Clean up this morning in Parliament Square, Westminster, London, England
Fun facts: Churchill enabled a genocide in India and after signing the Atlantic Charter, which promised freedom for the people and denounced fascism, he had to assure his fellow elites he didn’t mean the British Empire would stop oppressing people or actually support democracy. https://t.co/8PbcxKo0RS
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) June 8, 2020
On Saturday, the precise anniversary of D-Day, the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was defaced with graffiti.
It had also been defaced a few days earlier, and it was defaced again on Sunday when the word “racist” was sprayed across it. On the same day, someone climbed the Cenotaph around the corner in Whitehall and attempted to burn the Union Flag decorating it.
So what extraordinary powerful force was it that was able to cut through Britain’s defences to perpetrate these extraordinary and repeated insults to the greatest generation of Britons, the ones who stood alone against Nazi Germany and then played a leading role in its defeat
Cowed and cowardly ministers must stop appeasing far-Left extremists (The Telegraph)
He was a racist, but also anti-fascist; he was fiercely anti-communist, yet carved Europe up and gifted much of it to Joseph Stalin.
Many historians have tried to make sense of the man and his times. “Churchill was a racist” is part of the truth about the man, but only a part of it.
His plinth is best left with just his name, which speaks for itself. Maybe we can all agree on that
Getty
Earlier: Moving Statues
Yeah, so what if he was a racist. Loads of people were racist back then.
We need to stop judging people by todays standards, they were people of their times.
If you were born then – you’d be the same. It was the culture of the time.
i’m quite looking forward to them dragging prince philip out of the palace, putting him in the stocks and pelting him with rotten vegetables.
I would watch that in fairness :-)
“ugh, god! come ON! everyone starved millions of indians back in the day, wiped out entire tribes. it was the norm back then, relax!”
Yeah, stop blaming the British aristocracy and their grim feudal system for the famine too.
Pinned this one from about ten years ago into de’ Papers
but it fits just a well here
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html?__twitter_impression=true
Churchill did want to see a united Ireland. But the nation he envisioned was one that would be a dominion of the British Empire
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/churchill-and-his-uneasy-irish-legacy-34691865.html
he was a highly functional alcoholic,
Sure weren’t we all during lockdown
…can’t wait for the pubs to re-open so I can cut down on the drink…
:)
I’m like Oliver Reed since mid March
Obligatory Ollie…
https://youtu.be/5fM0SF4n-j0
for me anyway political and military statues like this Churchill one are nothing more than devices of reverence p0rn, they’re bs street furniture installed by whichever state mechanism is in control and maintained by those self same people
in and of themselves they’re not history themselves though they can certainly be involved in historical happenings of note such as the blowing up of Nelson’s column or the destruction of yer man Colston in Bristol yesterday
certainly they can have some value – the reaction to yesterday’s events was like watching a big red flashing dashboard light….the list of the people it managed to trigger :)
personally I’d prefer to see a nice tree or a piece of artwork than a statue like that on the street
A statue is a piece of artwork.
‘a statue is the politicisation of space’
discuss
sorry Clampers I thought I’d closed that one off when I wrote “political and military statues….”
so yeah sure enough if we’re talking some piece like a Dali sculpture etc. I’d say fair enough…but military and political are a different ballgame to me anyway
Fair cop that.
Yes, but he’s wearing blackface.
The funny thing about Brits handwringing about ‘history’ is that they’re never taught about the atrocities committed by the British empire the world over in school
this
In fairness
Our own Civil War was kept very quiet by History Curriculum over the years
True that.
Was it? My LC history course involved a detailed study of the Irish Civil War. A very interesting (though very ugly) piece of our history.
Mid 90s Mill?
Wario, I respectfully have to disagree with you on this one.
It’s a trope I fear.
Otherwise, I will have to write a strongly worded letter to my English educated niece, who is reading History in Jesus College Cambridge, about all the atrocities she doesn’t know about that we discussed in Cork last summer.
maybe Wario means at school level, not Cambridge ? :)
Ah she had just sat her A levels last June and had yet to start Uni when we had these conversations in Cork.
To my eternal shame, she schooled me on the history of the burning of Cork as we walked from Shandon to Barrack Street :)
Shame or not, I’d bet you felt good she knew her stuff at the same time :) I would.
Prove that. Should be easy enough. Just post their syllabus for 18th -20th Cent history.
Yes, cause its still 1955. Of course they’re taught about it in 2020.
Are they all constantly horse whipping themselves about how terrible their ancestors were? No, but that’s because they recognise that history was complicated.
Great headline BS :)
Ta, Clamps.
the head on hm though. he actually looks like davros:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davros
Not the Churchill you want to die on.
The IRA removed a statue overlooking the Bogside.
https://www.derryjournal.com/news/45-years-ago-today-walkers-pillarwas-felled-iconoclastic-ira-blast-1001919#gsc.tab=0
‘No regrets’ Mr. Eddie McAteer, the Nationalist Party president, believed he spoke for the city’s Catholic majority when he said: “I deplore the manner in which the monument has gone – but I have no regrets that it is gone.”
While I would not desire to have a statue of either Winston Churchill or that Bristol slave owner around the place, the notion of people taking it upon to themselves to smash up things that they disagree with is a worrying one.
What if myself and a bunch of the YFG lads decided we didn’t like the James Larkin statue, and pulled that down? It’s rule of the mob.