A cry for freedom remembering Winston Churchill
In periods, like ours, in which the social crisis, even before the economic one, is raging and trust in political institutions is failing, the people are looking for something, and often also someone, in which to place their hopes. In the past century, one of the giants of history was Winston Churchill, the prime minister who led the United Kingdom as a real political and military leader during World War II.
Born in Woodstock on November 30, 1874, Churchill died fifty-seven years ago, precisely on January 24, 1965. He came from a military family, such as the undefeated John Churchill, known as one of the greatest innovators in the British army, a general who led the Reign during the War of the Spanish Succession, and politicians, such as his paternal grandfather, John Spencer-Churchill, and his father, both in the parliamentary ranks of the Tories . Young Winston began his military career by entering Sandhurst Academy on his third attempt. Soon, first of all thanks to the period spent in India during the war, then in Sudan for the Mahdist war and finally during the years of the Second Boer War, the future British premier made himself known for his correspondence and for the memories on war events. , but not only. At the age of twenty-five he was elected to the ranks of the Tories .
Over the years, before becoming prime minister, he held various political positions, first that of minister of war and aviation, then in 1921 that of minister for the colonies, coming to be named "Man of the Year" in 1925 by Time following his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924. Subsequently, there were a total of two experiences at the helm of the English government: the first, during the darkest period of Europe (as in the rest of the world), between 1940 and 1945; the second, after Labor Attlee took Downing Street in the 1945 elections, between October 1951 and April 1955, after six years as opposition leader.
What he had to fight against during the two experiences of government was obviously very different: during the first Nazism, during the second the distortions in social policies and the decline of the empire. Focusing on his early Downing Street period, although London fought against Nazism practically by itself before the intervention of the Americans, many in the political, cultural and journalistic landscape forget its merits. A grave mistake: the United Kingdom was a staple during the terrible years of the Second World War, stopping Hitler's advance and allowing the return to freedom on the Continent.
In addition to being remembered as a great statesman, a rare commodity nowadays, he was also the author of numerous literary works, winning the Nobel Prize in 1953. He began writing at a young age, coming to publish five books at the age of 25. , 31 in all, to which are added 18 volumes of speeches, plus an immense amount of letters, documents and other material.
As Westerners we have the duty – and, personally, also the pleasure – to acknowledge Winston Churchill's affirmation of the values of freedom, indicated by the British leader several times as the supreme value of Western civilization.
He was certainly a statesman guided by a rigid pragmatism, who for example saw in the British Empire "a disciplining power – so the journalist Federico Rampini in a 2008 article for Repubblica – that can bring modernity and freedom through tested rules and institutions". An army, rigid by nature in its internal rules and in its composition, allows us to give life to that breath of freedom that in these months, now years, of the pandemic we no longer have the possibility to breathe, due to politicians, ours, intoxicated by power and statism.
“In the war: determination. In defeat: challenge. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: benevolence. " Long live Winston Churchill! Long live the United Kingdom! Long live the freedom!
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/un-grido-di-liberta-ricordando-winston-churchill/ on Mon, 24 Jan 2022 03:45:00 +0000.