bengalis.

!

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Good posts Markhor and TG. It was probably his imperialistic and racist attitudes that made him a good leader in wartime because of his sense of superiority.

 

[Tapori]

^ Not necessarily - He was An amazing wartime leader for Great Britain who led the fight against the Nazis, but that was the sheer force of his Persona

A disgusting bigotted racist responsible for the oppression of the British Empires' citizens h was too.

Man is not black and white.

 

[Markhor]

Nick Griffin is actually right - I don't know why he was lambasted on Question Time for saying this,but this was one of the few things he got right.

Winston Churchill would not be a member of the Conservative party today,which has seen a substantial shift to the centre.He would indeed be a member of the British National Party.

 

[shaykh1985]

Thanks for the post...
Politicians were so much more matter of fact back in the day...

That quote on Muslims is quite common...many describe him as a visionary for it

 

[shaykh1985]

Nick Griffin is actually right - I don't know why he was lambasted on Question Time for saying this,but this was one of the few things he got right.

Winston Churchill would not be a member of the Conservative party today,which has seen a substantial shift to the centre.He would indeed be a member of the British National Party.

He would be a Tory...its just he wouldn't be open about his views...I am sure many probably agree with what Churchill says here but we live in a more politically correct age...

Griffin essentially does echo the views of many...hes just open about it...

 

[Robert]

Winston Churchill would not be a member of the Conservative party today,which has seen a substantial shift to the centre.He would indeed be a member of the British National Party.

Actually he stood for election as a Liberal on two occasions bu then rejoined the Conservatives. The Tories did not trust him at all and he only became PM on a knife-edge vote.

Nasty piece of work, but exactly what the British needed in 1940.

 

[Looney]

Bengal famine of 1943

Total deaths - 4 million

Well its unfortunate if people from the sub-continent don't know their own history and what Churchill did. May Winston Churchill's soul burn in hell forever for this.

Read more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

People are not going to like what i am saying here but Pakistani education system up until the primary is a joke . Particularly , Urdu , Sindhi and anything that is based on book by Pakistanis . It is too biased for our own good .

Kids learn very fast and whatever they learn , it remains with them all their life . Those years , when you are setting up their foundation , you are teaching them India is their enemy and we celebrate 14th August because we got independence from them . Okay , so they may not be that blunt but that is the idea .

I grew up learning the same things , and i felt cheated when i found out the real history . Even the Dacca fall is not mentioned .

 

[Tapori]

Thank You Looney. But then why would you know that?

Don't you know, you as a Pakistani have no history pre-1947; You have no Link to the scummy country known as India. You escaped remember! Your history starts with 1947, 2 wars with India and other stuff.

Any pre-1947 history is Mohammed Bin Kasim spreading Islam and thats about it really; Oh and maybe a bit about the Mughals.

No Mohanjedaro, no Colonial Massacres on all south Asians, No recall of how Hindu's, Muslims and the like fought as 1 for a time. No emphasis on how Desis collectively share a rich cultural heritage and history spanning thousands of years...

World History?

Nope; Instead just more insecure patronizing Nationalism - No objectivity.

Maybe India is the same;

- British History (GCSE-A-Level) is taught, where I was, to be objective - We learned about the disgraceful acts of the British Empire and its time line and its causes and decline - all without a hazy eyed nationalistic luster for days of yore.

The British civil war is taught with objectivity in mind as you analyse the situation and are allowed to make your own judgements based on a variety of sources.

P.S - I will never forget How (Forget dates due to my memory, YES!) we were taught about the crusades when I was 13-14; About how much more advanced the Muslims were and how racist and ignorant the Dark Age Crusaders were; but whats more is our teacher emphasised how this was History; It shouldn't cloud or be used as an excuse to hate on each other in this day and age and he showed using evidence and sources, just how wrong the Crusaders were.

Salahuddin's respect was emphasised extremely well; especially the story about the battle where he gave Richard a horse to fight upon; imagine if that had been an Indian soldier showing respect to a Pakistani - How objective would the two countries education systems be?

Maybe time and its passing helps us see things more clearly, a luxury India and Pakistan unfortunately don't have in these volatile times.

- Could the Bangladesh secession be covered in such a manner in Pakistan? I doubt it at this point in time.

In the UK, Little children are taught the standard British timelines but are taught mainly what it was like to live in "olden times"; They aren't pumped full of Nationalism, just taught facts/events about Britain.

They don't dwell on the politics just the human lives aspect on how "They" lived in the past.

World history is enthusiastically taught again in the above mould; To get children used to the idea of different cultures, people and their varied histories from the Aztecs to the Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese and Romans and Africa.

Whats more Looney (pardon the poor humour) is that many of the young Pakistani's studying abroad and who will go back to form part of the next batch of civil society/politicians/businessmen, even with the wealth of ideas and different cultures and perspectives in their adopted countries (UK/US/Europe), fail to understand their own DNA let alone their History or even countenance a different view.

