A School’s Guide to Teaching Winston Churchill
I wrote this inspired from the life of Winston Churchill and his isms, this poem also comes from the ‘War’s Whores’ by Hollie McNish (which looks at sex workers in France during WW1).
Many of us grew up learning how Churchill saw
this country Britain, leading it to victory
against Hitler and fascism during the Second World War
but outside of his wartime “heroism”
you see his contempt for the common man
finding his love for violence in 1890s Afghanistan
saying “all who resist will be killed without quarter”
where Pashtuns must “recognise the superiority of race”
as colonial forces committed villages to the slaughter
where he jested about the settlements, he aided to devastate
he was proud of the terror he helped inflict
and he was only too jovial and happy to be part of it
here, he was a young man, a mere twenty-three
but this is not taught on curricula of British school history
Next: it’s safe to say he was concerned the tropical island of Cuba would become another Black republic
and by another he meant after the island of Haiti abolished
slavery, fighting for their independence against the French
in addition to defeating the navies Britain, France and Spain sent
to recapture and recolonise the island back into punishment collars
making more pounds and dollars for politicians and learned scholars
in popular memory of Winston, there’s no talk of the colonial
Afua Hirsch takes on Piers Morgan, showing that Churchill isn’t infallible
but Good Morning Britain acts like challenging Blighty should be banned
in denial of the three dimensions of the five-pound man
no room in the public domain for debate or challenge
but for murder, torture and violence, this man had a talent
he was busy before the war, with an aptitude for devastation
for the lives of men, women and children, just pure derogation –
in 1944, Churchill greenlit a massacre
on the streets of Athens, 28 protesters
were shot dead, a further 128 hurt
they were anti-Nazis…these are stories that need to be heard
on December the third, 200,000 took to the streets
this is when Winston Churchill
ordered the British Army to turn their guns on the Greeks,
he called the Greek People’s Liberation Army
and the National Liberation Front, “miserable banditti”
but these were the same people that ran the Nazis out
his actions stemmed from a communist hate, and confident clout
shouldn’t these hidden histories be taught in modern Britain
but you will not find these stories on your school history curriculum
things that we claim
were for the Indians, were for British service
like the railway that now India has repurposed
when the British arrived, India was one of
the richest on the planet and its share
of the world economy was 23%
when they left it had sunk lower than four
well that’s according to Indian MP Shashi Tharoor
knowing Britain’s track record I’m inclined to trust him
colonial violence may as well be penned by Brothers’ Grimm
seldom do we talk about India’s role in the First World War
1.5m Indians in WW1 and 2.5m in WW2
yet Churchill hated Indians –
and for many these are quite new stories narrating like how
the British authorities took Indian rice in fleets
when Bengalis had nothing to eat
Churchill said the famine was their fault for “breeding like rabbits”
refusing all aid to stop the famine
both from allies in Canada and the USA and he was swilling champagne
upto 4m bodies stockpiled outside the pearly gates
and when in partition, the British made Pakistan
more Indians died by the million
and it doesn’t stop there,
“A prize from fairy land beyond our wildest dreams”
in June 1914, Churchill proposed a bill
that would see Britain profit off Iranian oil spills
when Iran’s nationalist government
threatened Britain’s interest,
Churchill was there before you could say yes
initiating a coup with the CIA in 1953
but in the “official history” we’re leaders in liberty
why isn’t this taught as part of our history
in Mesopotamia,
he supported use of poisonous gas
this is what’s now modern-day Iraq
determined for colonialism on the cheap
he champion aviation, not soldiers on the streets
several times, Churchill
quelled rebellion in the 1920s
through bombing civilians
Iraqi death and blood aplenty
on Ireland, he said
“we have always found the Irish a bit odd.
They refuse to be English.”
The Black and Tans were his brainchild
what today we would call terrorists
attacking civilians and civilian property
to repress a people, he described as “odd”
for their refusal “to be English”
didn’t quench his blood-lust
puffing smoke into Ireland until he bit the dust
from air power against Sinn Fein
to advocating for partition
and conceiving the idea of forming
the Auxiliaries who
carried out the Croke Park Massacre
to him, it was just banter
and to think most people believe
concentration camps a German invention
no no no, English conception
in 1952, Britain declared a state of emergency
to protect its system of institutional racism in Kenya
where he thought fertile lands
were no fit for Kenyan hands
removing the local population —
that he called “Blackmores” — into concentration camps
schools were shut — “training grounds for rebellion” he called them
to capture the local people, tactics
like rape ensued, castration, barbaric electric shock practice
The Mau Mau Uprisings beginning in 1952, ending in 1960
people’s grandparents are old enough to remember this history
he was also in South Africa (from 1899)
during the Boer War as
Churchill summed up his time as
“it was great fun galloping about”
try telling that to the cries and shouts
of children in British concentration camps (again)
and his only “irritation” was
“Kaffirs shouldn’t be allowed to fire on white men”
he went onto advocate for Afrikaan self-rule
whilst Blacks would be stripped of their voting tools
what passing bells for those who die as cattle
only the monstrous anger of the guns
yet this concept of empire is one relegated to “over there”
but these stories don’t sit in our throats, narratives of
colonial violence happened at home and abroad
and my own ancestors colonised at the end of a sword
we are taught how Churchill lead us through the war years
but not the stories behind Indian and Pakistani tears
we are told how he led the charge with Dunkirk
but not how Britain drained India and worse
we are told about his achievements during wartime
but not what he thought of the Arab peoples of Palestine
empire made careers for men like Winse
and Kitchener and Mountbatten in the tint
of the world wars as a battle ground
because fighting for freedom sounds more profound
than defeating Hitler to cling onto stolen regions
to hang on to African ivory and monsoon season
empire was a flag like a makeshift stretcher
of black-brown bodies bent like double beggars
when we try to challenge Winston in popular memory
I am met with tired yawns and war fatigue
of Piers Morgans not wanting to confront our history
we teach our children that slavery was wrong
but then sing Winston Churchill’s song
statues to him in Toronto and Parliament Square
we tell a story that colonialism was a foreign affair
but it is the union jack, the world wars
and English England’s heroes stitched in guilt
making films, Darkest Hour made for laughs
as the Mau Mau, Boer and Bengal stands like cenotaphs
Gary Oldman and that golden statue like a bus stop
as Indians split by partition in the sun were left to rot
we make these films like back-pats and flattery
colonial genocide whitewashed by Hollywood munitions factories
now Africans and Asians were lost in the wind of litany
during the world wars and then erased from British history
I wonder considering Black Lives Matter
if this new anti-racist UK
will hold more dead heroes to account today
not just the low-hanging fruits of the slave trade
but big fish like Sir Winston
whose crimes are all so well-evidenced
like an elephant in the room
as our prime minister sings Winston’s tune
how many innocents had to die
so Winston could sing his lullaby
cradled in the womb of union jack
death to Afghans, Indians and Blacks
and Irish civilians and the working-class
in the footnotes of history, into the past
gone gaunt in Britain’s denial and fragility
a refusal to learn about this country’s history
the Tories will never put Churchill in the dock
not like how Edward Colston was on the block
and on the national school curriculum you’re unlikely
