The Trope of Historical Amnesia and Cognitive Dissonance in Boris Johnson’s Rhetorical Historical Revisionism of Winston Churchill's Racist Antecedents
“Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead”.[i]
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”.[ii]
“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster”.[iii]
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief”.[iv]
This article is a critical review of the rhetorical historical revisionism of issues of race in general, and of the racist animus of Winston Churchill, in particular. This is an essential review, particularly in the context of the flawed analysis of the recent Report of the Commission on Racial Ethnic Disparities, chaired by Dr. Tony Sewell, which concluded that there was no institutional racism in British society, reducing the concept of racism to individual bias and perceptions of many in so called ethnic minority communities.[v]
As concluded by Dame Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, this “damaging report” has “moved the race debate backwards” and that this is something Johnson and his colleagues have “actively cultivated for their own political ends”.[vi] More profoundly, John Clarke cautions that “forgetfulness” about past experience, past policies and past knowledge is a “dangerous condition”.[vii]
This underscores the trope of cognitive dissonance and historical amnesia that has become a defining feature of Western official and academic blindness to the social realities of ordinary, everyday Black people in Britain.[viii] In an American context, but equally relevant in our present discussion, in “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison,[ix] a thesis emerges that from a “visible status in existence”, the perception that white people have about black people “transforms” this visibility into an “invisible status” both in human existence and society.[x] Further, this “metamorphosis” of black people from “visibility to invisibility” at first based on “white people's perception”, is principally based and due to their color of skin, and to another the colour of skin of Black people, “creating a real problem of existence and identity” for black people through the question: “do I exist?”.[xi]
This “invisibility” of Black people is revealed in a report on behalf of the Children’s Commissioner for England, which indicates that hundreds of vulnerable “invisible children” in England, particularly Black children are being locked away in secure hospitals, prisons or children’s homes without any legal protection.[xii] Here, Children's Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield has indicated that there is growing evidence about the growing number of children locked up who do not appear in any official statistics and are not living in places designed to hold children securely. She points out that often these children are incredibly vulnerable, at risk of being sexually or criminally exploited or harming themselves.[xiii]
Further, it has been pointed out that women and girls routinely face multiple, intersecting inequalities and that the criminal justice system is too often the “hard face” of this injustice. Each “Black or minority ethnic” woman or girl who has been rendered “hyper-visible or invisible” within the criminal justice system being a woman who has been failed by our society.[xiv] Where racial inequality is viewed as “gender-neutral”, or gender inequality as “race-neutral”, the experiences of Black women are made invisible.[xv] In a similar vein, Curry has demonstrated the “dark logic” of the intersectional invisibility of Black people.[xvi] An exploration of the needs of Black disabled people in Warwickshire revealed that Black disabled people suffer a “double invisibility”, with organizations failing to recognize the needs of Black disabled people for family support, problems with accessing benefits and services, and culturally sensitive services.
The “refusal of such perception and invisibility” constructed by racism, stereotypes, prejudices and the concept of “white people superiority” will oblige Black people to “struggle for their visibility”, their true existence, their identity and recognition by white people as an “equal human being”.[xvii] This engages the essential of negotiating and interrogating the “interstitial spaces of racial ambiguity, liminality, and invisibility” as they uncover different modes of “commemoration” and fend off “historical forgetting”.[xviii] Further, considerations of “memory, and the attendant concerns about subjectivity and forgetting”, demonstrate the central place of testimony to “mnemonic restitution”.[xix]
It is in this frame of reference that we explore Boris Johnson's comments in respect of Winston Churchill in his address to the Conservative Party Conference on 6 October 2021, when he stated that:
“And we attack and deny our history at our peril, and when they began to attack Churchill as a racist I was minded to ignore them. It is only 20 years ago since BBC audiences overwhelmingly voted him the greatest Briton of all time, because he helped defeat a regime after all that was defined by one of the most vicious racisms the world has ever seen. But as time has gone by, it has become clear to me that this isn’t just a joke. They really do want to re-write our national story, starting with Hereward the Woke. We really are at risk of a kind of know-nothing cancel culture know-nothing iconoclasm, and so we Conservatives will defend our history and cultural inheritance. Not because we are proud of everything, but because trying to edit it now is as dishonest as a celebrity trying furtively to change his entry in Wikipedia. And it’s a betrayal of our children’s education”.