It's hard when a non-Pakistani shows them that 2+2=4 and not 2+2= Fear India; The Enemy.

Case in point:

The tired refrain of:

"Democracy is rubbish yaar"
"Hitler was right about the Jews"
"Pakistani's are racially different to India; Indians are racially inferior"
"We need a dictator/Religious Right-wing Sharia (despite being western themselves in "Leisure" activities..."

And thats before the Family's Provincial/class prejudices kick in...

- Again, not all Pakistani's studying abroad but still a damn sight many.

 

[Tapori]

Oh, and Churchill's Mama liked men of all varieties; Including a talented black Musician; Freudian seeds for Winston's views on Eugenics, perhaps?

 

[chacha kashmiri]

Charles de gaulle was a good war time leader

 

[Saqs]

Interesting thread and posts.

 

[LethalSami]

Churchill was a MURDERER just like most cronies that ruled British India..

Shall he burn in the lowest levels of Hell...

 

[Legal Eye]

Think of the era guys, do not judge him by 2011 standards.

 

[Robert]

Bengal famine of 1943

Total deaths - 4 million

Had the British Army not destroyed the Bengalis' harvest, the Japanese Army would have seized it. So the Bengalis would have starved anyway, or been kept alive as slave labour. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time as two massive imperial powers were locked in a death struggle.

 

[James]

Very good thread.

I still refuse to call Churchill an overrated Briton because of his crucial role during the War. Without him, one could argue that we would all be speaking German if we'd even been born in the first place. However, he was probably an overrated human being.

 

[Markhor]

Very good thread.

I still refuse to call Churchill an overrated Briton because of his crucial role during the War. Without him, one could argue that we would all be speaking German if we'd even been born in the first place. However, he was probably an overrated human being.

Funnily enough,Adolf Hitler did not want to fight the British,and saw them as his natural ally.Hitler thought the British were part of his superior Aryan race.In Mein Kampf he makes numerous references to the British and how he wanted the German people to be more British.

Even with the war raging in 1940 he went again and again via the Swiss to offer Britain very generous peace terms and it was only with the realisation that Churchill would never deal with him that he gave up on the British.

The English were racially similar to his ideal of Germanic genetic superiority. Hitler knew that the Angles and Saxons (hence "Anglo-Saxons") were both Germanic tribes which had migrated to Britain in the 400s AD after the Roman legions abandoned Britannia.

Additional bloodlines of the British people included the Danes who were Nordic people and Normans who were also "Northmen" from Scandinavia. Of course the original inhabitants of the British Isles were Celtic peoples.

These bloodlines were all acceptable to Hitler who despised the Mediterranean and Slavic peoples as well as Africans, Asians, and Jewish people. Hitler would have shared the world hegemony with Britain if Churchill and the British had allowed it.

Hitler felt that Americans were "mongrelized" - mixed races

History does seem to be whitewashed by the victors. There is a gross oversimplification of Hitler = bad,Churchill = good.

Everyone acted like animals in the Second World War.Stalin's crimes were under-estimated and the Allied media portrayed him as a warm,'Uncle Joe' like figure.

Barring Mao,Stalin was the biggest mass murderer in history,more so than Hitler - yet since he was on the winning side - he is old 'Uncle Joe' - the cult of the personality,he industrialized Russia etc.

 

[James]

Aside from the true face of Stalin, I didn't know any of that. To what level have you studied history? Always enjoy your posts

 

[Markhor]

Up to A-Level but a lot of internet surfing and book reading.There was a survivor of a Concentration Camp wrote a letter to the United Nations explaining the importance of students studying history :-

Dear Teacher,

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should ever witness:

Gas chambers built by learned engineers;
Children poisoned by educated physicians;
Infants killed by trained nurses;
Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates;

So,I am suspicious of education.My request is: help your students become human.Your efforts must never produce learned monsters,skilled psychopaths,educated Eichmanns.

Reading,writing,arithmetic and history are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

 

[Robert]

Aye, Markhor.

 

[Tapori]

Markhor - Spot on.

Hitler rather reluctantly opened up the second front on Britain; His main focus was on his sworn enemy the Communists on the Eastern front.
Still think his admiration was of the Empire and methods of power acquisition in the world. Remember how quick he broke the Soviet-Pact.

Churchill was a damn fine wartime leader for Britain; He was no saint though.

He also had a large role in suppressing the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya to a brutal extent... So much so that Obama gave back the Churchill Bust in the Whitehouse (given to GW Bush) as his own Grandfather had been tortured in that uprising.

BBC's recent doc on Stalin was fascinating; stating he was more of a Psychopathic Gangster from Georgia than a Machiavellian schemer such as Hitler. Compared his rise like say, someone from Wigan or "up North" becoming a wartime leader... with that heavy accent in tact.

