It would spread a lively terror
Shashi Tharoor points out that the Hollywood Churchill was first the mass murderer Churchill.
During World War II, Churchill declared himself in favor of “terror bombing.” He wrote that he wanted “absolutely devastating, exterminating attacks by very heavy bombers.” Horrors such as the firebombing of Dresden were the result.
In the fight for Irish independence, Churchill, in his capacity as secretary of state for war and air, was one of the few British officials in favor of bombing Irish protesters, suggesting in 1920 that airplanes should use “machine-gun fire or bombs” to scatter them.
Like what the fascists carried out in Guernica, but decades earlier. The fact that Churchill liked the idea doesn’t mean it happened, and I don’t think it did, though there was plenty of violence without that – but the fact that Churchill was keen is of interest.
Dealing with unrest in Mesopotamia in 1921, as secretary of state for the colonies, Churchill acted as a war criminal: “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilised tribes; it would spread a lively terror.” He ordered large-scale bombing of Mesopotamia, with an entire village wiped out in 45 minutes.
In Afghanistan, Churchill declared that the Pashtuns “needed to recognise the superiority of [the British] race” and that “all who resist will be killed without quarter.” He wrote: “We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation. … Every tribesman caught was speared or cut down at once.”
In Kenya, Churchill either directed or was complicit in policies involving the forced relocation of local people from the fertile highlands to make way for white colonial settlers and the forcing of more than 150,000 people into concentration camps. Rape, castration, lit cigarettes on tender spots, and electric shocks were all used by the British authorities to torture Kenyans under Churchill’s rule.
But the principal victims of Winston Churchill were the Indians — “a beastly people with a beastly religion,” as he charmingly called them. He wanted to use chemical weapons in India but was shot down by his cabinet colleagues, whom he criticized for their “squeamishness,” declaring that “the objections of the India Office to the use of gas against natives are unreasonable.”
Figuratively shot down that is, which is not what he had in mind for the Indians.
This isn’t one of those “yes but things were different then” situations. Churchill was way out there even for 1920 or 1940. (Also, we don’t give Roosevelt the “different times” excuse for the internments; he was wrong and he had plenty of people telling him he was wrong.)
In such matters, Churchill was the most reactionary of Englishmen, with views so extreme they cannot be excused as being reflective of their times. Even his own secretary of state for India, Leopold Amery, confessed that he could see very little difference between Churchill’s attitude and Adolf Hitler’s.
Thanks to Churchill, some 4 million Bengalis starved to death in a 1943 famine. Churchill ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers and even to top up European stockpiles in Greece and elsewhere. When reminded of the suffering of his Indian victims, his response was that the famine was their own fault, he said, for “breeding like rabbits.”
Not just a cute old geezer with a cigar and and a gift for rhetoric.
I suspect Churchill would have been considered ‘out there’ in his attitudes even 100 years previously (although he certainly would have had company). It’s very faint consolation (i.e. none). but he seemed to have a much concern for the lives of English and ANZAC troops in WW1 as for original peoples.
Undoubtedly the right man for the moment in WW2, but otherwise a dangerous and barely competent fool.
It was probably that same determination and ruthlessness that made him the right man for the job of leading Britain’s fight against Hitler in WW2, when so many around him were handwringing fools.
But his career just goes to illustrate that our human evolution out of small bands of 30-60 or so individuals has not equipped any of us for holding power over the lives of thousands and millions.
A despicable imperialist, despite all his rally-round-the-flag speechifying.
Rob, two decades after the ANZACs Churchill obliged the 2nd Australian Imperial Force, in its transport convoy, to sail from Ceylon to Western Australia without an escort.
He cancelled the escort in a fit of pique after the Australian government diverted the AIF from Java to Australia.
I suppose that was to remind the ANZACs not to be so uppity and to show proper respect to the homeland.
The Iraq bombing quote, with the same careful elisions, has circulated for decades. In the full letter, Churchill is arguing that tear gas could be used more freely, and with less ‘collateral harm’ than leafleting followed by strafing/bombing.
At a time when the RAF was being used to intimidate violent groups, his argument was an attempt to do LESS harm. Not that anyone shouldn’t cringe at his words, even when taken in full.
If I remember correctly, he also held (at least initially) a somewhat less-than-skeptical view of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A quick Google search yielded several results, but I can’t personally vouch for the sources. I first read about it in Voodoo Histories: the Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch.
Yes Churchill is one of the sacred cows of Western Civilization. It is right and proper to call him out on many aspects of his behavior and on his actions over the years. He’s responsible for the deaths of many innocent civilians, and often times his judgement lacked all nuance.
Shashi Tharoor is a South Asian giving an opinion on Churchill, a famous Western political figure. It would only be fair, then, that a Westerner have an opinion on Ghandi, a famous South Asian political figure.
Ghandi, to say the least, would never be working in Hollywood were he alive today. His penchant for sleeping with underage girls is a FACT western biographers of The Mahatma rarely mention. What’s more, his sexual proclivities, to the consternation of some, simply cannot be placed at the feet of colonialism or Western Imperialism. His character couldn’t hold a candle to Churchill’s and his leadership left India weakend, impoverished and partitioned
Oh go on, John, say what you really mean. Shashi Tharoor is a wog, so it’s only fair that a white man should search his memory for another wog in order to say what’s wrong with him.
I’d recommend Tharoor’s book “Inglorious Empire”, a history of the British Raj in India, one atrocity after another.
Omar@2
Most of those ‘handwringing fools’ probably had a realistic view of Britain’s prospect of surviving a war with Nazi Germany which was about zero.The old warmonger and the British were extremely lucky that the Soviet Union and the US entered the war. The UK voters dumped Churchill and his government very quickly once the war was won.
John, by ‘opinion’ do you perhaps mean ‘researched, factually accurate article complete with citations’? A typo I’m sure.
@10
The links I supplied concerning Tharoor were deleted. That’s B&W’s shame, not mine. Articles from The Times of India are apparently racist. How else to portray embarrassing truths?
Forget Ghandi a moment and look up this man on Wiki.(for a start)
Western men suspected of sexual improprities are denounced on these pages. Non-western men suspected of being involved in their wife’s death are…fêted. Their suspected deeds *Rotherhamed*, their toxic hack jobs, dignent d’une anencephalique legume, presented as highbrow.
Expediencies for The Narrative.
What’s next at B&W? Links to a tome by O.J. on the racism of Nicole Brown Simpson?
John, I deleted the two replies you sent yesterday because they were venomously unhinged, as your comments so often are. Your venom and frequent incoherence is why all your comments require approval before they appear.
It’s true that you included some links in one of the comments I threw away.
It’s not a matter of “shame” to delete unhinged hostile comments. I’ve always curated comments here. Yours veer way too far into trumpesque ranting way too often.