Everyone is someone else’s infidel (2)

My methodology in writing Part One of this post may have been slovenly, and yes, my own website is called ‘The Bumper Book of Lies’ (a collection of short, genre fiction, not Snopes-style urban myths), but I didn’t set out to uncover a right-wing conspiracy or a shock breakdown in journalistic ethics. And now I’m going to damage my reporting credibility further by contradicting my earlier post and quoting Sting, from History Will Teach Us Nothing:

“Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past, things can only get worse.”
[© Sting, 1987, published by Magnetic Music Publishing Ltd, Represented by Regatta Music/Illegal Songs Inc.]

At least I made an attempt at rigorous research. All you need is a web browser and half a brain. Within hours of posting Everyone is someone else’s infidel (1), Richard Langworth, editor of Finest Hour at the Churchill Centre, replied to an email in which I’d asked him whether any record exists of why Churchill excised the two chapters from later editions:

“Hi Chris-
Your travels do take you widely. Are you still receiving CC publications? We published that quotation in FH 113 as “Quotation of the Decade?” I see Winston (grandson) has just discovered and published it.

The reigning expert on the text is Jim Muller, who prepared the new unabridged edition coming out with St Augustine Press, so I’m passing your query to him. I am sure Jim knows exactly what was excised, but whether he knows why in each particular case, I’m not sure. But I think those chapters contained some criticism which WSC deemed wise to expunge after his political career began.”
(My emphasis)

I wasn’t sure which travels Mr Langworth was referring to, but I had recently got back from the dairy... It occurred to me that he might be confusing me with someone else, so I checked. As it transpires, I’d been fortunate to get such a prompt and friendly response:

“My apologies, Chris… I thought you were the Prof. Chris Bell, who has recently rotated from the Naval War College at Newport, R.I. to the University of Alberta. Your question sounded just like one he would ask!”

Ah. My email was clearly smarter than I am. In the meantime, I received fascinating new information from Professor James W. Muller, from the Department of Political Science at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, who may also have been unintentionally misled by Mr Langworth into believing I was a University of Alberta Professor [memo to self: research online diplomas]:

“Seven chapters of The River War (and parts of all the others) disappeared when the book was abridged for the second edition in 1902. One of those was Chapter XXII, ‘The Return of the British Division’, the source of the passage referred to in your message, which Richard Langworth forwarded to me.

“Because the passage as you quoted it omitted one part, lacked italics, and had some errors in punctuation, I quote it here from the first edition:

‘How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical {249*} frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property — either as a child, a wife, or a concubine — must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social developement of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is {250*} a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science — the science against which it had vainly struggled — the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.’

“The source of the passage is Winston Spencer Churchill, The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), II 248-50; numbers in {braces*} within the quotation show where new pages begin. With respect to the question of why Churchill omitted the passage in the second and all subsequent editions of the book, we have little hard evidence. We know that his literary agent and publisher sought a second edition of the book that would fit into a single volume, and that that required cutting long passages from the first edition. We also know that some readers and reviewers criticized the first edition for its personal passages, which they found inappropriate and unnecessary in a campaign history. We can surmise, as several biographers have, that Churchill might, on second thought, have deemed some passages indiscreet, and that he took advantage of the need to abridge the book to excise them. That this might be one such passage is suggested by Churchill’s argument in the previous chapter (II 214-15) that British imperial authorities ought not to attack the religion of native subjects.
(My emphases)

“The original source of the passage is the last of Churchill’s fifteen dispatches to The Morning Post (London), written at Assiout on Sep. 20, 1898, which appeared on p. 5 of the newspaper on Oct. 13, 1898. The newspaper editor made some small changes in what Churchill actually wrote, which was as follows:

‘How dreadful are the curses which Mahommedanism lays upon its votaries? Besides that fanatical fever, which is as rational and as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog — there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, insecurity of property, exist wherever the followers of Mahomet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace & refinement: the next of its dignity and sanctity. Individuals may show splendid qualities. But the influence of the religion is paralysing. It does indeed teach men how to die. It should rather teach them how to live. Dying is a trick very few people have been unable to pick up.’

“The original holograph dispatch, which I have quoted here, is in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds.

“Further information on all of these points will be included in the new edition of The River War to be published later this year in two volumes by St. Augustine’s Press, which incorporates a new edition of Churchill’s dispatches from the war on the Nile in Appendix I, based for the first time on his original holograph dispatches. With all best wishes,
Yours,
Jim Muller”

[The part of the quotation that had been removed entirely from the email version I received was “Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die”. The other inconsistencies were in Americanised spellings and punctuation.]

Perhaps Churchill did, then, decide this passage was indiscreet, that it didn’t tally with his previous argument that the Empire shouldn’t attack the religion of native subjects. If Churchill wrote it and then thought better of it, it’s incumbent upon bloggers, political columnists and those who forward email messages to everyone in their address books to do the same before quoting him.

