Winston Churchill, the Right and Islam
Unlike most Americans, I didn’t come to my understanding of Winston Churchill through the lens of his finest hour, defending Britain and the West from the horrors of Nazism.
As a young man, I was fascinated instead by the First World War. In that conflict Churchill was — to put it mildly — a disaster.
Based in part on a racist (and therefore inaccurate) assessment of the Turkish military, Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, insisted on trying to send an invasion force to take the Gallipoli Peninsula.
The campaign was a botched and bloody disaster, still commemorated around the world as Anzac Day. It nearly ended his career.
Before and after the debacle of 1915, Churchill was a gladbag of bizarre and outdated theories about racial superiority, the joys of war, and the reasonableness of genocide when it served the ends of “civilization.’
I say outdated because by the 1900s, when his career was in full-swing, these weren’t the views of Britains or Westerners in general.
Churchill wasn’t quaintly and forgivably “of his time and place.”
At a time when many of his countrymen were fascinated and charmed by Gandhi, Churchill suggested crushing the pacifist leader to death, adding, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
Decades before Adolph Hitler entered the scene, Churchill was insisting dismally that “the Aryan stock is bound to triumph.”
A fascinating new history of this “other” Churchill has just been published, written by Richard Toye. You can read a review of “Churchill’s Empire” here and an excerpt here.
The reason Churchill remains such a current figure in America’s politics — long after the threats of both Nazism and Communism have faded — is that he has been taken up by the Right as a symbol of the so-called clash against Islam.
After 9/11, George W. Bush had a bust of the Great Man placed in the Oval office and Churchill regularly turns up in the writings of conservative thinkers who are wrestling with they view as a “war of civilizations.”
Here’s why this is problematic.
While most Americans remember Churchill as a man who stood against oppression and the march of darkness, on many of the issues that matter today he was himself a brutal racist.
Churchill believed bluntly that peoples in Afghanistan possessed a “strong aboriginal propensity to kill.” (He wrote this even after he and his forces had razed whole Afghan villages to the ground.)
He proposed using poison gas against the “uncivilized tribes” of Iraq, arguing that it “would spread a lively terror.”
Sadly, Churchill’s narrative of a white, Western, and Christian civilization at war with the rough and savage instincts of the Islamic world have been taken to heart by many on the Right.
When Christian conservatives rail against the mosque proposed for Manhattan, or raise questions about our dark-skinned President’s secret faith, or wring their hands over an “invasion” of brutishly violent illegal aliens from Mexico, it is all of a piece.
The facts in these cases become irrelevant. It doesn’t matter that this congregation of Muslims is entirely peaceful. It doesn’t matter that Barack Obama is a lifelong practicing Christian.
Nor does it matter that violent crime in states that border Mexico hasn’t risen, or that illegal immigrants are no more likely to commit crimes than anyone else.
Many conservatives still see themselves and their way of life under siege.
Churchill’s great moment did come, of course, when his people were actually on the receiving end of a massive and deadly threat. And yes, there really was a clash of civilizations.
Ironically the people he faced down were white, Aryan Christians just like himself. And many of his staunchest allies in the war against Nazism came from Islamic nations.
It is important to acknowledge that Churchill did redeem himself, at least partially.
He did so in much the same way that our founding fathers redeemed their callous acceptance of slavery: by advancing some great and courageous ideas about freedom and equality.
But just as we revere our founding fathers without looking to them for guidance on slavery and race relations, Churchill is exactly the wrong figure to guide us through the thorny challenge of Islamic terrorism.
And let’s not forget Churchill’s ‘leadership’ in forming the Black & Tan’s in 1920, the vicious paramilitary responsible for many atrocities during Ireland’s war for independence from Britain.
Most Americans have little knowledge of pre-WWII Britain other than the name Neville Chamberlain (thus illustrating the maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing). We only know Churchill to the extent that he fits into our narrative, not the whole picture.
Interestingly the original Aryan tribe came from Afghanistan.
But I have a different question, since this whole “Ground Zero Mosque” thing has been propagated by FoxNews why isn’t it a bigger story that Newscorp has donated $1 million to the Republicans? Why does Fox always get to set the narrative?
Knuck,
Because DC is a Republican town. Has been since Reagan.
Got a question for Brian Mann: You say that Churchill wasn’t a man “of his time” in his racial views and ethnic stereotypes, and that by the 1900s this wasn’t the thinking in Western Europe or America.
You sure about that? I think the eugenics movement was pretty fashionable for the first three decades of the century, at least among a certain “better” class of people. There were plenty of prominent American advocates for the view, too, including Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.
Maybe this wasn’t the majority view, but eugenic thinking and the racism underlying it had a significant, vocal and “intellectual” following.
OA –
Certainly, there were those who still head similar views. Woodrow Wilson was in many ways a white supremacist.
But there were plenty of people in their day — prominent, widely-read, influential — who had begun to articulate a far more human and egalitarian view of people of color.
