British PM Boris Johnson In An Effort To Protect Winston Churcill Statue

Winston Churcill statue (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - British Prime Minister (PM) Boris Johnson said Britain could not replace the cultural landscape and all its historical complexities. If that happens, the potential for distortion of Britain's past will open up. These words are a response to the many ongoing protests by destroying or tearing down statues of historical figures.

"If we start cleaning records and deleting all the pictures except for those whose attitudes are what we want, we are embroiled in a huge lie, a distortion of our history," Johnson said, quoted by Reuters on Monday, June 15.

Johnson also defended Winston Churchill whose statue had been tampered with. He said it was "absurd and sad" if a monument to the former British prime minister was in danger. Some time ago, a statue of Winston Churchill was sprayed with graffiti during protests in London, claiming the former PM was racist.

"He is a hero. And I hope I'm not alone saying I'm going to fight with every breath on the body in trying to get the statue out of Parliament Square, and the sooner the protective shield (in stock) the better," he said.

Many monuments to historical figures in Britain have been closed when anti-racism protesters took to the streets after the death of African-American George Floyd. Protest participants argue that some of the hero statues represent their portrayal of Britain's imperialist past.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said other "key statues", including one of Nelson Mandela, would be protected. This is because there is a risk that the statue could become a "starting point for violence." The gesture came after a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was dumped into the port in Bristol during the 'Black Lives Matter' protest on Sunday, 7 June.

Why was Churcill considered racist?

PM Johnson admired the figure of Winston Churcill. He also wrote a biography of Churchill and some people close to Johnson said that the PM was eager to imitate Churcill's style.

However, many accounts show that Churchill expressed racist and anti-Semitic views overtly. Critics also blame Churcill for refusing to send food to India during the 1943 famine. The famine killed more than two million people.

Churchill also told the Royal Palestinian Commission that he did not admit to wrongdoing against Native Americans or Indigenous Australians. "A stronger race, a higher race, a more worldly race, has come and taken its place," Churcill said.

Launching CNN, Churchill is also often the target of false or exaggerated accusations. However, he actually said pretty horrible things, like he hated people with "slit eyes and pig tails" referring to Indians. To him, people from India are "the worst people in the world besides the Germans."

Churcill also admitted that he "didn't really think black people were as capable as whites." In 1943, US Vice President Henry Wallace challenged Churcill's ideas of Anglo-Saxon superiority.

According to Wallace's diary: He (Churcill) said why apologize about Anglo-Saxon superiority, we are superior, we have a common heritage that has developed over centuries in England and has been perfected by the constitution.