Winston Churchill’s career presents an
unsurpassed opportunity for such study because it
was so long, because
the facts of it are so well recorded, and because its quality was
so
very high. His career spanned the most traumatic events in history—the
largest wars,
the greatest depression, the worst tyrannies, and the most
rapid advancement of technology
and therefore of human power. As he
faced these crises, Churchill wrote with profuse detail
and with great
ability about his doings, thereby leaving one of the richest records of
human undertaking.
==================================
Terrorism, as Churchill saw it, is not irrelevant to the world we
live in.
His words were little quoted in the past, when it was not the
problem it is today.
His 1935 remark on the Government of India Act, warning of the danger
if terrorists
were elected to the Bengal Assembly, puts us in mind of
the election of a Hamas government
in Palestine in 2006—or, the
unelected advent of what calls itself an Islamic State in Iraq
and
Syria.
“No countries are less prepared to deal with terrorism than Western
democracies,”
he said in 1947. ”…squalid warfare with terrorists should
be avoided, and if ever it breaks out,
every effort should be made—I
exclude no reasonable proposal—to bring it to an end.”
Above all he
emphasized that respecting terrorism, national politics must stop at the
water’s edge. If it does not, he believed, “all hopes are lost, all
plans squandered”:
wise words that alas would go mainly unheeded in
later times, but are perhaps worth
heeding now.
Excerpts from Churchill by Himself, edited by Richard M. Langworth
1920
What I mean by frightfulness is the inflicting of great slaughter or
massacre upon a
particular crowd of people, with the intention of
terrorising not merely the rest of the crowd,
but the whole district or
the whole country.…Frightfulness is not a remedy known to the
British
pharmacopoeia.… I have heard the Hon. Member for Hull
[Lieut.-Commander
Kenworthy] speak on this subject. His doctrine and his policy is to
support and palliate every form of terrorism as long as it is the
terrorism of revolutionaries
against the forces of law, loyalty and
order. Governments who have seized upon power by
violence and by
usurpation have often resorted to terrorism in their desperate efforts
to keep
what they have stolen, but the august and venerable structure of
the British Empire,
where lawful authority descends from hand to hand
and generation after generation,
does not need such aid. Such ideas are
absolutely foreign to the British way of doing things.
— House of Commons, 8 July 1920,
following a report on a massacre of
Indians at Amritsar. Joseph Montague
Kenworthy, 10th Baron Strabolgi (1886-1953),
was a Liberal MP (1919–26)
and Labour MP (1926–31).
1922
…Terrorists are naturally drawn to imitate Lenin and Trotsky;
while
we sh[oul]d take our stand on the will of the people freely expressed in
both cases.
—To Austen Chamberlain, 13 May 1922
1935
…there is real danger of dangerous terrorists, persons engaged in the
gravest forms of
terrorism, standing for the Legislature of Bengal in
particular and being elected for
the Bengal Assembly, unless this bar is
put in their path.…If it is a fact that under this
constitution the
Provincial Legislature of Bengal may select dangerous terrorists and
send
them to the Federal Legislature then all I can say is that I hope
this will be noticed by
people outside these doors.
—House of Commons, 12 March 1935
1944
A number of persons suspected of active complicity in terrorist
activities have been arrested,
and on October 19th, 251 were deported
from the country, where their presence, with the
possibility of a
large-scale attempt at rescue, only led to increased insecurity.
Since
then, numerous further arrests have been made, including those of some
wanted
terrorists.…In Palestine the executive of the Jewish Agency has
called upon the
Jewish community—and I quote their actual words:
“to
cast out the members of this destructive band, to deprive them of all
refuge and shelter,
to resist their threats, and to render all necessary
assistance to the authorities in the
prevention of terrorist acts, and
in the eradication of the terrorist organization.”
These are strong
words, but we must wait for these words to be translated into deeds.
We
must wait to see that not only the leaders, but every man, woman and
child of the
Jewish community, does his or her best to bring this
terrorism to a speedy end.
—House of Commons, 17 November 1944,
following the murder of Lord Moyne, the Minister Resident in Cairo, by
members of the terrorist Stern Gang on 5 November 1944.
1947
The idea that general reprisals upon the civil population and
vicarious examples would be
consonant with our whole outlook upon the
world and with our name, reputation and
principles, is, of course, one
which should never be accepted in any way.
We have, therefore, very
great difficulties in conducting squalid warfare with terrorists.
That
is why I would venture to submit to the House that every effort should
be made to avoid getting into warfare with terrorists; and if a warfare
with terrorists has broken out, every effort should be made—I exclude no
reasonable proposal—to bring it to an end.…
No country in the world is
less fit for a conflict with terrorists than Great Britain.
That is not
because of her weakness or cowardice; it is because of her restraint and
virtues,
and the way of life which we have lived so long in this
sheltered island.
—House of Commons, 31 January 1947
1951
The impression has got about the world that we have only to be kicked
or threatened
to clear out of any place. The Persians like the idea of
nationalization of other people’s
property and, under the pressure of
the terrorists in Teheran, they now propose to seize
the Anglo-Persian
oilfields, which have been discovered and developed by fifty years of
British
brains and capital. Iraq threatens the same policy of
spoliation.…
All this and much else is happening within six years of the
world war, in which for more than
a year we sustained the cause of
freedom alone and from which we emerged with complete
victory and
worldwide respect.
—Scottish Unionist Association, Glasgow, 18 May 1951
Further reading:
“Churchill and Terrorism”
“Anarchism and Fire: What we Can Learn from Sidney Street”