 

[Gabbar Singh]

Bit of a holy thread resurrection I know but I came across this article today which I suppose shows a slightly different side to Churchill. Although to be honest, I think it's pretty clear cut that Churchill was a racist and this is something even pro Churchill historians don't deny (they just blame the era that he lived in and the weak excuse that every Brit was racist back then).

Sir Winston Churchill’s family begged him not to convert to Islam, letter reveals



The family of Sir Winston Churchill urged him to “fight against” the desire to convert to Islam, a newly discovered letter has revealed.

The Prime Minister who led Britain to victory in World War Two was apparently so taken with Islam and the culture of the Orient that his family wrote to try and persuade him not to become a Muslim.

In a letter dated August 1907 Churchill’s soon to be sister-in-law wrote to him: “Please don’t become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise, Pasha-like tendencies, I really have.

“If you come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you know what I mean, do fight against it.”

The letter, discovered by a history research fellow at Cambridge University, Warren Dockter, was written by Lady Gwendoline Bertie who married Churchill’s brother Jack.

"Churchill never seriously considered converting," Dr Dockter told The Independent. "He was more or less an atheist by this time anyway. He did however have a fascination with Islamic culture which was common among Victorians."

Churchill had opportunity to observe Islamic society when he served as an officer of the British Army in Sudan. In a letter written to Lady Lytton in 1907 Churchill wrote that he “wished he were” a Pasha, which was a rank of distinction in the Ottoman Empire.

He even took to dressing in Arab clothes in private - an enthusiasm he shared with his good friend the poet Wilfrid S. Blunt. But Dr Dockter thinks Churchill's family need never have worried about his interest in Islam.

"[Lady Gwendoline Bertie] would have been worried because Churchill was leaving for an African tour and she would have known Churchill had been seeing his friend, Wilfrid S. Blunt, who was a renowned Arabist, anti-imperialist and poet. Though he and Churchill were friends and dressed in Arabian dress at times for Blunt's eccentric parties, they rarely agreed."

In 1940, when Churchill was leading Britain’s fight against Nazi Germany, he gave his support to plans to build what became the London Central Mosque in Regent’s Park - putting aside £100,000 for the purpose - in the hope of winning the support of Muslim countries in the war.

He later told the House of Commons that “many of our friends in Muslim countries” had expressed appreciated for this “gift”.

But while he was vocal in his admiration for Islam, Churchill was not uncritical. “The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men,” he wrote in his 1899 account of Sudan, The River War.

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralizes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.”

Dr Dockter, who assisted the London Mayor Boris Johnson on his book about Churchill, discovered the letter while researching his forthcoming book Winston Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/p...-convert-to-islam-letter-reveals-9946787.html

 

[GLORY OF '92]

To be honest moaning about about people being racist in the 19/20th century is pointless. Pretty much 99% of people were.

Even now I'd say most people have racist tendencies.

 

[AZ]

fascinating thread, I'd read about his anti-Islam views but this was quite an eye-opener.

many thanks to all the contributors, we've all mostly only been taught and regaled with Churchill's WW2 exploits.

 

[Thivagar]

Bengal famine of 1943

Total deaths - 4 million

Well its unfortunate if people from the sub-continent don't know their own history and what Churchill did. May Winston Churchill's soul burn in hell forever for this.

Read more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

I learned about the 1770 Famine where nearly 8 million people died and the Madras Famine not the Bengal famine of 1943. Didn't know it was late as 1940s. About 250 million people for that small size of land is pretty daunting. There is no doubt that the British made the situation worse.

 

[Robert]

Bengal famine of 1943

Total deaths - 4 million

Well its unfortunate if people from the sub-continent don't know their own history and what Churchill did. May Winston Churchill's soul burn in hell forever for this.

Read more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

Churchill didn't start the famine (due to a typhoon and a crop blight) and didn't exacerbate it (that was the result of poor administration within the Raj - the various admionstrative units could have help[ed the Bengalis but kept their own food surpluses for themselves.

Had Churchill sent a relief convoy it would likely have been sent to the bottom of the sea by the Japanese navy. Great Britain was just barely clinging on at the time and could not spare much food anyway.

The so-called 'liberator' of the free world,was a crank racist and extremely bigoted white supremacist and Zionist.Whilst a great wartime leader,was a poor peace time leader,clouded by his imperialist ideals.

The media and school education has indoctrinated the masses into thinking he was a great democrat,bringing peace and goodwill wherever he went.

What was the alternative, Markhor? Lord Halifax would have sold us out to Hitler. Great Britain would have become a Third Reich client state. Then you would have seen real racism in Britain.