This speech was a reaffirmation of earlier views of Johnson portraying Winston Churchill as being one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century, a man of “contagious bravery, breathtaking eloquence, matchless strategizing, deep humanity”, and a hero who helped save Britain and the whole of Europe from a “fascist and a racist tyranny” by leading the defeat of Nazism.[xx]
Prior to this speech, Boris Johnson, had come to the defence of his hero, Winston Churchill, in an attack of the Churchill Foundation. After coming to the conclusion that "many" of Churchill's views on race are widely seen as “unacceptable” today, a view that they shared, the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust renamed itself the “Churchill Fellowship” and removed some images of the man. A “lengthy tribute and biography” were removed from its website and instead the "Our Story" section “briefly mentions” his wartime role in defeating the Nazis, while acknowledging "controversy” about aspects of his life. Regarding race, the Charity stated that they acknowledged the “many issues and complexities” involved on all sides but did not accept “racism of any kind".[xxi]
Speaking through his official spokesman, the British Prime Minister attacked the Fellowship for its actions. The spokesman for Boris Johnson asserted that the trust should “think again” about this considered decision and contended that it is completely absurd, misguided and wrong to “airbrush his giant achievements and service to this country”.[xxii] However, it has been indicated that Johnson's attack on the Charity was unfounded and that dropping Churchill’s first name, and removing an article about him and some photographs from the website, is hardly the same as writing him out of history.[xxiii] As indicated by Ailbhe Rea:
“From his days debating at the Oxford Union, the Prime Minister will be familiar with what is known as the “straw man fallacy”: a misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument to make it easier to rebut. By defending the statue of Churchill against no serious threat, Johnson is putting forth a straw man (or, if you like, a straw statue)”.
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister's spokesman argued that people should learn from the past, both good and bad, and not “erase” it.[xxiv] The prime minister asserted that it was “absurd, misguided and wrong” that the Churchill Fellowship appeared to be “distancing itself” from the former prime minister.[xxv] His spokesman contended that:
"The Prime Minister believes Sir Winston Churchill was a hero who helped save this country and the whole of Europe from a fascist and racist tyranny by leading the defeat of Nazism”.
In asserting that Johnson was not seeking to “shy away” from the “controversies” of Britain's past and it was important people “learnt about the UK's history in full” He said:
"The Prime Minister has always been clear that while it's legitimate to examine Britain's history and we should aim to educate people about all aspects of our complex past both good and bad and not erase them....We need to focus on addressing the present and not tempt to re-write the past and get sucked into the never-ending debate about which well-known historical figures are sufficiently pure and politically correct to remain in public view".[xxvi]
Earlier, Johnson had another occasion to rise in defense of his erstwhile hero when the statute of Churchill in Parliament Square was defaced with graffiti branding him as a racist during a Black Lives Matter protest on June 7, 2020, when thousands came out in protest after the brutal slaying of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States.[xxvii] Subsequently, it was again sprayed with graffiti labeling the tainted hero as a racist by an Extinction Rebellion protester.[xxviii] After the Black Lives Matter protest, the statute was covered by authorities to protect it from further damage, and drew the ire of the Prime Minister in a tweet, when he called it:
"….absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protesters...The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country – and the whole of Europe – from a fascist and racist tyranny".[xxix]
Johnson argued that “It is clear” that the protests have been “sadly hijacked by extremists” intent on violence. He contended that the attacks on the police” over the last week are “intolerable and they are abhorrent”.[xxx] He stated that it was absurd and deplorable that the statue of Winston Churchill should have been in any “plausible danger of attack”. The Prime Minister declared that he would defend the statue of Churchill on Parliament Square “with every breath in my body”.[xxxi] Johnson's remarks “stirred a fraught debate” over symbols of Britain’s past, with him accusing protesters of seeking to “censor our past”. In series of eight Twitter posts, Johnson “lavished praise on the wartime leader” and “responded” to those who recently tore down the statue of a 17th-century slave trader in Bristol by insisting that the “country’s imperial history should not be censored or edited”.[xxxii]
