你知道已故的英國前首相，領導英國人打倒德國納粹的邱吉爾，和希特勒一樣，是種族主義者嗎？
“…For so long a bitterly controversial figure, intensively disliked and distrusted, he was transformed at one extraordinary moment into a superhuman hero, and then gradually acquired an almost mythical status which make it hard to distinguish fact from fiction. Adulation has distorted our understanding about him, as he has been travestied on screen, appropriated and misappropriated, used and abused, and invoked on behalf of any number causes and enterprises which he might or might not have favored. Having been so derided once, then venerated above all others, he is now the object of angry contention once again. Angry, but futile; and for those who still wonder how a reactionary racist and imperialist could have been the savior of his country and of freedom, the best answer may be I.F. Stone’s. Asked once how he, as an American radical, could possibly admire the notorious slave-owner Thomas Jefferson, Stone replied, ‘Because history is a tragedy and not a melodrama.’
(邱吉爾)長期以來是一位備受爭議的人物，很多人不喜歡而且不信任他，在二戰的那個大時代的特別時刻，他變成了超人般的英雄，而且逐漸取得神話般的崇高地位，讓人弄不清楚到底哪些部分是真的，而哪些部分卻是假的。
世人對他極度的奉𠄘已經扭曲了我們對他的了解，正如人們在銀幕或螢幕模仿他，有些恰當有些不恰當，有些合適有些則濫加引申，很多有特定主張和相關的團體，借助於他的名聲，但用意並不必然和他原本的想法一致。他曾備受嘲諷，也曾備受尊崇，他現在又成為大家氣憤議論的對象。
氣憤，但是沒有用。那些氣憤的人至今還弄不明白，一個反動的種族主義者、帝國主義者，為什麼會變成國家和自由的拯救者。
I.F. Stone 或許提供供了一個很好的答案。當 I.F. Stone被問到，身為一位美國的前衛人士，怎麼會欣賞惡名昭彰、蓄奴的Thomas Jefferson呢？他說，因為歷史是悲劇不是鬧劇。
Those words would have been understood by Winston Churchill, for all that his life was often played, and later reenacted, as melodrama. For its first forty years his career was erratic and largely unsuccessful. His judgement as a war time strategist was sometimes woeful, his postwar years were unsatisfactory and increasing sad, his legacy is flawed, and his posthumous influence has been little short of disastrous. So far from being a universal oracle of wisdom and virtue, few great men have been wrong so often, have made so many mistakes, or have held so many opinions and prejudices which were repugnant even at the time. So much that Churchill believed in it advocated has withered away or simply failed. British greatness and might are great or mighty no more, the names of the regiments in which he served aren’t to be found on the shrunken Army List, the Royal Navy has a fraction of of the number of ships afloat it had when he was First Lord and the great shipyards of Tyneside and Clydeside and Merseyside which once built the ships are gone as well, ‘the abiding power of the British Empire and Commonweath’ abides no more, the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ has repeated proved meaningless, and even the ‘United States of Europe’ Churchill dreamed of long ago has been a damaging illusion. Invocations of his name have again and again led to calamity, while in his own country, ‘Churchillism’ and the paralysing memory of the Finest Hour have deluded the British and prevented them from coming to terms with their true place in the world, and in America the Churchill cult has had measurably sorry consequences.
邱吉爾對I.F. Stone這番話應該頗有同感，正如他人生的經歷，反覆又不斷重演的鬧劇一樣。
邱吉爾在前40年的生涯是起起伏伏的，並不成功。從他在戰時的判斷決定看來，有時候則是非常糟糕的策略家。
他在戰後很失意，憂鬱症逐日加重，神話破滅了，他有若超人英雄的影響力變成了災難。本來是集智慧與德性於一身的聖哲，但是後來卻接踵犯下偉人很少會犯的大錯，而且他也抱持並發表很多偏見和想法，甚至都被當代人所鄙視。
很多邱吉爾當時堅信推動的，都以失敗迅速消失告終。
英國的偉大和力量已經不再。他曾服役的軍團的番號已經不見。他擔任海軍大臣時的造艦大船塢也消失了。把英國國協緊緊團結在一起的力量也沒有了。他曾信誓旦旦的「盎格魯-美國特殊關係」，已經一再被證明是沒有什麼實質的意義。甚至邱吉爾長期夢想的「歐洲合眾國」，完全變成破壞性的幻影。凡想借助邱吉爾的名字的，往往卻一次次導致災難性的結果。
而在英國國內，所謂的「邱吉爾主義」以及對往昔美好時光的留戀，使得英國人遲遲無法認清英國在真實世界的秩序中正確的的位置，而在美洲的邱吉爾崇拜，則已經造成很嚴重遺憾的後果。
But he should have the last word. He had said of Lloyd George that he was a ‘the leader, distrusted always who was trusted most when things were worst,’ and so was Churchill, at the he one irredeemably sublime moment in his life, when he saved his country and saved freedom. Wrong about much else, was not wrong about ‘the tragic simplicity and grandeur of the time’ in 1940, and he was not wrong either.