Churchill wasn't a good guy and a disaster as a peacetime Minister, but he was exactly what we needed in 1940. This is where he took the fear and uncertainty in the Commons and turned it into unbreakable resolve:

I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs—Victory in spite of all terror—Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

 

[James]

Visited Churchill's bunker in Whitehall, pretty interesting, apparently he worked 20 hours per day throughout the war. He was clearly made of sterner stuff - of course this was also the problem sometimes as he was clearly not the nicest or fairest person.

 

[enkidu_]

It was casual racism, normal for its era. Back then, eugenics (the scientific manipulation of genetic studies to perennize or upgrade one's ethnic group or racial salubrity, with overt "discriminating" tones, for instance fighting inter-racial couples which would lead to collective "miscegenation") was a serious field of study. Majority of the West (and East)'s top intellectuals were what we'd call today "racists", including the mascot of peace, Mahatma Gandhi.

Very good thread.

I still refuse to call Churchill an overrated Briton because of his crucial role during the War. Without him, one could argue that we would all be speaking German if we'd even been born in the first place. However, he was probably an overrated human being.

Hitler was an Anglophile, that's well known, and in fact he warned the British that if they fight him, they'll lose their empire.

If the UK decided to remain neutral it would have kept its glorious empire today, which itself would have assured world-peace, considering that the US wouldn't be able to indulge into rogue imperialism.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KyoEx9DON7E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Buffet]

He was racist for sure but mainly positive stuff of leaders are projected. More applicable if a person was instrumental in winning wars.

 

[Crazy_K]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701767

 

[Laparwah]

More then a racist he was a nationalist who always wanted the best for his own country no matter what. We could do with a leader like that for sure.

 

[chacha kashmiri]

Winston fought in Sudan and Indian, lovde 'islamic areas' dressed in arab clothes in private and wished he was a pasha

This is without mentioning the 100k mosque he authorised to be built in central london in 1940

 

[NZcricketfan]

Poor planning by Churchill resulted in the needless deaths of thousands of NZ and australian soldiers at gallipoli

I don't have much respect for him

 

[enkidu_]

Winston fought in Sudan and Indian, lovde 'islamic areas' dressed in arab clothes in private and wished he was a pasha

This is without mentioning the 100k mosque he authorised to be built in central london in 1940

So it might have been an evolution like Voltaire : the French writer initially looked at the prophet (pbuh) with contempt, but in his later writings talked of Islam like a near-Muslim.

 

[Swanny]

Makes one wonder whether the phrase ' Indians & dogs not allowed ' came out of his brilliant mind.

 

[Robert]

Poor planning by Churchill resulted in the needless deaths of thousands of NZ and australian soldiers at gallipoli

I don't have much respect for him

The plan was fine. What went wrong was:

1. the RN Admiral bottled it. One of his battleships struck a mine and he pulled them all out. So the infantry had no fire support from the sea.

2. A British infantry division landed to support the ANZACS but did not move inland, and wasted 72 hours putting up tents and playing football on the beach. Eventually their General was told to get on with it, moved to take him objective but found that the Turks has fortified it just two hours previously.

So in other words, the British and Empire forces were lions led by donkey commanders in the field and on the waves. Even then, the operation would have succeeded but for the brilliance of Mustapha Kemal.

 

[enkidu_]

Makes one wonder whether the phrase ' Indians & dogs not allowed ' came out of his brilliant mind.

It's quite unsettling to contemplate the perennial hypocrisy of the West, which considers itself the paragon of civilization and responsible enough to 'civilize' others, behave this way.

Ancient Egyptians, Greeks (who have nothing to do with modern West, by the way), Indians, ... all produced a high civilization, at one time or the other overshadowing the rest (esp. the current West), but how many of them were involved in such brutally simplistic display of sheer racism ? And, esp., how many not only claimed to be superior, but even to bring their 'high values' to others ? Back then, they were either modest or, when conquerors, honest enough to admit that they just where there for the loot (I don't think Babur and the Mughals wanted to 'civilize' Indians... at least, he didn't use zoological metaphors for them.)

But Churchill is not an exception : the very father of 'Western humanism', the 14th century Florentine poet Petrarch, apart from looking with contempt at philosophy, logic and natural sciences (which isn't really "humanistic"), went ballistic a dozen of times over the "Saracens" (if he knew of Indians, that wouldn't have been different). Also look at the "Enlightenment" philosophers like Voltaire on Black peoples, or Western major writers sharing in common an irrational anti-Semitism.

Nowadays, the US crystallizes the best this hypocrisy.

 

[Swanny]

Very good thread.

I still refuse to call Churchill an overrated Briton because of his crucial role during the War. Without him, one could argue that we would all be speaking German if we'd even been born in the first place. However, he was probably an overrated human being.

Really? Would the world be poor for it if we were speaking german or japenese ?
How can you claim one colonial power to have moral high ground towards its colonies ?

 

[Robert]

Really? Would the world be poor for it if we were speaking german or japenese ?
How can you claim one colonial power to have moral high ground towards its colonies ?