It has been critically pointed out that Boris Johnson is at his happiest when he’s talking about Winston Churchill, so perhaps it is no surprise he “jumped on the opportunity to defend his hero” and that talking about Churchill — whose statue in Parliament Square U.K. media suggested was “under attack” — beats talking about the “coronavirus pandemic, or inequality, or Dominic Cummings’ lockdown transgressions”, or the myriad other issues “making life difficult over at No.10”.[xxxiii] As we are advised by Otto English, the “Churchill controversy” certainly helps distract from the “desperate unpleasantness” of Brexit, the “uptick in debates” about racial injustice and Britain’s legacy of slavery, and the 42,000 people who have died, in part, due to the Johnson administration’s “incompetence” during the current pandemic.[xxxiv] However, English asserts that, where Johnson no doubt hopes Churchill will be a “rallying point” for many Brits, he may find instead that Churchill’s seemingly “unassailable place as Britain’s greatest hero” is not as sure as it once was. He indicates that a debate about Churchill is “long overdue” and that, in a “parliamentary career that spanned 63 years”, he was arguably as responsible for as many good things as bad. One thing is beyond doubt: Despite what revisionists might say, he held views that were “frequently unacceptable”, even by the standards of his own age.[xxxv]
Crucially, English points out that, as “uncomfortable” as it may be for many to acknowledge, “freedom-loving” Churchill only really believed that freedom applied to white people and specifically white people with British passports. Time and again in his writing, the U.K.’s most famous politician demonstrated attitudes that sat at the “very extreme of the contemporaneous British Imperial mindset”.[xxxvi] He indicates that Churchill was “unequivocally” against Indian independence and “opposed” any concessions to freedom that he believed would weaken the Empire. Churchill unashamedly declared that he hated Indians calling them “beastly people with a beastly religion.”
Further English points out that Churchill viewed Gandhi as a “malignant subversive fanatic” who ought to be “lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi” and then “trampled on by an enormous elephant”. More crucially, English reminds us that neither did the man who “spoke out against the tyranny” of Hitler and Axis totalitarianism see any “paradox” in his own nation’s invasion and occupation of other lands. Throughout his life, Churchill defended:
“…the very worst excesses of the empire — even at the cost of human life. He supported, for example, the setting up of concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War in the early 1900s that resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children. In 1937, giving evidence to the Palestine Royal Commission, while talking about black Aboriginals he stated: 'I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place'. As a war-time prime minister in 1943, Churchill was responsible for the catastrophic decision to divert food aid destined for Bengal to Britain, a choice that was to contribute to the deaths of 3 million people.
In his second term of office, as the Kikuyu rose up against British rule in Kenya, he held overall responsibility for the forced internment and brutal torture of 150,000 people in what has been called Britain’s gulag.... That disturbing episode, which saw extrajudicial executions, thousands of hangings, men forcibly castrated, women raped and many more die in internment camps, has been largely absent from narratives about Churchill — and indeed Britain’s recent colonial past. And there’s a good reason for that. Most Britons still view the Empire through rose-tinted spectacles. They like their history to be uncomplicated and to believe that Britain and its leaders behaved in a manner beyond reproach. They are ignorant of the extent of the crimes of our colonial past and happier to bask in the reflected glory of their cigar-chomping hero than to delve into the events of his life”.[xxxvii]
It has been indicated that Boris Johnson makes continued use of the rhetoric of the “wealth creators” rooted historically in Thatcherite political thought.[xxxviii] His convention speech was punctuated by the Prime Minister's “flair and bombast”.[xxxix] The fifth-century intellectual and teacher of rhetoric Gorgias advised that speech is a great “potentate”, who by means of the “tiniest and most invisible body” achieves the most godlike results, being able to “dispel fear, to assuage grief, to inculcate joy, and to evoke pity”. He asserts that the “power of speech” affects the soul in the same way that different drugs act upon the body, with some putting an end to sickness, some to life. He points out that some speeches induce grief, some joy, some fear, some instill courage in the audience, and some “drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of pernicious persuasion”.[xl] It has been indicated that one might think that there’s a:
“World of difference between the sort of seductive speechifying which Gorgias taught and the Johnson-Cummings approach. The latter is about the relentless repetition of brief phrases which resonate with existing passions or else are carefully designed to whip up negative feelings... But these are incantations designed to drug our souls, precisely in the manner which Gorgias describes. They are seductively simple soundbites; slogans which simplify and grossly misrepresent the truth”.[xli]
