Yesterday saw a piece questioning Churchill’s legacy. Today we feature some responses
• Ira Maine writes:
Between 1900 and 1950 we had the Great War, the Depression and the Hitler War. In between there was precious little time for anything other than keeping your head down and trying to avoid being killed. This meant that the majority of 19th century Victorian values sailed untrammelled, virgo intacta, right through to the 1950’s. In the 1950’s, a Victorian ‘morality’ insisted that Presley’s pelvis be covered up and that out-of-wedlock pregnant women be ostracized. Kids comics of the period emphasized a ‘straight bat’ and a ‘good chaps’ philosophy which had more in common with Kipling than mid twentieth century reality. Churches were full and guilt, Hell and damnation were still being preached to an appreciative audience from pulpits everywhere.
My point here is that it wasn’t just Churchill who hated wogs. It was part of a national way of thinking, a way of life which reflected the Darwinian view of ‘the survival of the fittest.’ The Brits believed that they were ‘the fittest’ and therefore superior. Any other group who had failed to live up to British ‘civilized values’, like the Africans, Indians, American Indians, Australian aborigines (and the Irish) were ‘unfit’ and therefore doomed to extinction. Bumping a few off merely accelerated the process.
I too believe Churchill was a thoroughly unpleasant individual but his racism only reflected the attitude of the Empire as a whole.
(My wife’s) Cockney Uncle Bill, dead these ten or more years, (God rest his soul) was almost ninety, and maintained a thoroughly superior attitude to all and sundry. He was a typical product of Empire, a dispatch rider in London during the Blitz and as thick as bottled shit. He honestly believed in the propaganda that suggested that,simply by being English, he belonged to a superior group of people.
• Anthony Eames:
Talk to the French about Churchill and you get a very equivocal response.
Apart from the RAF bombing raids that killed many French civilians in Northern France*, there was his decision to destroy the French Fleet while it was peacefully at anchor in French Algeria. This was despite the solemn, treaty-backed assurances of the Vichy government that its ships would remain uninvolved in the war with either of the protagonists, Germany or Britain. Throughout, Germany respected this agreement, which was a key part of their peace terms with France.
Churchill decided he could not face the risk of the sizeable French fleet being taken over by the Germans. So, on 3 July 1940, while it was lying helplessly at anchor at Mers-el-Kébir, the fleet was ordered by a Royal Navy battle squadron to either join it and sail to Britain, scuttle every ship or be blasted out of the water. The French, understandably, frantically prepared to defend themselves but their ships were pulverised, with one of their battleships sunk, many other vessels disabled and 1,297 French servicemen killed.
Despite his proclaimed love for France, Churchill was no sentimentalist.
*My father’s brother, a Lancaster skipper, was shot down over Northern France. He and one of his men were the only crew members to manage to bail out. They were promptly placed against a farmhouse wall and shot by local villagers angered by the death toll caused by the RAF’s bombs in their area. Not much anglophilia evident there!
• Paddy O’Cearmada:
I was a little boy of 7 in England when his death and funeral occurred. I still remember a special school assembly at the St Francis of Assisi Primary School at Caterham on the Hill to mark the occasion. He was the last Imperialist full of the prejudices of ruling the world. Not much respect for Australian military forces, Gallipoli and the Greek Campaign spring to mind. And without him the world could very well be different. No hero of mine, no saint, arguably much less than either, but as a symbol and a beacon in the worst of times, a figure we can’t ignore.
TOMORROW Quentin Cockburn presents and alternative narrative.