Yes, because the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese really were the worst, carrying out mass exterminations and mass slave labour operations.

 

[enkidu_]

Yes, because the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese really were the worst, carrying out mass exterminations and mass slave labour operations.

Like the Bengal famine.

 

[Robert]

Like the Bengal famine.

No, not like that at all.

The British Empire would not purposefully starve part of itself - it would make no economic sense to do so. That Famine wasn't deliberate, it was a combination of natural disaster, crop disease and Raj bureaucratic mismanagement, so stop raising false equivalences.

Setting up a transcontinental rail network just to murder thirteen million people - that was deliberate. The Rape of Nanking, enforced prostitution on a massive scale to service an army, ten million Chinese civilians enslaved, wholesale slaughter of defenseless civilians in Korea and China using chemical and biological agents - those were deliberate.

The British Empire perpetrated horrors, but nothing on that scale.

 

[Swanny]

So i should be thankful towards the british crown i guess.

 

[Swanny]

The imperialism was one of the worst chapters in human history. Most of the european powers used the colonies to fight their bloody wars.

 

[Robert]

So i should be thankful towards the british crown i guess.

No, bearing in mind atrocity such as the Massacre of Amritsar - but had India fallen under Imperial Japanese rule, things would have got much, much worse for the Indians. It's difficult to explain how bad. Look up the Rape of Nanking.

 

[Abhilash93]

"I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes."
Churchill writing as president of the Air Council, 1919.

"Why Gandhi hasn't died yet? "
Churchill's only response to a telegram from the government in Delhi about people perishing in the famine.


"I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place."
Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937

"I hate Indians, They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine is their own fault of breeding like rabbits."
Churchill to the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery.

"The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed."
Churchill to Asquith, 1910

 

[chacha kashmiri]

So it might have been an evolution like Voltaire : the French writer initially looked at the prophet (pbuh) with contempt, but in his later writings talked of Islam like a near-Muslim.

Churchill fell in love with 'islamic' culture later on in life, rather than with Mohammed as voltaire did


Not too dissimilar to queen victoria and her affair with abdul hafiz karim

 

[Markhor]

An MP of a so-called centre-left party hailing an ardent imperialist, eugenicist, and white supremacist.

This is in response to John McDonnell replying villain at an event to the question "Winston Churchill - hero or villain ?"

Think my OP from 8 years ago answers that question.

 

[Robert]

View attachment 88084

An MP of a so-called centre-left party hailing an ardent imperialist, eugenicist, and white supremacist.

This is in response to John McDonnell replying villain at an event to the question "Winston Churchill - hero or villain ?"

Think my OP from 8 years ago answers that question.

Churchill’s legacy is complex and problematic [MENTION=53290]Markhor[/MENTION]. Yes he was a racial supremacist. Yes, he had a rotten attitude to British workers’ rights. Even in the 1930s a lot of Tory MPs found his views risible.

Yet he was the only Tory that Labour would accept as PM of the wartime government. Look at that scene at the end of Darkest Hour where the Tories sit in silence while the Labour benches applaud. Hollywood history you might say, but accurate in that some aristocratic Tories admired Hitler while Labour knew he had to be fought.

But for him, Great Britain would have become a Nazi client state - think what that would have meant for Europe. Instead of the liberal democratic rules-based order we see now, the continent would be ruled by Nazi or Soviet totalitarianism perhaps to this day.

Indians might say - well at least we would be free of the British. Except that without Churchill they would have fallen to the Imperial Japanese instead.

I think he was the right man in 1940 - indeed the only man. But by 1945 his job was done. I think it was a shame that the nation turned against Attlee in 1951 and returned him as PM. There was room for one last atrocity in Kenya as the Kikuyu were dispersed and slaughtered.

 

[Thomaskutty]

Churchill’s legacy is complex and problematic
But for him, Great Britain would have become a Nazi client state - think what that would have meant for Europe.

Stalin did more to stop Nazism than anyone else but we don't see anybody celebrating him.

If the argument is Stalin killed his own people with Gulags or whatever, then so did Churchill with the Bengal famine. He shipped food out of India and refused aid ships from USA and Australia to India.

 

[Robert]

Stalin did more to stop Nazism than anyone else but we don't see anybody celebrating him.

If the argument is Stalin killed his own people with Gulags or whatever, then so did Churchill with the Bengal famine. He shipped food out of India and refused aid ships from USA and Australia to India.

Nobody celebrates Stalin because he was as much a totalitarian as Hitler. In fact he murdered more of his own people and set up a regime as tyrannical as Nazism which covered more of the Earth and lasted for decades longer.

Reducing a multi-causal famine event to the actions of one man is mendacious. Churchill could have saved some lives but millions of Indians and Nepalese would have died of starvation whatever he did.