For the purpose of our present discussion focusing of Johnson's denial and marginalization of Churchill's inherent racism, it is important to bear in mind the indication that the “problem of racism” becomes even more of an issue when it is placed within the context of the “range of contradictory discussions” on many aspects of it, from the very definition of racism to the possible responses to it. An issue of particular importance in this is that of the contradictory actions of governments in accepting and legislating against racism on the one hand, “while strongly denying its existence” on the other.[xlii] As such, it has been pointed out that racism defines the way in which “social relations between people or society are structured” and operates through a range of personal, relational, systemic and institutional practices that serve to “devalue, exclude, oppress or exploit people”. It is an act of power and is a tool for maintaining privilege. It involves the process of “categorizing” certain groups or individuals as inferior through the use of economic, social or political power that “legitimates” exploitation or exclusion.[xliii] In this regard, it is important to note that racism is often covered up or downplayed as something else “less deliberate or oppressive” such as “cultural misunderstanding” by those who are not subject to its “violence and belittling”.[xliv] As indicated by Riggs, there is a psychical nature of racism, rather than an individual one and at an unconscious level, individuals of the “dominant society” have already invested in racism. However, when incidence of racism is voiced, there is an implication for the individual:
“This is an outcome those individuals resist as they have difficulty in accepting that they have invested in racism, are beneficiaries of it and need to be accountable. At the individual level, the sense of belonging of those affected by race denial is constantly challenged with negative psych-social results”[xlv]
Denial of racism includes disclaimers, mitigation, euphemism, excuses, blaming the victim, reversal and other moves of defence, face-keeping and positive self-presentation in negative discourse about minorities, immigrants and (other) anti-racists..[xlvi] Race denial is manifested in subtle and usually unconscious “microaggressions” that serve to invalidate, devalue the racial and cultural identity and lived experience of those “outside the dominant groups”.[xlvii] Babacan points out that these processes contribute in “very subtle ways” to denial strategies and is achieved by not “locating self” in understanding racism, not challenging “unearned privilege” and not placing or seeing self in a network of “racialised power relations” in that society.[xlviii] Here, it has been indicated that the power of “racial microaggressions” lies in their invisibility to the perpetrator and “oftentimes the recipient” and this also denies that dominant or White subjectivities as well as those of minorities have been shaped in the historical context of colonial, racialised violence, the legacy which lingers today.[xlix]
The social consequences of this denial is manifest in lack of acceptance of “unearned privilege of Whiteness”, resentment of “critique of Whiteness”, with “broad anxiety” about the social order being “embodied in political programs” that emphasize a return through “cultural renewal” to a more secure, often mythical, idea of community.[l] It has been indicated that denial of racism has been widely identified as “one central manifestation” of a new form of racism that is “pervasive and subtle”, yet powerful in its capacity to exclude those signified as other due to their racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds and characteristics.[li]
It has been indicated that, to some, the fact that figures such as Edward Colston, a key figure in Britain’s role in enslavement, were not just put up on a “literal pedestal”, but that their statue plaques also described them (in Colston’s case) as “one of the most virtuous and wise sons of the city”, was evidence to such protestors that Britain had yet to “confront” its colonial past. Indeed, to such protestors, this was an issue of the present, not just an issue of the past; by failing to bring a “critical eye” to historical figures, Britain was “making a statement” in the present day as to which histories and people they value.[lii] As we are reminded by Stuart Hall, empires come and go, but the imagery of the British Empire seems destined to go on forever. The imperial flag has been hauled down in a hundred different corners of the globe. But it is still flying in the collective unconscious.[liii] Meghji contends that through this “imagery,” Britain is seen as the benevolent fighting-force for good who freed the enslaved (but never played a role in enslavement), ridded the globe of fascism (because the empire did not deny human rights to their colonized subjects), granted independence to the colonies while incorporating them into a prosperous Commonwealth (while never infringing upon their independence in the first place), and welcomed postcolonial citizens into their “mother country” with open arms (without subjecting these very same people to economic, social, and political marginality).[liv] Meghji indicates that this deep-seated dismissal of culpability from previous injustices in the name of empire, is essential to Britain’s view of its past.
