What kind of a People do they think we are? - Winston Churchill

IMMORTAL WORDS"OUR QUALITIES AND DEEDS MUST BURN AND GLOW 77Churchill's Wisdom Calls to Us Across the YearsRICHARD M. LANGWORTH/ sit in one of the divesOn Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade;Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened lands of the earth,Obsessing our private lives;The unmentionable odour of deathOffends the September night—W. H. Auden, September I, 1939Sent to us by Professor Paul A. RaheNineteen forty, he told us, was "atime when it was equally good tolive or die." Here is another. For fivedays after September 11th we wereasked for quotes: What did Churchillsay in similar circumstances? Whendid he say it? What effect did it haveon people? Is it appropriate now? Ofcourse it is appropriate now.Churchill said at Munich, "I willbegin by saying die most unpopularthing." Here it is: We are not—quite—united. The academic left is busily atwork assuring students that Americabrought this on herself. At the Universityof North Carolina ProfessorWilliam Blum demanded the President"apologize to all the widows and orphanscreated by chauvinism, racismand sexism," and cut the defense budgetby 90%. At the University of NewMexico a Professor Richard Bertholdtold his students, "Anybody who canblow up the Pentagon has my vote." InWashington, a scraggle of innocentsfree to speak through the sacrifice ofothers gathered to demonstrate against"war and racism." The crackpot rightcontributed the Rev. Jerry Falwell, whosaid this was God's act against "pagans,abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians,the ACLU and People for the AmericanWay."Ian Langworth at the World Trade Center, 1986** / I 'he worst difficulties from whichJ. we suffer do not come from without.They come from within. They donot come from the cottages of the wageearners.They come from a peculiar typeof brainy people always found in ourcountry, who, if they add something toits culture, take much from its strength. \Our difficulties come from the mood ofunwarrantable self-abasement intowhich we have been cast by a powerfulsection of our own intellectuals. They jcome from the acceptance of defeatistdoctrines by a large proportion of ourpoliticians....Nothing can save England jif she will not save herself. If we lose faithin ourselves, in our capacity to guide andgovern, if we lose our will to live, thenindeed our story is told."'Our "Quotation of the Season"on page 5 can only be from October1938. What Churchill said in the aftermathof Munich stands starklyagainst the searing pictures of NewYork and Washington. We have sus- |tained "a total and unmitigated defeat."There has been "gross neglectand deficiency in our defences." Wewere weighed in the balance andfound wanting.It is important however to rememberthat even after Munich, thisrenowned man of war was at heart apeacemaker, who deplored the carelessneglect that had brought war on:H~V\TThen the situation was man-Vr ageable it was neglected, andnow that it is thoroughly out of hand weapply too late the remedies which thenmight have effected a cure. There isnothing new in the story. It is as old asthe sibylline books. It falls into thatlong, dismal catalogue ofthefruitlessnessof experience and the confirmed unteachabilityof mankind. Want of foresight,unwillingness to act when actionwould be simple and effective, lack ofclear thinking, confusion of counseluntil the emergency comes, until selfpreservationstrikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitutethe endless repetition of history. " 2We remember equally Churchill'spowerful sense of fair play, which is,after all, what animated Americas effortsin the Middle East—howeverimperfect. It was inconsistent to demandthat some UN resolutions beenforced but not others; naive to urgeany nation to relinquish occupied territorywithout an absolute guaranteeof unimpeachable security; foolish tobomb the wrong places from afar inattempts at risk-free retribution. Itwas not inconsistent to support theone democracy in sea of autocracy; tobroker a settlement offering Palestinians95% of what they wanted; tospend lives and treasure saving peoplein Kuwait, Kosovo, Somalia andBosnia—all of them Muslims, ironically.Churchill said, "We have to assumethe burden of the most thanklesstasks, and in undertaking them to bescoffed at, criticised, and opposed fromFINEST HOUR 112/8