 

[barah_admi]

Nobody celebrates Stalin because he was as much a totalitarian as Hitler. In fact he murdered more of his own people and set up a regime as tyrannical as Nazism which covered more of the Earth and lasted for decades longer.

Reducing a multi-causal famine event to the actions of one man is mendacious. Churchill could have saved some lives but millions of Indians and Nepalese would have died of starvation whatever he did.

Reading some your posts u just shake my head. You are so poorly misinformed.

 

[Robert]

Reading some your posts u just shake my head. You are so poorly misinformed.

Weak post. You resort to ridicule because you have no answer to my arguments.

 

[barah_admi]

Weak post. You resort to ridicule because you have no answer to my arguments.

Your argument is weak and has been countered in maybe 20 posts on here.

Your basic premise is "Oh Churchill wasn't so bad"...you have papered over one of the worst acts by the British government in its entire history, the starvation of close to 4 million Bengalis in what was done British land, people who were then supposed to be citizens of the empire. He had every power to stop the famine, to stop the starvation, to send food, aid, medicine but he refused to do so and he also refused the intervention of other governments and British departments. He personally and professionally refused and allowed the deaths of millions.

Can you counter that with historical fact or just personal opinion?

 

[barah_admi]

Churchill’s legacy is complex and problematic [MENTION=53290]Markhor[/MENTION]. Yes he was a racial supremacist. Yes, he had a rotten attitude to British workers’ rights. Even in the 1930s a lot of Tory MPs found his views risible.

Yet he was the only Tory that Labour would accept as PM of the wartime government. Look at that scene at the end of Darkest Hour where the Tories sit in silence while the Labour benches applaud. Hollywood history you might say, but accurate in that some aristocratic Tories admired Hitler while Labour knew he had to be fought.

But for him, Great Britain would have become a Nazi client state - think what that would have meant for Europe. Instead of the liberal democratic rules-based order we see now, the continent would be ruled by Nazi or Soviet totalitarianism perhaps to this day.

Indians might say - well at least we would be free of the British. Except that without Churchill they would have fallen to the Imperial Japanese instead.

I think he was the right man in 1940 - indeed the only man. But by 1945 his job was done. I think it was a shame that the nation turned against Attlee in 1951 and returned him as PM. There was room for one last atrocity in Kenya as the Kikuyu were dispersed and slaughtered.

This "but for Churchill the Nazis would have won" is a false argument. Yes he had some good speeches (I wonder who wrote them) and yes he managed to unite, to a large degree, the warring factions within parliament but a war will do that to any country. Let us not forget the Russians and later, the US, played a far bigger role in the destruction of the Nazis across Europe and Africa. Let us also not forget that the british soldiers, across all parts of the army, were far greater heroes and many of Churchill's direct tactics were huge failures.

In fact, as a war time leader, he was also a war criminal, flagrantly disregarding internatonal law and the rules of engagement set out in the years following the treat of Versaille. The man was just as mad with bloodlust as Hitler, Stalin and many others at the time.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

The British barely considered Indians as human beings back in the days of empire, and there was no concept of racism back then. When the first wave of immigrants arrived from the Caribbean landlords would put up signs saying No Blacks, No Irish No Dogs.

Winston believed in the superiority of the British race and so did most other British people of the time. In fact many would argue he was right.

 

[Robert]

Your argument is weak and has been countered in maybe 20 posts on here.

Your basic premise is "Oh Churchill wasn't so bad"...you have papered over one of the worst acts by the British government in its entire history, the starvation of close to 4 million Bengalis in what was done British land, people who were then supposed to be citizens of the empire. He had every power to stop the famine, to stop the starvation, to send food, aid, medicine but he refused to do so and he also refused the intervention of other governments and British departments. He personally and professionally refused and allowed the deaths of millions.

Can you counter that with historical fact or just personal opinion?

I am the one thinking pluralistically here, thinking aboiut all the causes of the Famine. You have reduced it to simple matter of good vs evil.

Churchill had some limited power. He chose to use that to save lives in Greece instead. Yes, that was Eurocentric, that was racist of him. He could have instricted the provincial administrators not to hoard the remaining food. But the bridges had been cut to slow the Japanese advance. People somewhere were going to die whatever he did because there was a cataclysm going on.

But he couldn't prevent a typhoon detroying the harvest. He couldn't prevent a blight devestating the reserves. He couldn't prevent millions of refugees streaming into Bengal ahead of the Japanese advance. I acknowledge that he has a share in the blame, but will you accept that God was to blame for the storm and the blight, and the Japanese were responsible for the refugee wave?

 

[barah_admi]

I am the one thinking pluralistically here, thinking aboiut all the causes of the Famine. You have reduced it to simple matter of good vs evil.

Churchill had some limited power. He chose to use that to save lives in Greece instead. Yes, that was Eurocentric, that was racist of him. He could have instricted the provincial administrators not to hoard the remaining food. But the bridges had been cut to slow the Japanese advance. People somewhere were going to die whatever he did because there was a cataclysm going on.

