Comments on: Churchll’s “Aryan Stock” Quotation: Principles, Facts and Heresies

By: Steven

Steven — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:42:10 +0000

Reading the article and seeing how Churchill asked for the partition of China to prevent great barbaric nations to threaten "civilised ones". Only a racist would claim that's not racist. - If you say so. "Everyone's racist except thee and me. And sometimes I think thou art."

By: Itajara

Itajara — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 05:18:56 +0000

(1) The first sounds a lot more "gay" than racist. Churchill goes to see the ship, but is distracted by how attractive he finds the guys, and then makes the claim that only Anglo-Saxons produce semen—er seamen—to his tastes. (2) The early Aryans split into Iranians and Bengali Indians, the same Bengalis that Churchill allegedly starved to death. He did not starve those Indians, he merely gave orders that grains from Australia headed their way be redirected to areas not suffering ubiquitous malnutrition. I believe his defense of that was something along the lines of "they breed like rabbits." There is nothing racist about that statement. (3) Of the Dervishes at Omdurman he wrote that they "debouched from the city in wonderful order and charged upon our 20,000 men....The poor devils were slaughtered; we killed 10,800; [they] lay like snowdrifts over the desert sand.... I don’t agree with those who advocated the destruction of the temple—I would have let it stand, placing a man on the outside of it to collect admission money." You have to admit,. the guy was hilarious! (4) Wikiquote defends his more directly racist quotes by mentioning that the Eugenics he supported was also accepted by Teddy Roosevelt. There was little dirt on Roosevelt on the site, so I added one (from a Pulitzer Prize winner in Smithsonian Magazine): “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe 9 out of every 10 are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.” —Teddy Roosevelt, January 1886, after 50-100 million Native Americans had perished due to European colonialism (according to Wikipedia). So compared to T. Roosevelt, Churchill was a lightweight! = Thanks for your comments. (1) Nothing tongue in cheek there, hey? (2) Churchill sent a million tons of grain starting August 1943, much of it from Australia; Aussie ships avoided the Bay early on because it was bristling with Japanese submarines, though they were likely directed by the Admiralty not Churchill personally. See Zareer Masani, "Last Word on the Bengal Famine." (3) True, he was not above humor, but he also called the Dervishes "as brave men as ever walked the earth," and Omdurman seared into his brain the horror of mechanized warfare. (4) His support of Eugenics lasted 18 months. As for "50-100 million Native Americans," estimates of their population in 1492 range from 1 to 12 million. But very true, measuring what TR or Churchill said 120 years ago by today's standards is stuffed with opportunities for ignorant misunderstanding. —RML

By: Роман

Роман — Sat, 05 Dec 2020 12:08:06 +0000

Quotations by the great statesman who helped lead Britain through two world wars: “Magisterial . . . Should be in the library of every Churchill aficionado” (We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”)
=
Whatever you say! RML

By: AM

AM — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 01:48:53 +0000

“I believe in the ultimate partition of China—I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph. Personally, I am not greatly concerned about Russian development in China.”

The second sentence makes it emphatic that Churchill was not chomping at the bit to conquer more territory – he hoped a scramble for China wouldn’t take place in his lifetime.

By: Warren Kimball

Warren Kimball — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 15:58:21 +0000

To answer your slightly rhetorical question, YES, the statement about Anglo-Saxon sailors sounds very racist today. But let’s see; WSC was how old when he said it in 1901? [He was 26. RML] He had how much life experience? Did he mean it in a racist way? Probably, or probably not. In a vicious, nasty racist way? Of course not.
The other quote does not sound racist. Nor does the use of the word Aryan. You’re correct that Hitler poisoned the word.