Winston Churchill joins Abraham Lincoln and James Cook as a figure to be demonised

Making their mark. Jacquelin Magnay­, The Australian, Monday:

Black Lives Matter protesters have defaced a central London statue of Winston Churchill, branding him “racist”.

Johann Hari, The Independent, October­ 27, 2010:

George W. Bush left a bust of Churchill near his desk in the White House, in an attempt to associate himself with the war leader’s heroic stand against fascism. Barack Obama had it returned­ to Britain … his Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was imprisoned without trial for two years and was tortured on Churchill’s watch.

Daniel Finkelstein, The Times, February­ 12, 2019:

If it wasn’t for Winston Churchill, I wouldn’t be alive … In May 1940 there were others who understood better than him the chances of Britain being able to withstand Nazi Germany, but few with his appreciation of what was at stake, of what surrender or peace terms might mean. He insisted on resistanc­e and defeated the strong lobby that sought a deal with Hitler. Had he not done so, things would have been very different.

The New Arab, October 12, 2018:

British professor of black studies Kehinde­ Andrews was accused of sparking a row about the legacy of Winston Churchill in a TV interview with Piers Morgan. Andrews dared to question the wartime leader’s revered status and described him as a racist. This incensed Morgan.

Times Now Digital, June 4:

Mahatma Gandhi’s statue outside the Indian embassy in Washington DC was desecrated by unruly elements involved in the protests.

Stuart Dowell, The First News website, June 1:

The Tadeusz Kosciuszko monument in Washington DC was vandalised in rioting that has engulfed the US after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis … The Polish ambassador­ Piotr Wilczek (said) Kosciuszko … fought for the independence of both the US and Poland.

Washington Examiner, June 6:

Protesters in London scrawled the names of black people killed in custody on a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Reuben Rose-Redwood, The Conversation, March 18:

These are not random acts of hooliganism. The vandalism of colonial statues is an expression of political protest against the celebration of settler­ colonialism in Canada.

Christopher Knaus, Guardian Aust­ralia, August 26, 2017:

Malcolm Turnbull has likened the vandalism of statues of Captain Cook and Lachlan Macquarie to Stalinist purges, warning the acts were part of “a deeply disturbing” campaign to “obliterate” Australia’s history.

New Zealand Herald, July 10, 2019:

A James Cook statue that has been vandalised with the words “This is our land” and “Thief Pakeha” in Gisborne has stirred controversy online.

The Mocker, The Australian, May 7:

James Cook was a legend in the fields of navigation, cartography, explor­ation, and leadership, yet mere ­mention of his name invokes ­accusations of imperialism, genocide, and cultural hegemony. So dastardly … are (his) crimes, it is hard to say which one is the cruellest, whether it is ending up a historical pariah, or being murdered, disembowelled, broiled and returned to his crew in bits, or having Peter FitzSimons as his biographer.