But he couldn't prevent a typhoon detroying the harvest. He couldn't prevent a blight devestating the reserves. He couldn't prevent millions of refugees streaming into Bengal ahead of the Japanese advance. I acknowledge that he has a share in the blame, but will you accept that God was to blame for the storm and the blight, and the Japanese were responsible for the refugee wave?

Limited powers? Was he not the most powerful man in Britain? Were other governments not willing to provide aid to Bengal? And the number one cause of the famine was not that there was not enough food (production had only dropped 6% below the norm of someo ther provinces) the problem was the re-direction of food from Bengal to other parts of the world, to such a large extent, that an entire province was starved.

There was enough food being product throughout India to be used both for the local population and for the white part of the British war effort.

AND finally, I am all for your cosy pluralistic approach, but you must then be able to take it for other leaders, from Stalin to HItler to Mussolini but I doubt you would provide a pluralistic argument, on here on in your real life for Hitler. Would you?

 

[Robert]

This "but for Churchill the Nazis would have won" is a false argument. Yes he had some good speeches (I wonder who wrote them) and yes he managed to unite, to a large degree, the warring factions within parliament but a war will do that to any country. Let us not forget the Russians and later, the US, played a far bigger role in the destruction of the Nazis across Europe and Africa. Let us also not forget that the british soldiers, across all parts of the army, were far greater heroes and many of Churchill's direct tactics were huge failures.

In fact, as a war time leader, he was also a war criminal, flagrantly disregarding internatonal law and the rules of engagement set out in the years following the treat of Versaille. The man was just as mad with bloodlust as Hitler, Stalin and many others at the time.

Halifax would have done a deal with Hitler- in this case the US would never have entered the war and Europe would have fallen under Nazi rule - perhaps replaced eventually by Soviet rule. Totalitarianism either way.

Similarly, Moscow would have fallen in 1942 had it not been for the Murmansk convoys - Britain sent them every spare plane, tank and shell. Stalin himself admitted this.

I accept that Churchill was a liberator of white European people only. He didn't care about anyone else. But without him Europe would not be the set of liberal democracies it is today. Macron and Merkel said as much.

 

[mani1]

All I remember Churchill for was the guy whom with by far the best Navy in the world got defeated, demoted and humiliated by a country with out a Navy.

I guess the liquid courage he was known for wasn't passed around to the others in the war effort.

 

[Robert]

Limited powers? Was he not the most powerful man in Britain? Were other governments not willing to provide aid to Bengal? And the number one cause of the famine was not that there was not enough food (production had only dropped 6% below the norm of someo ther provinces) the problem was the re-direction of food from Bengal to other parts of the world, to such a large extent, that an entire province was starved.

There was enough food being product throughout India to be used both for the local population and for the white part of the British war effort.

AND finally, I am all for your cosy pluralistic approach, but you must then be able to take it for other leaders, from Stalin to HItler to Mussolini but I doubt you would provide a pluralistic argument, on here on in your real life for Hitler. Would you?

Limited power in the face of natural disaster, of course.

The whole point of a famine is that there is not enough food. If there were enough food in India there would have been no famine. There was not enough for "the white part" either - Britain was close to surrender from starvation despite cutting down most of the forest and planting, and would have done without US help.

By pluralism I mean the factors which caused the Famine, rather than just one of many.

 

[Robert]

All I remember Churchill for was the guy whom with by far the best Navy in the world got defeated, demoted and humiliated by a country with out a Navy.

I guess the liquid courage he was known for wasn't passed around to the others in the war effort.

Come again? Which country?

 

[mani1]

Come again? Which country?

Turkey the country known centuries earlier as the sick man of Europe

 

[barah_admi]

Limited power in the face of natural disaster, of course.

The whole point of a famine is that there is not enough food. If there were enough food in India there would have been no famine. There was not enough for "the white part" either - Britain was close to surrender from starvation despite cutting down most of the forest and planting, and would have done without US help.

By pluralism I mean the factors which caused the Famine, rather than just one of many.

Again, you either fail to read correctly or ignore factual points. India produced more than enough food at that point to feed itself and the rest of Britain, it still does actually. Agricultural specialists estimate that the drop off in food production in west Bengal was only 6%, if food had been allowed to be diverted from the rest of the country and from other countries who were willing to help (the US and Australia for starters), the famine would have been diverted. Natural disasters did not cause the deaths of 4 million people, the policies of the British government and in particular, its major leader, did.

Can you actually counter that point or this discussion is at an end.

 

[aloo paratha]

I've heard that his last move in WW2 was to drop bombs on innocent Germans once they were already down and out. Is this true?

 

[barah_admi]

I've heard that his last move in WW2 was to drop bombs on innocent Germans once they were already down and out. Is this true?

