The Churchill Series - Feb. 19, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Readers Note: I first published this post three years ago. Churchill looks as great and Ghandi as lacking in judgment today as they did then.

John
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The other day I listened to a discussion, the outcome of which was this: the participants agreed Churchill wasn’t really a great man. He only seems that way, they said, because his ideas and actions are always being compared to people like Hitler and Mussolini. If he was compared to someone like – and here the discussants all agreed on Gandhi – well, Churchill wouldn't look so great matched against Gandhi.

I didn’t say anything, but I thought to share a reaction with you here in the series.

So I went home and got out some notes I made a few years ago about Gandhi.

Let’s compare Churchill and Gandhi positions with regard to what were then, and are always, literally life and death matters: our response to violence and the kind of governance we're prepared to accept for ourselves and others.

Churchill first.

On Oct. 29, 1941 Churchill told the students at his old school, Harrow:

“Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.''

Vintage Churchill!

Now Gandhi.

On Apr. 9, 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Four days later Gandhi urged Danes, Norwegians and others to adopt a passive, non-cooperative response to the Nazis, even if that meant mass slaughter. He told the Nazis victims:

“ The unexpected spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying rather then surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt him and his soldiery.”

That wasn’t a one-day only response. On June 29, 1940, with the Battle of France lost and the Battle of Britain about to begin, Gandhi advised the British Viceroy that Britain should:

“…fight Nazism without arms…invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island. If these gentlemen choose to occupy you homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered.”

The Viceroy later described himself as “taken aback.”

The deaths of millions never softened the Nazis. If anything, slaughter seems to have energized them to even greater evil; something Churchill had predicted.

As long as people know some history, value Western freedoms, and understand those freedoms must always be defended, Churchill will rank among the Immortals.