Churchill fought with the Spanish trying to crush the independence movement in Cuba in the 1895 Cuban War of Independence.
He wanted to fight against the Pashtun Mohmand tribe in north-west India, but was assigned a position as a journalist rather than a combat position.
He also fought for the British army against the Boer republics in the Second Boer War.
It’s not like this guy was just idly opining about race and imperialism, he was enthusiastically engaging in the violent wars as a soldier to further those imperialist conquests. I’m sure as a politician he played an important role in preserving those power dynamics as well (alas I’m no expert on Churchill and I’m only reading about him because of this post).
That said, the original post was only pointing out that Churchill would be taboo if his racism and imperialism victimized Europeans, and I would agree that this is more likely to make him taboo. We see this kind of logic with how the conflicts in Syria are treated differently than the conflicts in Ukraine. I think people are willing to overlook imperialism and racist violence when it doesn’t impact white people.
I’ll probably (and rightly) get downvoted for asking this but was Churchill’s crime. Does it have to do with how he treated Ireland?
Instituted policies that led to mass famine / genocide in South Asia.
He caused massive famines across India just to fill coffers of the British empire. 6 million people at a conservative estimate
Destroyed Bengal and Bangladesh
Ask most Indians- Churchill and mother Theresa are two of the most hated people in our history
probably about his imperialism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill#Imperialism_and_racial_views
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Winston_Churchill
I mean, I disagree with Hitler’s views too, but his views aren’t really what makes us hate him universally, it was his actions.
Churchill fought with the Spanish trying to crush the independence movement in Cuba in the 1895 Cuban War of Independence.
He wanted to fight against the Pashtun Mohmand tribe in north-west India, but was assigned a position as a journalist rather than a combat position.
He also fought for the British army against the Boer republics in the Second Boer War.
It’s not like this guy was just idly opining about race and imperialism, he was enthusiastically engaging in the violent wars as a soldier to further those imperialist conquests. I’m sure as a politician he played an important role in preserving those power dynamics as well (alas I’m no expert on Churchill and I’m only reading about him because of this post).
That said, the original post was only pointing out that Churchill would be taboo if his racism and imperialism victimized Europeans, and I would agree that this is more likely to make him taboo. We see this kind of logic with how the conflicts in Syria are treated differently than the conflicts in Ukraine. I think people are willing to overlook imperialism and racist violence when it doesn’t impact white people.