I don’t think there is any valid argument for having a statue of a slave trader in a modern British city. I thought it was fucking excellent it was ripped down tbh.
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Didnt Colston Primary School change its name to Cotham Gardens in 2018(?)
If you read my piece it was 1981, but the important fact was that I was 22 years old and in London.
If I was 22 now I might have more pertinent current examples, but a 60 year old in Hove is not in the same environment by any means.
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I can’t argue with that Richie. Which is why, today, we wouldn’t commission one.
We did years ago and I said there MAY be an argument it’s better to leave it as a message of why we must learn, than hide it and bury the argument.
It’s just an opinion among other opinions. None are “right”. I’m torn. I could support most of the possible outcomes.
That’s why this is hard!
Meanwhile in Plymouth a local councillor has tabled a motion to change the name of Drake ward to Mayflower.
So from a Drake to the ship which made a brief stop off in Plymouth carrying the people who were fleeing religious persecution who then landed in America and committed unspeakable atrocities against the natives.
I think we should start throwing our elected officials into the docks myself.
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I was surprised to see around 3000 statues are in England
Just had a look on the map, and have no idea who most are, so not sure how much history is learnt by them
Although it could be argued that it’s down to my ignorance
Yes.
I was trying not to get into tit for tat.
As for the above, the history is that at the time each was erected there was a reason (support, a rich person made it so… ) and we can be educated by how that moment in time came about.
So we stop looking at them as “a thing to worship and celebrate”, and perhaps see them potentially divisive but catalysts for debate and learning.
Brian Clough has a statue and he is decisive. But in years to come it will just indicate that we were a society that loved football… not that we all supported alcoholics and greed.
Yep, totally forgot that. Im rightly corrected.
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I wonder how many statues are up honouring drug dealers? After all, the opium trade into China only really tapered off in the early 20th Century and Britain fought two wars to continue the trade in the 19th Century (even going so far as to be allied with the French in 1856-60).
Makes you wonder a bit about drugs and the gang culture.
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In a city with a large black community having a statue of a slave trader on the city centre is at best inappropriate.
We can change that.
You are totally missing the point, we are not changing or erasing history, we are removing the idolisation of those involved.
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The idolisation was at the time it was put up.
Now, it is a monument to how we have changed.
Keeping a statue in place isn’t always showing support for the person it represents.
I’m not missing any point. Just exploding a contrary view of how we can learn from mistakes and fuel debate and improvement.
There is probably a line where you can legitimately take some and move them, as they are just too incendiary. We may all draw that line in a different place and no one is “wrong”.
But, I am troubled by the current reaction to rename and replace anything contentious. It can appease our conscience rather than inspire change. That’s my point. Only that.
I have been to Hong Kong museum and it openly displays and tells the story of the brutality of the Opium wars.
I have been to a museum in Stonetown, Zanzibar that has a slavery museum a memorial to those lost and families impacted. The E. African Slave trade exhibition is a no holds barred exposition of what pain and suffering was inflicted by colonialists and slave traders. It is horrific…but on the school curriculum in both places.
Yet we dont have it on our curriculum…
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You are wrong.
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What does it do other than immortalize and celebrate? Are you arguing on the basis of artistic merit?
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Nope. I’m saying there presence is a reminder of how we have changed.
For example, possibly invoking the ire of Olan (by another tangent), there are places that still grace this earth that are obscene but are under the “lest we forget” principle.
I thought I was clear that there is one view (my view is torn) that it’s best to keep them as a reminder to the next generation that we have gone so far to be a better society.
You adapt your view if it’s purpose. You see the statue as an image of society them and a reminder of why it is vital we evolve.
You can leave it there without condoning the man. We have left trenches and concentration camps in place. Obscene, but they point out the reason not to go back to the views we once held (we being selective!).
Tranches, concentration camps serve to remind us of the mechanisms used to kill and persecute. Statues dont.
Your argument is flawed.
Godwin incoming in 3…2…1…
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I advocate a statue of Rudolf Höss for his contribution to scientific research.
There. Godwin’s before the 60th post.
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From what my kids tell me school history currently focusses on the Romans, the Tudor’s then the two world wars. Which is basically what I learnt at school in the 80s.
No mention of the empire, raj, east India company, drugs, slaves or anything that shows England as one of the nastiest countries the world has ever seen.
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I’m just worried that someone comes for my Burzum records…
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