Britain’s commitment to its specific view of itself prevents other histories from being known and given legitimacy, including those histories that see Britain not through the “lens of abolition, democracy, and multiculturalism”, but through the “connected histories” of enslavement, colonial dispossession, and postcolonial exclusion. In upholding this notion of British innocence, and consequently devaluing alternate knowledges and histories of Britain, the state is able to maintain its vision of “inculpability” when it comes to the present inequalities faced by the nation’s “racialized minorities”.[lv] In this frame of reference, Britain’s claim to “historical innocence” connects with the British state’s insistence on not being responsible for “contemporary racialized injustices”. He indicates that, in Britain, the ideology of post-racialism, the idea that racial minorities do not face structural barriers that impede their progress, has post-colonial roots. The same “logic” that reframes British colonialism as a democratizing “civilizing” mission, and that reframes the economic exploitation of postcolonial citizens as charitable “Commonwealth migration”, is the same logic we see right now, where the state is reframing the disproportionate COVID-19 mortality rate of BAME people as being the result of “not racism”,[lvi] as it has done in the Sewel Report’s denial of institutional racism.
This mindset resonates in the core of Boris Johnson’s rhetorical flair in his adulation and defence of the historical image of Winston Churchill and in the lingering cognitive dissonance and historical amnesia that pervades his and the national view about empire and race, inherent in the denial of the racism that defines the British historical colonial epoch and in the everyday lived experiences of ordinary, everyday Black people.
As we are poignantly reminded by Maya Angelou:
“You declare you see me dimly
through a glass which will not shine,
though I stand before you boldly,
trim in rank and marking time.
You do own to hear me faintly
as a whisper out of range,
while my drums beat out the message
and the rhythms never change.
Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.
You announce my ways are wanton,
that I fly from man to man,
but if I'm just a shadow to you,
could you ever understand?
We have lived a painful history,
we know the shameful past,
but I keep on marching forward,
and you keep on coming last.
Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.
Take the blinders from your vision,
take the padding from your ears,
and confess you've heard me crying,
and admit you've seen my tears.
Hear the tempo so compelling,
hear the blood throb in my veins.
Yes, my drums are beating nightly,
and the rhythms never change.
Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.”.[lvii]
[i] Noam Chomsky (2017); Who Rules the World? London, Penguin Books
[ii] Milan Kundera and Aaron Asher (2019): The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. London, Faber & Faber
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Frantz Fanon (1963): The Wretched of the Earth. New York, Grove Press
[v] Tony Sewell (2021): Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report. Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. Available online <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/974507/20210331_-_CRED_Report_-_FINAL_-_Web_Accessible.pdf>
[vi] The Editor of the Observer (2021): “The Observer View on the Sewell Commission's Race Report” In the Guardian, 4 April. Available online <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/04/the-observer-view-on-the-sewell-commissions-race-report >
[vii] John Clarke (2012): “ Historical Amnesia: Linking Past, Present and Future in Politics and Policy” In Research, Policy and Planning 29(3), 153-160
[viii] Stuart Hall (1980): ”Race, Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance” In Marian O'Callaghan (ed.) Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism. Paris, UNESCO; (1985): “Signification, Representation and Ideology: Althusser and the Post Structuralist Debates” In Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 2(2); Stuart Hall and B. Gieben (1992): “The West and the Rest” In Stuart Hall (ed.) Formations of Modernity. Cambridge, Polity Press; Stuart Hall, David Held and Don Hubert et. al. (1996): Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies. Oxford, Blackwell;
Bill Schwarz (2000): “Becoming Post Colonial” In Paul Gilroy, Lawrence Grossberg and Angela McRobbie (eds.): Without Guarantees: In Honour of Stuart Hall. London/New York, Verso; Dion Hanna (2018): “Cognitive Dissonance and Historical Amnesia: Racism and Race in a Bahamian Context” In the Journal of Revolution and Liberation 1(3); (2019): “Black People's Contributions to British Society: A Song From the Margins” In the Journal of Revolution and Liberation 2(1); (2019): “Word Sound and Power: Decoding the Racialization of the English Language” the Journal of Revolution and Liberation 2 (3); (2020): Colonialism, Slavery, Man's Inhumanity to Man and the Fiction of Legality in the Atlantic Slave Trade” the Journal of Revolution and Liberation 3(2)
[ix] Ralph Ellison (2014): Invisible Man. London, Penguin Books
[x] Stephane Beugre Zouankouan (2020): “Perception, Visibility and Invisibility in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man” In International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Culture. May 6 (3)
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Harriet Waldergrave (2020): Who Are There, Where Are They 2020: Children Locked Up. Children’s Commissioner for England. Available online <https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cco-who-are-they-where-are-they-2020.pdf.>
[xiii] Anne Longfield (2000): “Forward by Anne Longfield Children's Commissioner For England” In Harriet Waldergrave (2020) supra..
