Why I am not uncritical about Winston Churchill.

If we are determined to be wise we must de-construct and examine  our personal, social, religious and national myths.

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The 2017 film  “The Darkest Hour” has once again fanned the embers of interest in Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.  Churchill played an important  role in British History (1940-45), to the extent that he has been lionized to the point of idolization.

1. It’s most likely that he got the job of Prime Minister because no one else wanted it (and he wanted it badly).  He built a strong coalition Cabinet.  

2. And to most British people he was the rock of stability in those dreadfully uncertain and dangerous years.

3.He could be an irritant to his Generals when he wanted to micro-manage military strategy.

4. He treated Charles de Gaulle most shamefully.

5. Roosevelt thought him to be pesky “pain in the neck”, but he knew that the Old Man was susceptible to flattery.

6. Stalin knew this too.

7. He was thrown out of Office in 1945 because the British working people knew that he would never have their best interests in his heart (When Home Secretary he had mobilised the troops against striking workers).

(See this for clarification).

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

8. He was an unrepentant imperialist who wrote that Gandhi should be tied to the gates of Delhi, and then trampled to death by a large elephant bearing the Viceroy of India.

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With this in mind I have been in some correspondence with friends about the power of national myths (e.g. the myth of young George Washington and the Cherry Tree which gives expression to our hope that the President of the U.S.A should be truthful beyond reproach).

Seventy years on after WWII the myths of Churchill still dominate much political discourse in the U.K.(Some people still say “If only Churchill were here now”)

9. We must reject the uncritical myth of “Saint Winston the Perfect”, and whilst acknowledging his greatness also give due attention to his very dark side.

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• 10. Churchill on Eugenics from a site friendly to him

            https://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour-extras/churchill-and-eugenics-1/

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11.Churchill on the use of gas in warfare from:

• Paris, 24 January 1919. Churchill: A Life. Gilbert, Martin (1992). New York: Holt, p. 408. ISBN 9780805023961

• I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected … We cannot, in any circumstances acquiesce to the non-utilisation of any weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier.
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12. On White Supremacy: Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937

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.

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If we are determined to be wise we must de-construct and examine  our personal, social, religious and national myths.