但是，邱吉爾最終應該得到一個合理的評價。
他曾說Lloyd George是一位，「領導者，經常不被信任，但在最急難的時候常被委以重任」。這也可以用來評價邱吉爾，在他人生處於高峰的時候，他拯救了他的國家和(西方價值的)自由。
千錯萬錯，錯在別的地方，不是錯在1940年那個「既偉大又簡單的悲劇時代」，也不是錯在邱吉爾他個人的身上。
In his noble speech paying tribute to Chamberlain on 12 November 1940, he had declared that ‘Long and hard hazardous years lie before us, but at least we entered upon them united and with clean hearts’ — something too few of those who have claimed Churchill’s mantle since would be able to say. And he continued that, one day,
1940年11月12日，在一篇悼念Chamberlain的偉大演講中，邱澤吉爾宣稱，「在未來幾年我們將迎來漫長而且艱困災難的日子，但至少我們是以團結的赤忱來共同面對的」，這是接續邱吉爾之後統治英國的諸多領導者，很少這麽勇敢宣告的。
邱吉爾在那篇悼文中，他接著是這麼說的：
we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgements under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to construct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of formal days.
我們的行為和判斷在未來可能成為深入探究的對象。
人們無法預知未來，無法知道事情接下來會怎樣演變，這使得我們可以活得天真浪漫，不然人生將變得無法忍受。
而在幾年之後，當時間拉長，所有事情的各種設定就會變得不同了。屆時重要性變得不同，也有了新的價值觀。
所謂的歷史，就是打著閃爍的燈，漫步在前人走過的路徑，試著去重建現場，去聆聽過去留下的跫音，被前人熱情的微光點燃。
Those words are more fitting still for the man who spoke them…”
這些字眼，更適用於評價說出這些話的邱吉爾呢！
～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～
對邱吉爾是種族主義者的指控，其來有自。在2007年才披露的一件打字稿中，他說得非常露骨。
“In 2007 his reputation was momentarily darkened when the type-script of an unpublished 1937 article came to light, called ‘How the Jews Can Combat Persecution’. Churchill had said, ‘It may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution — that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer,’ and that ‘There is the feeling that the Jew is an incorrigible alien, that his first loyalty will always be toward his own race.’ It then transpired that this shocking piece didn’t reflect badly on Churchill’s personal prejudices, only on his casual working methods in charge of the word-factory: the dubious article was in fact by his ghostwriter Diston, who may have been asked by Churchill to write about the subject. It was most fortunately never published.”
一篇在1937年寫的未公開的打字稿，題為「猶太人如何對抗迫害」，在2007年曝光了，瞬間拉黑了邱吉爾的聲譽。
邱吉爾在文件中寫道：可以這麼說，不自知地，他們所受到的迫害是自找的，他們對自己被敵視而受到的傷害，負有部分的責任。猶太人讓人感到是一種無藥可救的異類，他們的忠誠只自私地對同族的人付出。
之後眾所周知的是，這篇令人震驚的文件，相當精準地反應了邱吉爾個人對猶太人的偏見，差別只是依照他平常處理文件撰述的習慣，這篇可疑的文章其實是他的代筆文膽Diston應邱吉爾要求的主題而寫的。所幸還好當時沒有對外公開發表。
“…He strongly defend the Balfour Declaration, in accordance with which the British ought now to be ‘bringing in as many [Jewish immigrants] as we can’, although that was not in fact the official position of the government…”
邱吉爾為《巴貝福宣言》強烈辯護，認為英國應該依據該宣言，儘可能把更多的猶太人送到巴勒斯坦。但是，這並不是英國的官方立場。
“Then he reiterate his lifelong contempt for Arabs and Islam. ‘When the Mohammedan upset occurred in world history’ , the Muslim hordes ‘broke it all up, smashed it all up’. The Zionist were today cultivating lands which under Arab rule had remained a desert, and ‘will never be cultivated by the Arabs’. Asked if the Muslims had not created a fine civilization in mediaeval Spain, Churchill replied briskly, ‘I am glad they were thrown out.’ And in all too revealing words, he said bluntly that British faced an inescapable choice: either ‘facilitate the establishment of the Jewish National Home, or we are to hand over the government of the country to the people who happen to live there at the moment.’ As he added, ‘You cannot do both,’ which was true enough.”