Ben Macintyre, in his Times column ‘How would Churchill have answered the Islamist threat?’, cited in Part One of this post, uses portions of the quotation to support his argument that Churchill would have fought the suicide bombings in London with “inexorable sternness”. So it’s disingenuous of him — as well as of those who misquoted it in blogs or forwarded WC’s “speech” to all and sundry via email — not to mention that it was edited it out of the book shortly after it was written. They could have found out that Churchill may have been less resolute than they’d assumed with a little research.

In his day, Winston Churchill was happy to describe civilisation as “sympathetic, merciful, tolerant, ready to discuss or argue, eager to avoid violence, to submit to law, to effect compromise” — when it suited him. Those qualities are mere aspirations as long as we disseminate ancient, abandoned arguments uncritically. And let’s not forget that WC himself was willing to abandon those characteristics of civilisation whenever they became inconvenient.

Dying is indeed a trick very few people have been unable to pick up, and here we have a man who (purportedly) said, “A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.” A doctrine less reasonable when applied to your own side’s PoWs, and those serving in the armed forces at the time would have been right to wonder where WC drew the line between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and when he was likely to shift it.

I once heard Peter Gabriel remark that the true sign of a person’s intelligence is where they draw that line: “As soon as a group of people are designated as ‘them’, a remoteness, a distancing, is created right from the outset,” he says. He has also said: “When you put people in the box marked ‘them’, you can kick them around a lot more easily than when they’re in the box marked ‘us’. So I think it’s useful to try and empty the box marked ‘them’ and fill up the box marked ‘us’.”

Macintyre of the Times goes on to refer to “the outpouring of resistance on the internet, with its spontaneous black humour” and how swiftly the internet allows the world to change. Indeed, it’s capable of changing from this to this in little more than the blink of an eye. We really should thank [insert your chosen Deity here] for black humour.

The late Frank Zappa had a song called Dumb All Over. Part of it goes:

“Whoever we are
Wherever we’re from
We shoulda noticed by now
Our behaviour is dumb
And if our chances
Expect to improve
It’s gonna take a lot more
Than tryin’ to remove
The other race
Or the other whatever
From the face Of the planet altogether.”
[© 1981, 1994 The Zappa Family Trust d/b/a/ MUNCHKIN MUSIC (ASCAP). All rights reserved.]

Zappa shared some views with the humorist Bill Maher, who cautioned, in his one-man show ‘Victory Begins At Home’, that the tolerant must be careful not to tolerate the intolerant. We should also resist the urge to condemn the many for the evils of a few, or because we don’t like the sound of their names — whether we decide to call that group “terrorists”, “infidels” or, for that matter, “bloggers”.

It’s a word that gets bandied about, but my New Oxford Dictionary of English says “infidel” originally denoted a person of a religion other than one’s own, specifically a Moslem (to a Christian), a Christian (to a Moslem), or a Gentile (to a Jew). And Dr Jamal Badawi, Professor of Religious Studies and Management at St. Mary’s University and vice-chairman of the Islamic American University, says “infidel” isn’t an accurate translation of any word in the Qur’an. It was used by the Crusaders to refer to the Moslems, not the other way around.

An online glossary of terms used in reference to Islam says the word “Kafir”, which is frequently translated as “infidel”, literally means someone who covers his or her heart, somehow signifying an unbeliever. “It is a descriptive term, not a derogatory slur or a sanction for murder. Kafir does not translate to infidel, which is offensive and dehumanising, used to justify the murder of Moslems during the Crusades.” The same glossary says Mohammedan is: “an out-dated and extremely offensive word coined by orientalists to describe Moslems. Moslems reject this title since it implies they worship Mohammed, instead of The One God”. The Churchill quotation refers to “Mohammedanism” which, at the very least, is inaccurate.

Religious groups of all flavours, of course, take offence easily. Believers in Omnipotent Beings may not only be insulted by words but also alarmed that they are being used to reinforce untruths. The easy accessibility of such errors in translation underscores how much the world has changed since WC’s tirade. “Islam” is no more a “them” in the sense of it being an enemy than “Christianity” could be considered by Christians to be a unified ally.

There are lessons to be had from history if we’re willing to learn them, and we really would be “dumb all over” to dismiss Churchill’s leadership skills and experience. However, while he may have recognised the rise of dangerous movements and dictatorships in swathes of contemporary action, he had no experience of life in the 21st Century.

One of the most important historical lessons we ought by now to have learnt is that single forces rarely motivate the individual. So, since everyone is someone else’s infidel, perhaps we need a new kind of ‘Declaration of Independence’.

“Ist” in German means is. “Ist” in English usually means trouble for somebody else; it’s in Christian, after all. Fundamentalist. Islamist. Existentialist. Orientalist. Atheist. Anarchist. Fascist. Communist. Nationalist. Papist. Pacifist. Militarist. Buddhist. Zionist. Feminist. Fatalist. Racist. Dadaist. Terrorist.

The “ist” that really matters is individualist. Why do we try so hard not to be individuals? And what would we change if we stopped trying to be anything else? It’s impossible to be 100% logically consistent about it but it’s something we might strive towards, in the spirit of Churchill’s argument that we shouldn’t attack the religion of native subjects.