It appears that the government of the United Kingdom loaned George W. Bush a prized bust of Winston Churchill, and that W gave the statue a prominent place in the oval office. But when the British offered to let Barack Obama hold on to the bust during his administration’s tenure, the President declined.
Why, many wonder, wouldn’t the new President want to look to Churchill’s bronzed mug for inspiration as he governs our republic? Why wouldn’t he want to enjoy gazing upon the face of the legendary cigar-chomping Prime Minister?
Well, maybe it is because Churchill was an unabashed imperialist and hard-core racist.
Americans tend to view Churchill as a heroic wartime leader. And yes, he was impressive as Britain held off the Nazis in the Second World War. But Churchill also held abhorrent and inhumane beliefs. He threw around the word "savage" the way a college student says "like."
[ Crossposted at www.ihatewhatyoujustsaid.com ]
Let’s have a look at some of Churchill’s thoughts throughout his career, shall we?
-On imperialism:
I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race has come in and taken their place.
Dog. Got it.
-On India:
Churchill, speaking of the Indian people, said that he had a difficult time dealing with "the humiliation of being kicked out of India by the beastliest people in the world next to the Germans."
And he really didn’t like that Gandhi guy (you know, the way he wanted to be treated as if he were a human being and all). Churchill:
It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.
And, more to the point:
I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.
-And on the Sudanese, whom he observed as they were gunned down:
The huge area contains many differences of climate and conditions, and these have produced peculiar and diverse breeds of men. The Soudanese [sic] are of many tribes, but two main races can be clearly distinguished: the aboriginal natives, and the Arab settlers. The indigenous inhabitants of the country were negroes as black as coal. Strong, virile, and simple-minded savages, they lived as we may imagine prehistoric men - hunting, fighting, marrying, and dying, with no ideas beyond the gratification of their physical desires, and no fears save those engendered by ghosts, witchcraft, the worship of ancestors, and other forms of superstition common among peoples of low development. They displayed the virtues of barbarism. They were brave and honest. The smallness of their intelligence excused the degradation of their habits. Their ignorance secured their innocence. Yet their eulogy must be short, for though their customs, language, and appearance vary...the history of all is a confused legend of strife and misery, their natures are uniformly cruel and thriftless, and their condition is one of equal squalor and want.
And on those Sudanese of so-called mixed race:
The qualities of mongrels are rarely admirable, and the mixture of the Arab and negro types has produced a debased and cruel breed, more shocking because they are more intelligent than the primitive savages.
-On his plan for forced sterilization of inferior types:
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.
-And, finally, much has been said about President Obama’s Kenyan heritage. Well, Churchill was in his second stint as P.M. when the British governnment began its brutal campaign to suppress the alleged "Mau Mau" uprising in Kenya, in order to protect the privileges of the white settler population at the expense of the Kikuyu and other indigenous people. About 11,00 Kenyans were killed and 81,000 detained during the government’s campaign to protect its imperialist heritage.
It is true that many of Churchill’s most offensive opinions were not uncommon. But they are also hateful and disgusting, and not the sort of thing that I think a twenty-first century president should seek to emulate. And yes, some of these thoughts, like those on the Sudanese, were expressed when he was young. But Churchill underwent no great enlightenment - his thoughts on Gandhi and India, for example, were expressed when he was quite old. Hence, his bigotry was a long-standing pattern in his life, not an aberration.
So if the Luftwaffe starts bombing Washington or New York, then maybe President Obama should look to Churchill for some inspiration and ask for that bust back. But until then, it’s OK with me if Obama chooses not to emulate Churchill.
[ www.ihatewhatyoujustsaid.com ]