please empty your brain below
Pulling a statue down does not rewrite history or expunge the subject from the past.
Like the now empty plinth marking Mr Colston's former status in Bristol, such items could be put behind railings with new interpretive boards or plaques putting their history in context, along the lines of 'this statue was erected in an era when people thought the sun shone from his rear end but now we know better...'.
The Milligan statue is back where it started in 1813, but it was moved to the main gate in 1875 and remained there until 1943, and then in storage until it was re-erected in 1997. (They put up a statue to a slave-owner just 23 years ago!) Time to put it *in* the museum with some context, rather than on public display outside without any proper explanation of who he was and what he did.
There is a statue to the “uncrowned king of Jamaica” William Beckford in the Guildhall. Is there any explanation alongside of where his money came from?
Woah Andrew, that's crazy that it was only resited in 97!
These acts of kidnap and theft have in turn led to international trade and global capitalism. On that basis many of the developments of modern life including 'public' schools, which educate our elite, and the Conservative Party, which governs our lives and orders our opinions. They have been instrumental in the development of modern concepts of race, class and property; they order our obligations and freedoms
On the basis of this situation, the legitimacy of the current government lies in tatters. Note how easily it has dodged the 'hostile environment' controversy, and pinned anti-semitism on the Labour Party. Note how it has exploited jingoism and racism to 'free' us from Europe. Now, tricks of this standard ARE worth a few statues!
All of history is full of villains, victims and oppression, we can't change that, and we shouldn't have to feel guilty about it either.
Our time is here and now, let us live and be judged for that.
Or was it (and still is) a terrible failing afflicting humanity through the ages?
We don't hear as much about the other slave trades from Africa to the Middle East, or the seizing of Europeans by North African slavers.
And we don't hear much about the abolitionist movements in the Arab world.
I have black friends who want no part of this attempt by white leftists to appropriate their history and turn it into a perpetual victimhood.
Let's not forget our history but let's not allow the leftists to turn it into a weapon.
Finally, why stop at statues. Let's burn Bordeaux, for starters, built upon the triangular trade.
He sold *people*. He owned *people*. He forced people to work for him without pay, and took the fruits of their labour to enrich himself. He tried to stop them gaining their freedom from his domination. Yes, he is long gone, but we don’t need to put up a new public statue to celebrate his life.
We need to understand how the UK, a small and largely rural island, became rich from the blood and tears and misery of others, though the actions of people like him, supported by the British government. Rant over.
Also overlooked is the complicity of the local ruling classes, who were not averse to trading war captives and their own citizens for "Brummagen Goods" and arms. Taking a village by a small group of heavily armed men is easy (N African slave traders proved that with the population of Lundy Island), but would have extremely difficult in the numbers enslaved without collusion. The African warrior was no pushover even against better weaponry, Isandlwana proved that.
History is very often a double edged sword
"Statues and street names in London with links to slavery "should be taken down", the city's mayor has said."
It is interesting to me that we are having discussions like this because a (black) teenager in a different country filmed a video of a (white) police officer using force on a (black) man suspected of a crime, to the point where the (black) man died.
Also, as George has pointed out - the BBC article states that the Mayor is launching a review into London’s landmarks. I do hope that there is a public consultation as part of this process. As others have pointed out, history can be complex and so I think it often requires context and multiple viewpoints to be appreciated fully - and for the viewer to arrive at their own conclusions based on the evidence available. There are often calls from our media and wider culture for diversity in our thinking and decision making. I would think that the time for such diversity is now.
The Tate put a rather full statement on their website last year, which ends: "While it is important to emphasise that Henry Tate was not a slave-owner or slave-trader, it is therefore not possible to separate the Tate galleries from the history of colonial slavery from which in part they derive their existence."
On that note, I'm quite fond of an idea I saw from someone on Twitter saying that the Colston statue should be hauled out of the harbour and put in a museum ... inside a fish tank.
