Why Churchill’s Statue Must be Removed from Parliament Square

And Why It’s Important For All of Us

In June of 2020, during a Black Lives Matter protest in London, Winston Churchill’s statue was vandalized and the words “was a racist” were written on it. To many in Britain, this was a shocking disrespect to their great prime minister who safeguarded and rallied their country through tremendous adversity, especially by galvanizing them through the darkest days of World War II. However, before we form an opinion, let’s unpack why the protesters had this reaction to Churchill.

While Winston Churchill is routinely lionized in the “West” (mainly in Western Europe and the United States) as a great hero for leading Britain during World War II in the fight against Hitler, the Nazis, and the Axis powers as a whole, he is seen as quite the opposite of a hero by many around the world, such as in India and in many countries in Africa.

Why is he viewed in such a different lens?

Because while Churchill is rightly revered as a symbol of anti-fascism, great courage, and wit, he is also a symbol of the imperialist British Empire, which decimated India, committed crimes against humanity in Kenya, established concentration camps in South Africa, and far more. Churchill is perhaps most infamous for his role in the 1943 Bengal famine, in which it is estimated that over 3 million people died. Churchill’s response to the famine: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”

Churchill wrote and spoke of magnificent ideas supporting freedom and self-government, and these are indeed very well orated and spoken crystallizations of excellent notions. However, as his above words make clear, these ideas did not apply in his mind to anyone who did not have white skin, as he saw them as being members of inferior races.

And yet, here’s the thing.

Leaders being heralded for their virtues and courage and great humanity while doing terrible things to “others” is not a new phenomenon. The signers of the U.S. Constitution expressed very eloquent and beautiful ideas on the subject of equality, though many held slaves. The United States itself is built on the institutions of slavery and the genocide of Native Americans.

Churchill was being praised for his actions in World War II at the same time as he was funneling food resources from Bengal for the war effort. Quite literally, he was committing atrocities as he was being praised as the savior of the Allies. These dual aspects of his personality are not conflicting, rather they act in concert. The only way that he was able to justify them, and how many still indirectly justify them, is by believing in an idea of superior and inferior “races”.

In his mind, it didn’t seem to matter how many suffered if they were from “inferior” races. These actions existed in concert because he was taking food from Bengal to fuel the British army in the fight against the Nazis and the Axis Powers. He would exploit colonies to fight against racism, fascism and imperialism and they would contribute massively to the war effort by providing millions of people to fight as soldiers and on the home front, all while remaining a huge symbol of racism and imperialism. In fact, when speaking of the concentration camps in South Africa that 115,000 Africans were put into, he even said that “The Aryan stock is bound to triumph” in the conflict.

However, these horrific actions and views are not commonly detailed fully without justifying or minimizing them when talking about Churchill. In fact, even in places that suffered these atrocities, many do not learn or know of this history. Some even idolize him, while not knowing or fully grasping the extent of his racist and imperialist views and policies.

For example, UK prime minister Boris Johnson called the protection of Churchill’s statue from further vandalism “absurd and shameful”. While he acknowledged that Churchill’s views were “unacceptable to us today”, he stated that Churchill nevertheless protected Britain from “fascist and racist tyranny”. While this statement seems good enough on its face and Churchill’s actions in protecting Britain should definitely be applauded, it minimizes the extent of Churchill’s actions and views by implying that he simply expressed views that were a product of his time.

In addition, it also belies the fact that Churchill did not just say racist things, but also did and advocated terrible things that he justified through the vehicle of racism that have had deep and lasting impacts. As lecturer and contributor Jigisha Bhattacharya points out, “The trauma of the Bengal famine is, however, commonplace in the memories of people who were unfortunate survivors and successors of the event.”

I do think that the statue of Churchill should stand, however I think that it should stand in a museum and not in Parliament Square, as it still does. I believe that we should obviously treat people as an important part of history, but that we should let their actions speak for themselves instead of erecting statues of them in the open, which is inherently somewhat of an honorific process. We should move them to museums, where we provide unbiased descriptions of their achievements, flaws, and actions.

With these programming goals in mind, I think that in schools all around the world, people should be taught the complete story regarding Winston Churchill and indeed, regarding all historical figures.

To be fair, Churchill’s statue is different from the Confederate statues in the United States or the statues put up of Western “explorers” who did terrible things to indigenous peoples who had already been living there for a very long time. A lot of these statues were actually put up much after the time of the figures they seek to honor, in order to spread a message of white supremacy over African Americans, Native Americans, and all who are not “white”. Therefore, I would not say that Churchill’s statue was necessarily put up to intentionally spread notions of white supremacy or racism. Nevertheless, the statue is indeed honoring a man who held and acted upon white supremacist and racist ideologies, and played a role in the deaths of millions of people. We simply cannot sweep such horrifying actions under the rug or brush them off of our shoulders, and we must be objective and strongly disavow these views and actions.

Therefore, as said previously, I think that the statue should be transported to a museum, where the full and complete story of Winston Churchill is told.

Just as the museum lauds his great escape from a prison camp during the Boer War over South Africa (1) , so too must it reject his egregious support for concentration camps in South Africa. Just as it rightfully praises his extremely critical role in ensuring an Allied victory in World War II, so too must it unequivocally condemn his role in the Bengal famine in which millions died. Just as it glorifies his moral stand against fascism, so too must it display his embrace of imperialism.

This is what storytelling is. In the constant discussion of history, we must be impartial and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Thus, we can all respectfully come to our own conclusions.

(1) Randolph Vigne’s article, “Winston Churchill (1874–1965): An Anniversary Tribute From South Africa”, mentions this incident. Churchill was a journalist reporting on the Boer War in South Africa in 1899. He escaped from a prison camp in Pretoria and entered present-day Mozambique.