[xiv] Prison Reform Trust (2017): Counted Out: Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Women in the Criminal Justice System. Prison Reform Trust. Available online < http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Counted%20Out.pdf?>
[xv] H. S. Mirza (2008): “Ethnic Minority Women: A Prospectus for the Future” In Zahra Moosa (ed.) Seeing Double: Race and Gender in Ethnic Minority Women’s lives. London: Fawcett Society; Prison Reform Trust (2017) supra.
[xvi] T. J. Curry (2020): “He Never Mattered: Poor Black Males and the Dark Logic of Intersectional Invisibility” In M. Cholbi, B. Hogan and A. Madva et. al. (eds.) The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford, Oxford University Press
[xvii] Ibid.
[xviii] Nicole Stamant (2019): “Refusing Historical Amnesia: Emily Raboteau, Danzy Senna, and the American South” In English Language Notes 57 (2)
[xix] Ibid.
[xx] Boris Johnson (2014): The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History. Hodder and Stoughton
[xxi] Sky News (2021): “Boris Johnson Accuses Charity of Trying to Airbrush Winston Churchill's Giant Achievements” In the Sky News Website. Available online <https://news.sky.com/story/winston-churchill-charity-accused-of-woke-attack-on-wartime-leader-after-rebrand-12402869>
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii] Scotsman Leader Comment (2021): “Winston Churchill: Boris Johnson's Attack on Charity Was Unwarranted – Scotsman comment” In the Scotsman, September 10. Available online <https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/winston-churchill-boris-johnsons-attack-on-charity-was-unwarranted-scotsman-comment-3377769>
[xxiv] Scotsman Leader Comment (2021) supra.
[xxv] George Grylls, Jack Malvern and Daniel Keane (2021): “Boris Johnson Accuses Winston Churchill Charity of Airbrushing Achievements” In The Times, Thursday September 9. Available online <https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/churchill-charity-racism-row-is-ridiculous-says-nicholas-soames-qlkbfpb6v>
[xxvi] Dan Falvey (2021): “Absurd, Misguided and Wrong!: Boris Left Seething After Churchill's Name Cut From Charity” In the Express, Thursday September 9. Available online <https://ww2020w.express.co.uk/news/politics/1488734/Boris-johnson-news-winston-churchill-latest-racist-charity-delete-name>
[xxvii] BBC (2020): “Black Lives Matter Protest: Why Was Churchill Statute Defaced?” In the BBC website June 8. Available online <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-52972531>; Claire Schofield (2020): “Why Was a Winston Churchill Statute Defaced:The Life and Views of the Wartime PM as Graffiti Brands Him Racist” In The Scotsman, June 8. Available online <https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/why-was-winston-churchill-statue-defaced-life-and-views-uk-wartime-pm-graffiti-brands-him-racist-2878135> ; Times of India (2020): “Winston Churchill Statute Vandalised in London During Black Lives Matter Protest” In the Times of India, June 9. Available online <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/winston-churchill-statue-vandalised-in-london-during-black-lives-matter-protests/articleshow/76254841.cms>
[xxviii] P A. Media (2020): “Extinction Rebellion Protester Arrested For Defacing Winston Churchill Statute” In the BBC News website, September 10. Available online <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/10/extinction-rebellion-protester-arrested-for-defacing-winston-churchill-statue>; Reuters Staff (2020): “London Statute of Churchill Defaced Again” In the Reuters website, September 10. Available online <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-britain-churchill-idUSKBN2613AW>
[xxix] Jason Slotkin (2020): “Statute of Winston Churchill is Covered Up in London” In the NPR website, June 12. Available online <https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/12/875731303/statue-of-winston-churchill-covered-up-in-london>l BBC News (2020): “Churchill Statute Uncovered Ahead of Macron Visit” In the BBC News website, June 18. Available online <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53078991> ; Haley Victory Smith (2020): “London's Churchill Statute Covered With Box to Protect it From Protesters” In the Washington Examiner, June 12. Available online <https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/londons-churchill-statue-covered-with-box-to-protect-it-from-protesters>
[xxx] Callum Paton (2020): “Boris Johnson Defends Churchill's Legacy Amid Protests Hijacked by Extremists” In the N World website, June 12. Available online <Boris Johnson defends Churchill’s legacy amid UK protests ‘hijacked by extremists’ (thenationalnews.com) >
[xxxi] Alibhe Rea (2020): “Why is Boris Johnson Defending the Winston Churchill Statute Against No Serious Threat?” In The New Statesman, June 15. Available online <Why is Boris Johnson defending the Winston Churchill statue against no serious threat? (newstatesman.com) >
[xxxii] Ibid.