Perhaps it would be simplest to say that Churchill’s views were seen as startlingly racist and supremacist even in his time and even within his Conservative Party.
–Brian, NCPR
May I point out the Newscorps owner Rupert Murdock is a long time Democrat supporter? The GE owns NBC that gets all the White House TV spots first, or something to that effect. This is a strawman.
Brian M- Wilson wasn’t “in many ways” a white supremacist. He WAS a white supremacist, no arguing about it.
On Churchill- Mean like Churchill, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Kennedy are just larger than life. All of them made tragic blunders or had views that were contrary to what we think of as “correct” today. Lincoln for example broke more laws than any President I can think of, except FDR maybe. But both Lincoln and FDR did it for the right reasons, or so history judges.
IMO the reason Churchill is looked upon fondly by many conservatives is as much because of his leadership and the ideals he represented during WW2 as anything else. Mosty people have never really read up on Churchill ( or Wilson, TR, FDR, Lincoln, etc). We tend to go with the picture we “normally” see- “…this is our finest hour…”, etc.
I don’t for a moment think most people know or really care much about Churchills less stellar side. I don;t know how much it really matters at this point.
I’m with ya now, Brian. Thanks for clarifying.
My proof reading stinks…
Brian:
And let’s not forget Robert Byrd, Grand Kleagle of the KKK.
Oh, but he gets a pass. He was a Democrat.
Islam IS right wing.
Mervel, the Islam you are thinking of is right wing. The Islam that isn’t right wing isn’t right wing.
No what I mean is that traditional Islamic teachings would be considered very socially conservative in the West some would call them “right wing”.
There are a tiny minority of Muslims who would be considered “liberal” on social issues. It is like in Christianity picking out the Unitarian Universalists and saying well this is what most Christians believe. When the two largest Christian groups in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church are pretty socially conservative.
My point is that we should not be trying to claim that Islam is going to be one certain way that pleases progressives, most of Islam is indeed very conservative in its teachings and this is also protected by our religious freedoms in the United States.
What I find interesting is how most religions, probably all, have almost nothing in common with those who are said to have founded them in the first place.
Religions don’t kill or persecute people. People kill and persecute people. They just use religions and governments as excuses to do what they want to do.
Guns, knives, religions are all about the same. Just tools to do what you want to do.
I agree; an evil heart can and will find any excuse to do what it wants to do using any tool available including religion.
As St. James said:
“1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet[a] you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. “
I think personal interactions between people, real friendships will make the difference between the faiths. I find it kind if interesting that often very conservative people in the US; are the ones that actually have the most in common with many Muslims in the West. But how many Muslims do they really know? The Muslims I have known have been politically and socially conservative in their sensibilities, some are upset by how the US has treated Muslim nations and Muslim people’s and feel of course that we favor Israel far too much in our world politics, but just on basic day to day issues they are more like my conservative family.
Also the actual faith itself is so misunderstood among many Christians. There really is a lot in common. I remember when there were some protests in England some time ago over a blasphemes depiction of the Virgin Mary, I assumed it was being done by some Catholics, but no it was protests by Muslims who also venerate Jesus and His Mother.
So anyway the more interaction the better.
“May I point out the Newscorps owner Rupert Murdock is a long time Democrat supporter?”
Rupert Murdoch’s ideology is a belief, first and foremost, in Rupert Murdoch and his businesses. He aligns himself with whomever is in power or whomever he expects to gain power. This is why he backed the British Tories until he (rightly) sensed that the atmosphere had changed and that Labour would eventually gain power. He runs right-wing noise factories like Fox News (sic) and the NY Post but got chummy with the Clintons when he expected Hillary to become the next president. In short, he buys influence with whomever he thinks will help his business empire. THAT is his ideology.
Yeah, okay Brian, I agree Murdock is a hound. And he gave lots of money and support to the Dems. One of his subsidiaries gave some money to the RGA. The on;y reason this is news is because it was Fox’s parent corp giving to Repubs’. If it had been given to democrats would it be an issue?
Is Murdock a citizen?
Is George Soros? I don’t know if citizenship is a requirement for financial donations. Didn’t seem to be for Clinton.
Rupert Murdoch: US Citizen since 1985
George Soros: US Citizen since 1961
Google is a powerful thing – use it. You’ll have your answer in the time it takes to type a comment…. and you’ll avoid sidetracking an interesting discussion.
It was a rhetorical question Tom.
Sad to see so much ignorance and self-hatred on this board.
I’m a Muslim who grew up in the North Country, and I just wanted to tip my hat to the author for this nuanced article. Churchill was a complex man, but it’s quite clear from the historical record that for all his talk of freedom and democracy, he would have gladly denied these rights to the darker skinned subjects of the British Empire, Muslim and non-Muslim. And yet the British Army during World War II consisted of a significant number of Muslim soldiers whose blood helped to keep Britain free.