If you're a Young Liberal, and you find yourself under siege by Bolshevik and Maoist academics, to whom should you turn for advice and guidance?
Silly question. Tony Abbott of course!
"Recently, some Liberal students asked me what might they do to armour themselves against their left-wing lecturers. My response: familiarise yourselves with the bigger story of which we Australians are but part. And a good place to begin is to read and regularly re-read the New Testament (it's our core document) and to read cover to cover Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, because you can't understand us without knowing that." (Covert brainwashing of our kids is taking its toll, The Australian, 9/3/19)
And why is our Suppository of Wisdom - Tony's own words, you'll remember - recommending dear old Winston to the troops? Could it be because, deep down, he shares Churchill's colonial, supremacist mindset?
Many examples of this mindset may be adduced from Churchill's long history of racism, but my particular favourite emerged in the context of the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission, aka the Peel Commission. Palestine at the time, of course, was in the throes of a full-scale rebellion against Zionist immigration and colonisation - imposed on the indigenous Palestinians by British bullets and bayonets:
Lord Peel:
"[Do you think] Britain might have some compunction if she felt she was downing the Arabs year after year when they wanted to remain in their own country?"
Churchill:
"I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place." (Churchill & The Jews, Martin Gilbert, 2007, p 120)
Churchill's testimony, btw, was kept secret by the commissioners.
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2 comments:
I knew he was bad - but that is a shocker! Another book for my library. Thanks MERC.
"higher grade race" has been niggling since I read this earlier today. Surely Churchill knew about the Abbasid Caliphate from the 8th to roughly the 14th century? During that period this great civilization had to suffer attacks by the barbarian crusaders. To quote Wikipedia:
"A number of medieval thinkers and scientists living under Islamic rule played a role in transmitting Islamic science to the Christian West. In addition, the period saw the recovery of much of the Alexandrian mathematical, geometric and astronomical knowledge, such as that of Euclid and Claudius Ptolemy. These recovered mathematical methods were later enhanced and developed by other Islamic scholars, notably by Persian scientists Al-Biruni and Abu Nasr Mansur."
The Wikipedia page (for once) is pretty comprehensive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate
"Medicine in medieval Islam was an area of science that advanced particularly during the Abbasids' reign. During the 9th century, Baghdad contained over 800 doctors, and great discoveries in the understanding of anatomy and diseases were made. The clinical distinction between measles and smallpox was described during this time. Famous Persian scientist Ibn Sina (known to the West as Avicenna) produced treatises and works that summarized the vast amount of knowledge that scientists had accumulated, and was very influential through his encyclopedias, The Canon of Medicine and The Book of Healing. The work of him and many others directly influenced the research of European scientists during the Renaissance."
The Abbasid Caliphate was brought to an end, not by Western "civilisation" but by the Mongol invasion from the East.
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