[xxxiii] Otto English (2020): “The Churchill Factor: Boris Would Rather Everyone Talked About Winston:
But the War-Time PM’s Place as Britain’s Greatest Hero is Not as sure as it Once Was” In Politico, Thursday October 7. Available online <The Churchill factor: Boris would rather everyone talked about Winston – POLITICO >
[xxxiv] Ibid.
[xxxv] Ibid.
[xxxvi] Ibid.
[xxxvii] Ibid
[xxxviii] Felix Römer (2020): “Boris Johnson, Thatcherism and the Rhetoric of ‘Wealth Creators’” In Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, 28 (2). Available online <https://www.proquest.com/docview/2471030757?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true>
[xxxix] Theo Usherwood (2021): “Analysis: Boris Johnson's Keynote Speech Was Light on Policy and Full of Bombast”. In the LBC website. Available online <Analysis: Boris Johnson's keynote speech was light on policy and full of bombast - LBC >
[xl] Gorgias of Leontini and Douglas M. MacDowell (2005): Encomium of Helen. Bristol, Bristol Classical Press
[xli] John Hesk (2019): “Boris Johnson and the seductive sophistry of slogans” In the Ancient and Modern Rhetoric Web Blog, University of St. Andrews. Available online <Boris Johnson and the seductive sophistry of slogans | Ancient and Modern Rhetoric (st-andrews.ac.uk) >
[xlii] Hurriyet Babacan (n/d): “Addressing Denial: The First Step in Responding to Racism”. Available online <Microsoft Word - Proceedings-draft.doc (jcu.edu.au) >
[xliii] Hurriyet Babacan (n/d) supra.; E. Vasta and S. Castles (1996): The Teeth Are Smiling: The Persistence of Racism in Multicultural Australia. St. Leonards, Allen & Unwin; M. Mac An Ghaill (1999): Contemporary Racisms and Ethnicities: Social and Cultural Transformations. Buckingham, Open University Press
[xliv] Hurriyet Babacan (n/d) supra.; D. Hollinsworth (2006): Race and Racism in Australia. South Melbourne, Social Science Press
[xlv] Hurriyet Babacan (n/d) supra.; D. W. Riggs (2005): Benevolence, Belonging and the Repression of White Violence. Adelaide, School of Psychology, University of Adelaide
[xlvi] J. Boskin (1980):”Denials: The Media View of Dark Skins and the City” In B. Rubin (ed) Small Vices and Great Trumpets: Minorities and the Media. New York, Praeger; M. Barker (1981): The New Racism. London, Junction Books; P. J. M Essed (1987): Academic Racism: Common Sense in the Social Sciences. University of Amsterdam: Center for Race and ethnic Studies. CRES Publications, No. 5; (1991): Understanding Everyday Racism. Newbury Park, CA, Sage; Teun A. van Dijk (1984): Prejudice in Discourse. Amsterdam, Benjamin’s; (1992): “Discourse and the Denial of Racism” In Discourse and Society, January 1. Available online <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957926592003001005>
[xlvii] W. S. Derald, C. M. Capolidupo and G. C. Torino et. al. (2007): “Microaggressions in Everyday Life” In American Psychologist 62 (4)
[xlviii] Hurriyet Babacan (n/d) supra.
[xlix] W. S. Derald, C. M. Capolidupo and G. C. Torino et. al. (2007) supra.
[l] Hurriyet Babacan (n/d) supra.
[li] M. Augistinos and D. Every (2006): “Contemporary Racist Discourse: Taboos Against Racism and Racist Accusations” In A. Weatherall, B. Watson and C. Gallois (eds.) Language, Discourse and Social Psychology. New York, Palgrave Macmillan
[lii] Ali Meghji (2020): “Britain’s Postcolonial Crisis: The Denial of Racism in Little England” In the Europe now website. Available online < https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/12/07/britains-postcolonial-crisis-the-denial-of-racism-in-little-england/>
[liii] Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (1982): The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain. London/New York, Routledge
[liv] Ali Meghji (2020) supra.
[lv] Ibid.
[lvi] Ibid.
[lvii] Maya Angelou (2015): "Equality." In the PoemHunter.com website, January 2. Available online <https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/equality-28/>