Winston Churchill and the Judiciary
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, IN
Lies rule Pakistan. Yes they do, only lies. We grow up with them. They are our best buddies, our soul mates. We lie about everything — our meals, clothes, relationships, finances and even ourselves. Lies stand in our defense when we are in trouble and provide us the logical argument when we have to make a point. We depend upon them; they are our saviors and our second nature. Everybody fibs in Pakistan.
We lie at home, at work, at school, at public places and particularly, we concoct unsubstantiated stories on television. In a political talk show, when time is running out, deception and exaggeration help us out to deliver the punch line and win the debate. At that moment, victory matters tremendously to us and that has to be snatched at every cost, even when the cost is awfully high. We pay its price in the form of losing our virtues of honesty, sincerity and truthfulness. The telecast transforms us into ruthless individuals: we make up stories; we provide incorrect and fabricated data; we confabulate about our ancestors, we aggrandize our military strength; we put forward conspiracy theories; we refer to unauthentic historic events and above all, we come up with unfounded accusations.
Obviously, all the parties use similar tactics in the name of the ‘greater good’ of the people that includes justice, transparency, rule of law and truthfulness. One of these tales is narrated by the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s Chairperson Imran Khan in almost every television talk show for the last few years. He has reiterated the incident involving Sir Winston Churchill so many times that it actually has started to sound true. But unfortunately, it is not. The story about the British prime minister is both compelling and realistic; moreover, the delivery of the account by the former cricketer is exceptionally impressive as well. It supports the philosophy of Khan’s political party and reinforces the importance of an independent judiciary in society. As the message about the sagacity of the British statesman is so powerful, it is even quoted by the newspapers in Pakistan. Consequently, in April 2012, Mr M A Malik described his version about the incident in a local English daily as follows: “During World War II when Sir Winston Churchill was asked whether Britain will win the war or not, he put a counter question to his interlocutor asking, is the judiciary in Britain operating independently and doing justice? The answer was yes. He said then we will win the war.”
Earlier in November 2008, Mr A Q Khan had referred to the same incident in his column, “Its the Judiciary, Stupid”, in these words: “After taking oath, he held a meeting with senior staff. They immediately started talking about the desperate situation, the casualties, the bombings and so on. He looked at them and is reported to have asked: ‘Are the courts dispensing justice?’ After receiving an affirmative answer, he said, ‘Fine, then no nation can defeat Great Britain’. And history is witness to that.”
After listening to the anecdote, I was genuinely impressed by Mr Churchill’s astuteness; I wanted to explore more about him and his contribution in the Second World War. I was confident that I would uncover every detail regarding the British Premier, including the reference to the above quotation online in just a few minutes.
Nevertheless, hours passed by but still I could not confirm the particular incident even after visiting hundreds of websites, reading briefly about his life, listening to his speeches and glancing at editorials about him. In the end, I decided to seek help from a specialist, Mr Richard M Langworth, editor since 1982 of Finest Hour, The Journal of Winston Churchill. He is also the editor of a book entitled Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations. I sent Mr Langworth my query with the above excerpt through an email to which he responded as follows:
“The statement or key phrase from it is not among his 15 million published words (books, articles, speeches, private papers). He might have said it to someone in the judiciary, but I find no evidence. And his writings are studded with sentiments about why democracies win wars over dictatorships.”
(Mr Langworth’s email address can easily be obtained from these websites: www.richardlangworth.com or www.winstonchurchill.org.)
After this communication, we know with certainty that the story the PTI chairperson is quoting on television is fabricated and is probably not true. There is no evidence that the British prime minister was more concerned about the independence of the courts when the German planes were bombarding England. But this truth is regrettable; on the one hand, it exposes an unpleasant reality about Khan’s lack of caution and gullibility in particular, and on the other, it represents our nation’s credulity in general. Khan has always come across as a right-leaning, religiously motivated politician. For a long time, Khan has rejoiced in his spiritual journey and has encouraged his followers and party workers to follow the same path of truth and justice for enlightenment and strength. Is this the real path of truth and self-enlightenment?
The link to M A Malik’s article: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/islamabad/14-Apr-2012/significance-of-international-judicial-conference.
The link to AQ Khan’s article: http://www.pakdef.info/forum/showthread.php?10105-Media-and-AQ-Khan.
(The writer is a US-based freelance columnist and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com)
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