History tends to look kindly upon Winston Churchill, and for good reason—he wrote a lot of it and he was on the winning side of the greatest power struggle in the modern era. But alternative histories, such as Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke, have shown Churchill as a warmonger, ultra-nationalist and antisemite of Hitlerian proportion. Almost every action he undertook either provoked, prolonged or intensified the war—such as rejecting plans for peace or the safety of German Jews, starving innocent people in Europe through a naval blockade, imprisoning England’s German population (which included Jews), and goading an attack on his own people.
Repeating these criticisms is not only an important step toward setting the record straight, but also making Churchill’s well-worn path to war less appealing. Metta Center for Nonviolence Education founder Michael Nagler recently expanded upon this point in an op-ed comparing General Petraeus’s stubborn refusal to pull troops out of Afghanistan to Churchill’s equally obstinate declaration that he would not “preside over the dissolution of the British Empire.”
What was Churchill’s mistake? I believe there were two of them, or perhaps more accurately, one big one showing up on two levels of reality. Churchill notoriously missed the source of Gandhi’s power and the depth of determination he had roused in the Indian people. At a dinner party in Cairo, the South African leader Jan Smuts, reflecting on his own defeat at Gandhi’s hands, said the reason they had failed to stop him was that they had been unable to appeal to people’s religious feelings. Churchill, always obtuse on this point, is said to have snorted, “Nonsense; I have appointed many bishops,” and went on to preside over precisely what he denied would happen.
But there is a deeper lack underlying this one: ignorance of the fundamental fact of human nature, that violence is the wrong way to build democracy, win friends or stabilize anything worth keeping. Destructive means – and no one can deny that military means destroy people and property, indeed the planet itself – do not bring to pass constructive ends. That seems to be an underlying law of human dynamics that we ignore at our peril. General Petraeus and everyone who still dreams of a military resolution to the horrors that militant means have created in Afghanistan seem to simply miss this.
Nagler goes on to explain how the positive energy of nonviolence will have greater longterm positive effects on Afghanistan than war:
Over half the world now lives in a society that has seen huge changes – almost all of them positive in nature – emerge in the wake of a nonviolent uprising or movement of some kind; what Jonathan Schell calls “the unconquerable world,” the will of aroused people, is quite real.
That process has not happened yet in Afghanistan; but we must remember that the second greatest nonviolence advocate in Gandhi’s train, sometimes called “the Frontier Gandhi,” was Badshah Khan who raised an “army” of over 80,000 Pathans – the very people whom we are now fighting – pledged to complete nonviolence of behavior and played a great part in dislodging British control in what was then the North West Province of India. How would it work today? This much we know: the “wrong stuff” is not working, and the “right stuff” – nonviolence – is there to be developed. As it stands, however, those who call their use of violence a “job” are keeping themselves and all of us from carrying out the real job of every person alive: discovering how to live in peace by creative, nonviolent ways of dealing with one another and our difficulties. From Winston Churchill to four-star General Petraeus, we need to question and confront the overconfident leaders who seem to be oblivious to any other form of power than militarized empire.
If Churchill is rolling over in his grave at such wide-eyed optimism that can only be a good thing.
There was a recent review in The New York Times on a new study of Churchill. Among other things, the author points to Churchill’s legacy in today’s White House:
It goes on to list some of Churchill’s worst excesses, but refuses to go as far as Baker:
It finally rests on a paradoxical, ambiguous picture of the man.
Thanks for bringing this perspective to my attention. I do, however, take exception with Toye calling Nicholson Baker an “appalling pseudo historian.” Name-calling such as this only serves to make the study of history the realm of a select-elite, a boys club not so much for those with the right credentials, but those with the right opinions.
I’m sure Howard Zinn had similar epithets lobbed at him. True, he was a historian first and foremost, unlike Baker, who is mainly a novelist. But to disparage a work such as Human Smoke, which is an incredible collection of overlooked primary sources with almost no editorializing, is to disparage the very skill of writing history.
Churchill on the other hand, claimed “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” Why doesn’t Toye take issue with this clearly “appalling” take on history? I suspect it’s due to Churchill’s own editorializing of history, the creation of a lore we are all taught to admire.
When presented with some of the cold truths about World War II and its so-called heroes, those who can’t let go of that lore create “complex” histories that allow us to still live in admiration of those heroes. The “Two Churchills” storyline is a perfect example of this failure to consider conflicting, but factual, narratives.
Anyone have a spare tinfoil hat?
This is what the NYT review says about the book.
“World War II was a deeply unfortunate conflict in which many lives were lost. Mr. Baker is right about that, but not about much else in this self-important, hand-wringing, moral mess of a book. In dedicating it to the memory of American and British pacifists, Mr. Baker writes, “They failed, but they were right.” Millions of ghosts say otherwise.”
The Telegraph isn’t any more kind.
“Incompetence or malice on Baker’s part? So far as the reliability of this strangely childish book is concerned, it hardly matters which.”
What is scary is that anyone actually believes Mr. Baker’s attempt at rewriting history.
Michael Nagler tries to compare a national leader with a military leader? Fallacy. He could say Bush/Obama and Churchill and at least be consistent, but I suppose he had to interject his distaste for the US military. Afghanistan is not India. Anyone with reasonable intelligence would know that or at least someone outside of Berkley.
Personally, I read this stuff to get a different view, but it’s tough to take a position seriously who’s opinions are based on sources as realistic as an episode of the Smurfs.
Hey, don’t bring The Smurfs into this, Killion! I grew up on that show and it was awesome. Of course, maybe that’s why my arguments are so unrealistic. In any case, I’m glad that despite our seeming intellectual immaturity you still find us worth your time.
Since you’re interested in a different view, why don’t you give Human Smoke a read? I’d love to hear your thoughts after reading it for yourself.
LOL…probably comes to no surprise that I was a product of GI Joe and Transformers.
The blue smurftastic venom was not aimed at you Mr. Farrell, the smurfy darts were aimed for that smufing “appalling pseudo historian” Mr. Baker. :p
The capitalist in me can’t get over the bad taste of having to spend 30 bucks to read it (not to mention put money in this guy’s pocket). If you have a free copy of it, I’d be happy to give it a once over.
I agree. $30 is way too expensive. I bought it for less than $20. But I’m sure your local library could hook you up with a copy.
Nagler’s views on positive energy of nonviolence having a greater longterm positive effect on Afghanistan rather than war is spot on. I also believe that through a human emotion of love rather than hate bigger and better things can be had.