Anyone who has an iPhone or buys clothing in Primark is buying into the current era's mass exploitation of people.
There are undoubtedly thousands of other examples too, but most people choose not to think about the fact that if something is cheap, someone somewhere has been exploited.
That nice bottle of wine from South Africa? The grapes were picked in the very early morning by black farmworkers (usually men) earning R18 an hour (less than a pound), in a country where food is now more expensive than in the UK.
The hypocrisy being shown by many media commentators/bandwagon jumper-on-ers in the current situation astounds me.
Does humankind never learn from the past?
Given that the current CV-19 situation is being propped/mopped up by those on minimum wage (cleaners, delivery people, care staff) - £8.72 an hour if they are over 25, and £6.25 if they are 18-20. Worth some thought, perhaps.
Biggs calling for it to be removed is none of these things. It is bandwagon jumping.
I work in the area. I have (in a previous role) overlooked the statue. I am not white. I do not want the statue removed. There should be recognition of my view, not just that from one section of the non-white community.
DG mentions the slave trade exhibition within the museum. Anyone who hasn't visited, I would recommend it as a "must see" once things reopen. It's very good - though parents might want to curate it carefully when taking children, I found parts of it extremely upsetting. (I'm not saying hide the truth from children, just be aware of the emotions it'll raise).
Highlighted to me how my entire education had managed to barely even mention slavery, even though I grew up near another town where the wealth was based on the slave trade.
As for the (relatively new) nearby street being named Milligan Street - what were they thinking? I suspect this would have been when planning for this area was under LDDC rather than Tower Hamlets.
They should be removed (with appropriate community discussion) to museums where they can be form part of useful exhibits teaching about the distasteful history of British empire and trade. It is actually rather poor that this statue was only recently re-erected, and doubly-so that there is nothing clarifying this man's slave trade involvement.
In Bristol after many years of campaigning to remove the Colston statue, the council belatedly put plaques up on the statue noting some aspects of his slaver history. Each time, local racists removed the plaques. And local anger grew. The historical removal and dunking of the statue was not only a result of the historical abuses, but a signal to the current racists who were resisting even some context or truths about a mass-murderer being allowed.
We can surely agree that slavery at any point in history was (is) wrong, and not only from a modern perspective. At the time, the slaves surely didn't think 'oh, this is okay, it's just life these days.' This isn't a 'just didn't know better' problem.
Far more useful would be having a more open full teaching of Britain's past abuses in school.
On the other hand, in the middle of Vienna, there is a vast (and incongruous) monument to the Red Army, put up just months after they occupied and sacked the place. I'm not familiar with why it remains standing (guilt? realpolitik?), but I do know that it made me read up on the issue.
twitter.com/katiehind/1270387467284287489
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Now write a post about Boris Johnson, you might be on a roll
The Atlantic slave trade is the tip of the iceberg.
Arab and Ottoman Empire slave trades amongst others were far more widespread. Indian caste system is slavery under a different name.
Slavery still rife in west Africa today. Niger it is estimated that even today 8% of the population are slaves. Significantly more in Mauritania.
If only these blinkered protesters would focus their efforts on the present injustice, rather than wiping out history.
I'm a bit uneasy about this removal of history, but at the same time there are an awful lot of old statues around of people who either offend modern tastes OR just seem a bit "who's that" or "why is there a statue of him" here. Maybe we need a review of which statues should be in public squares, so that they reflect a better balance of historical and more recent individuals
I don't think these statue convulsions are an erasing of history. Whatever the rights or wrongs, Bristol added a new layer to its history over the weekend, and there will be no going back. I'll be interested to see how/if Mr. C gets fished back out of the Avon and re-contextualised somewhere.
In my neck of the woods, plans are well advanced for a Cherry Groce memorial to join Henry Tate (I assume he's still there) in Windrush Square. History is fascinating, and these events serve to bring it into lively and graspable focus.
dg writes: Nothing to do with me.
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