邱吉爾一輩子反覆強調他對阿拉伯人及回教徒穆斯林的蔑視。
他認為『當穆罕默德建立回教的時候，回教徒撕裂了這個世界。』猶太建國主義現在開發的耕地在原來阿拉伯人的治下是沙漠，所以邱吉爾說『阿拉伯人絕對無法把那些沙漠變成良田的』。
當被問到難道穆斯林在中古世紀不曾在西班牙產生良好的文明時，邱吉爾簡答道：『我很高興他們被趕走了』。
他用很直白的字眼粗魯地說，英國別責無旁貸地必須選擇：是『協助猶太國家的建立，或者將那個地區交由當地住民成立的政府來管理』然後他強調『只能二擇一』，這在邏輯上沒有錯。
“When asked by Peel whether there shouldn’t be some compunction about ‘downing the Arabs’ merely because they wanted to remain in their own country, Churchill was more than blunt. The Palestinian Arabs could not be allowed to dictate the future of the country simply because they had lived there so long. ‘I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great had been done to the Red Indian of America, or the black people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. ’That was what was happening in Palestine, Churchill thought: the Jews were taking over, and a good thing to do, since they were ‘a higher-grade race’ than the Arabs.”
當被問到，如果只是因為有阿拉伯人想繼續留在當地，就把他們殺了，那不會有點良心不安嗎？
邱吉爾的回答更野蠻了。他認為在巴勒斯坦的阿拉伯人不能因為他們很久以前就住在那𥚃，就覺得自己可以主宰在那裡的安排。
『我不𠄘認(巴勒斯坦人)他們有那種權力。我不𠄘認，這好比已經對美洲印度安人做了的很多改變，或者針對黑人所做的，當更強大的民族，更高等的民族，或更聰慧的民族，已經佔領了他們的地方。現在在巴勒斯坦發生的，就是類似這樣的事情』。
邱吉爾認為：猶太人不斷佔領那個地方，那是一件好事，因為他們是比阿拉伯人還『更高等的民族』。
“But we can indeed judge Churchill’s views on race and empire by the standards ‘of his time’. Churchill’s views were already retrograded in his own age, not ours, and whereas over the course of his long life other people’s racial attitudes softened, his if anything hardened. His colleague Desmond Morton recorded how Churchill liked to talk of Africans as ‘niggers’, Chinese as ‘pigtails’ and Indians as ‘baboos’. By the 1930s many people were already ceasing to think in crude terms of higher and lower races. One other man did so, of course. Hitler believed that the Jews were a lower-grade race, who deserved to be persecuted and in the end exterminated. Churchill thought the Jews a higher-grade race who deserved to take over the Holy Land from the Palestinian Arabs. Were we forced to choose, Churchill is preferable to Hitler, but many did not wish to make choice even when he spoke, let alone today.”
邱吉爾對種族和帝國的看法，我們完全可以用那個時代的標準來檢驗他。邱吉爾已經違反他那個時代的主流想法了。
當很多人隨著年紀的增長軟化了對種族的態度，但是邱吉爾的態度卻只有更加強硬。
他的同事說他喜歡叫非洲人為「黑鬼」，叫中國人為「豬尾」，叫印度人為「baboo」。
在1930年代，很多人都不再說「高級點的人種」、「低級點的人種」這種粗俗的說法。
另一個和邱吉爾一樣的人，那就是希特勒。
希特認為猶太人是「低級一點的人種」，活該被迫害甚至滅絕。
邱吉爾則認為猶太人是「高級一點的人種」，所以有權佔領巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人所在的聖地。
如果我們被迫必須選擇一位，邱吉爾比希特勒好，但是當時已經很多人認為兩者都不是一種選擇，更何況今日。
*：Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Churchill’s Shadow, The Afterlife of Winston Churchill, 2021, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
2023/8/23 Churchill’s Shadow, The Afterlife of Winston Churchill Damakey