Last act? I have no idea but man yyears before the end of the war, he and the RAF think tank were the ones who came up with the idea of civilian bombings and purposefully targeted German territory, with the aim of destroying homes, roads, hospitals, schools etc. The way we learn it in our schools in Britain, is that the Luftwaffe first attacked our civilian centers which is a complete lie.

 

[Robert]

Again, you either fail to read correctly or ignore factual points. India produced more than enough food at that point to feed itself and the rest of Britain, it still does actually. Agricultural specialists estimate that the drop off in food production in west Bengal was only 6%, if food had been allowed to be diverted from the rest of the country and from other countries who were willing to help (the US and Australia for starters), the famine would have been diverted. Natural disasters did not cause the deaths of 4 million people, the policies of the British government and in particular, its major leader, did.

Can you actually counter that point or this discussion is at an end.

I don’t believe that India could have fed Britain. Maybe in peacetime when shipping was not interrupted by the U-boats. But Britain was a month off starvation in 1943 and was only kept going by the Atlantic convoys from the US and Canada.

The Raj administrators could have sent food to help the Bengalis but chose to hoard it, fearing that it would be taken by the Japanese advance.

The famine came back under control in 1944 when the British and Indian Armies pushed the Japanese back, freeing some soldiers up to distribute food from the other provinces. Moreover many Nepalese refugees were able to return to their Holland freeing up resources for the Bengalis.

 

[Robert]

I've heard that his last move in WW2 was to drop bombs on innocent Germans once they were already down and out. Is this true?

It is not. The RAF-USAAF bombing campaign was winding down by January 1945 and ended in February, two months before the German surrender. Basically there was nothing significant left to destroy, and Harris and Spaatz would no longer risk their airmen.

The USAAF fighter arm, however, was ordered down onto the deck to strafe anything which moved, right up to the ceasefire.

 

[Major]

Stalin did more to stop Nazism than anyone else but we don't see anybody celebrating him.

If the argument is Stalin killed his own people with Gulags or whatever, then so did Churchill with the Bengal famine. He shipped food out of India and refused aid ships from USA and Australia to India.

Stalin was no different then Hitler. Only difference was that Stalin was with the Allieds.

The only reason Stalin stopped Nazism was because he was interested in making his own empire.

When Poland was ruled by Nazi germany and the Red army forces were near Warsaw, the soviets broadcasted on radio motive the the Polish freedom fighters. Once the Polish freedom fighters started to take over, they waited for the Red Army to come in and sweep off the Nazis. But Stalin didn't allow this, as he wanted the Germans to kill the polish fighters as they were pro western and not communists.

Stalin wanted Poland to be a buffer zone and use it in the long run for his communism. ANd thats what happened. WHen the polish were left on their own, the Germans ended up killing the rebelions. Once the pro western rebelions were killed only then the Red Army intervened, this helped the Soviet Union in the long run as they were able to influence their Communis views there.

Churchill and Stalin had made the naughty document aswell. Even before the war had ended they were discussing how they were to divide the law and who gets to influnce what country. I dont remember correctly, but 4-5 countries were decided where The British and the Soviets will have their influence. (e.x it was decideed that the British would have i think 90% influence in Greece), the countries that were left were to be decided upon winner takes all.

Thus, the Red Army was racing towards Berlin from one end, while from the opposite End the British forces were racing upon.

So you seee, Stalin was more interested in building his empire. He was no different than the Nazi Govt.

 

[Robert]

When Poland was ruled by Nazi germany and the Red army forces were near Warsaw, the soviets broadcasted on radio motive the the Polish freedom fighters. Once the Polish freedom fighters started to take over, they waited for the Red Army to come in and sweep off the Nazis. But Stalin didn't allow this, as he wanted the Germans to kill the polish fighters as they were pro western and not communists.

Stalin wanted Poland to be a buffer zone and use it in the long run for his communism. ANd thats what happened. WHen the polish were left on their own, the Germans ended up killing the rebelions. Once the pro western rebelions were killed only then the Red Army intervened, this helped the Soviet Union in the long run as they were able to influence their Communis views there.k

Churchill and Stalin had made the naughty document aswell. Even before the war had ended they were discussing how they were to divide the law and who gets to influnce what country. I dont remember correctly, but 4-5 countries were decided where The British and the Soviets will have their influence. (e.x it was decideed that the British would have i think 90% influence in Greece), the countries that were left were to be decided upon winner takes all.



So you seee, Stalin was more interested in building his empire. He was no different than the Nazi Govt.

Yep, the Allies divvied up Europe and the Middle East on the back of an envelope at Potsdam. It had bad consequences we see to this day.

Churchill was becoming less important as the USA and USSR became colossi while the British Empire creaked on the point of bankruptcy and collapse, and FDR and Uncle Joe knew it. FDR broke the Empire with debt and forfeiture of GB business interests in the US territories.