MAKICHUK: Yes, the world could use a Winston Churchill
The dark days have returned and strong leaders with vision are in short supply
“When I warned [the French] that Britain would fight on alone, whatever they did, their Generals told their Prime Minister and his divided cabinet: ‘In three weeks, England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken … some neck!”
— Canadian Parliament, Ottawa, 30 December 1941
If ever the world, needed another Winston Churchill, it is now.
In the darkest days of the Second World War, it was in the House of Commons that the then prime minister told the world Britain would never surrender to the evil of Nazi Germany.
Britain, and the world as a whole, has changed immeasurably over the last six decades, yet Sir Winston's figure still looms large in history.
And for good reason. He exemplified greatness. A quality so rare, there may never be another.
Sadly, and unexpectedly, those dark days have returned.
President Donald Trump’s vengeful second-term in the White House, has tossed a virtual wrecking ball into the existing world order.
There’s no point in listing his crimes, or his ridiculous claims of success — the man is despicable, unpredictable, rash and devoid of character.
As historian Timothy Garton Ash observes, the president “is now tearing down what remains of the edifice with unparalleled speed and recklessness.”
The Cold War also returned with a vengeance, when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 — resulting in the world’s first, high-tech drone war.
To date, estimates put the death toll at more than 1 million.
The action stunned the EU, raising concerns over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs on the Baltic nations.
If Putin wins in Ukraine, many believe he will not stop. That he is a threat to world democracy and global stability.
Nations bordering Russia have seen exponential military spending. They’re not taking any chances.
A year ago, Russia was making 300 Iranian Shahed drones a month. Today, they are making 5,000 a month. And raining them down on cities and towns.
Ukraine has become a killing field, for a madman in the Kremlin. Espousing irredentist and imperialist views challenging Ukraine's legitimacy as a state.
This week, in Alaska, he played Trump like a fiddle. Giving up nothing, but achieving a stage to make his demands.
In the Mideast, an out-of-control Israel under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of genocide in Gaza.
The retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks, has resulted in more than 65,000 Palestinian casualties, and virtually levelled most of the strip.
Photos of Gaza are reminiscent of post-war Germany.
Israel’s biggest success, perhaps, is that it has normalized mass killing in the modern age. An unconscionable cruelty of monstrous proportions.
War crimes, human rights abuses and starvation as modern day weapons of war. In the year 2025, for crissakes.
Have they not learned anything?
Oh but for the grace of God, and the strong hand of a Winston Churchill at the helm.
The man voted by the British public as its greatest ever son died at the age of 90 some sixty years ago.
But we could sure use him today.
Professor of global and imperial history at Oxford University, Andrew Thompson, told BBC News of all modern British politicians Sir Winston's "would seem to cast the longest shadow."
"But as with any complex and controversial character the legacy is inevitably mixed," he continued.
Preserving the freedom of the Western world and helping to craft the European Convention on Human Rights, sits uncomfortably alongside a pronounced lag in coming to terms with Indian independence and the loss of empire.
Churchill also bore significant blame for the Gallipoli campaign's failure due to his role in initiating the plan and his position as First Lord of the Admiralty.
The devastating losses would tarnish his reputation and lead to his resignation from the government.
Despite these failures, his most significant success was as Prime Minister during the Second World War.
And perhaps, without those failures, he would not have been the leading international politician he would become in 1939, when he took the reins from Neville Chamberlain.
Churchill boldly rallied the nation through powerful speeches and unwavering resolve, shaping Allied strategy and securing crucial support from US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
One of his most enduring moments, came in his first speech as Prime Minister, to the House of Commons, 13 May 1940.
“I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many long months of toil and struggle.
“You ask what is our policy. I will say, it is to wage war with all our might, with all the strength that God can give us, to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.
“You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory there is no survival.”
Let’s just say, appeasement, was not in his DNA.
Beyond wartime leadership, Churchill was a Nobel laureate, recognized for his literary achievements, particularly his historical and biographical works, and his powerful oratory.
Not to mention, his cutting sense of humour. Note this exchange:
Lady Astor: “If I were married to you, I’d put poison in your coffee.”
Reply: “If I were married to you, I’d drink it.”
Quite often, we look at historical figures through the lens of today. Defacing and tearing down statues.
Changing the names of bridges and military bases.
Beating ourselves up, because of the past.
Instead of looking at history and learning from it, we try to erase it. Pretend it didn’t happen.
Nonsense. Sheer idiocy.
The world is a different place, a beast — woke beyond belief. We face new challenges, including the unprecedented rise of artificial intelligence.
Battlefields are changing. Battle tanks that cost $10 million each can be defeated by Chinese made $800-dollar DJI drones.
You can buy them on Amazon.
But what we don’t have, are great leaders. Someone to lead us, out of this darkness.
Great challenges call for great men.
Perhaps he said it best, at the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, 9 November 1954.
“We have surmounted all the perils and endured all the agonies of the past. We shall provide against and thus prevail over the dangers and problems of the future, withhold no sacrifice, grudge no toil, seek no sordid gain, fear no foe. All will be well. We have, I believe, within us the life-strength and guiding light by which the tormented world around us may find the harbour of safety, after a storm-beaten voyage.”