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Churchill was no saint, I don't think any sane person anyone would elevate him to such - but he's no war criminal - and no villain to most. Churchill was a nat
by Aloha 8y ago
Churchill was no saint, I don't think any sane person anyone would elevate him to such - but he's no war criminal - and no villain to most.
Churchill was a nationalist, an unreformed victorian, an imperialist - and yes, a racist too.
The Bengal famine of 1943 was 1.5m deaths, this in the midst of a war that killed 85m people. I'd also point out that in the context of India - a country which in 1943 had around 400m people living in it - in other words .375% of the total population.
I'd also like to note that in 1949, India inflicted partition on itself, the greatest humanitarian crisis (almost) no one has heard of before - it displaced 14m and likely killed another 200k - 2m - again, on a country of around 400m people.
I consider it a zero-sum game to try to judge people by modern standards, it is meaningless - and lessens their very important contributions in history. History is in my opinion about clearly stating facts, and letting individuals form their own opinion.
I consider Churchill to be a great man - just as with Stalin and Roosevelt, whatever failings he had as peacetime a leader, are overshadowed to a significant amount by his wartime successes.
I also point out, that Churchill was not perfect, he was a lousy, lousy theatre commander.
- Fellshard 8y agoPrecisely this. It is absurd indeed to try and cast a man either as a saint or a villain in this kind of manner - there are many things it is well acknowledged Churchill did extremely badly indeed. His time as PM /at/ the right time in history /with/ the personality and values he held happened to be good and useful, and worked towards a good and useful end. Like all such cases, that pragmatic good has some bad consequences of its own, and does not negate the rest of his life's actions. Tell all, and consider what may have been good and what may have been ill. To accept all or reject all based on some actions is not only unwise, it is proactively damaging.
- walshemj 8y agoWell Gallipoli wasn't helped by the royal navy running in like a badly trained spaniel instead of waiting for the planned combined operations attack. Also Kemal Ataturk was the best commander the Turks had
- malshe 8y ago"I'd also point out that in the context of India - a country which in 1943 had around 400m people living in it - in other words .375% of the total population." When you want to trivialize the death of 1.5 million people, it's better to use even larger denominator like the population of the entire world.
- pessimizer 8y agoCompared to the total number of people who have ever died or will ever die...