Statues and our tolerance of history

[s1962a]

TCX said:

Next up,or taken down ....the pyramids?

Didn't we loot them already - plenty of stuff from the pyramids in our museums.

[2xChevrons]

Vanden Saab said:

Why did they dump it in the bay then? Why not just pull it down and leave it there for the council to take away or take it to the museum. If the statue itself is not offensive just the context then why deface it and drag it to water and dump it?
You cannot have it both ways....

Those campaigning to have the statue weren't necessarily the same as the ones who actually pulled it down, although I'm sure the Venn diagram of those agreeing with the campaign and the action has a big overlap.

But I'm sure even the people who chucked it in the harbour were not repulsed by the literal object to the extent that they wouldn't want to see it a museum. I imagine they did that through a combination of released anger, the desire to make a dramatic demonstration and to make a symbolic gesture - the Royal African Company threw surplus or ill slaves overboard to drown, and they threw Colston's statue into the water next to a bridge named after a slave/indentured servant who lived in Bristol.

Incidentally the construction and naming of that bridge was dismissed as 'provocative' and 'gesture politics' by a city councilor at the time, just to give an insight into how any proposal to put an alternative statue near the Colston one may have gone.

oddball1313 said:

So if we rewrite history and pretend no-one ever did anything nasty to anyone ever including in no particular order

The people rewriting history are the ones who put up a statue of a slave-trader which called him 'wise and virtuous' and those who blocked any attempts to educate people on the truth

You don't rewrite history by reinterpreting statues or putting them in museums. Or throwing them (temporarily) into a harbour in a widely-seen, reported and discussed action. You reveal, affirm and confront it.

Edited by 2xChevrons on Tuesday 9th June 23:03

[chrispmartha]

oddball1313 said:

So if we rewrite history and pretend no-one ever did anything nasty to anyone ever including in no particular order

vikings
Romans
Greeks
Persians
Ottomans
Prussians
Norman’s
Conquistadors
Russians
mongols
Japanese
Chinese
British
Etc
Etc
Etc

... then the world will be better place and every white black Asian African Polynesian Indonesian Eskimo Arapaho Mexican etc etc etc will cease being a prick. and never stab rape kill deal drugs steal loot vandalise invade their neighbours ever ever again because deleting some of the more unsavoury pieces of history is clearly a solution to the all the worlds problems.

The logic is faultless.

Who’s trying to rewrite history?

The point surely is to make awareness of history.

Whether you agree with the method or not, rewriting history is pretty much the opposite of what is trying to be achieved.

It’s your logic that’s all out of shape

[mx5nut]

2xChevrons said:

Vanden Saab said:

Why do you want all those who are offended by the statues to be denied the pleasure of going to a museum?

I can only assume comments like this come from people deliberately misrepresenting the issue or putting zero effort into understanding it.

It has to be the former - nobody is that thick, are they?

[saaby93]

2xChevrons said:

I can only assume comments like this come from people deliberately misrepresenting the issue or putting zero effort into understanding it.

2xChevrons said:

For Pete's sake!

2xChevrons said:

Their problem is having it in a prominent place in the city with a misleading description bereft of any other context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Colston

2xChevrons said:

This is only a small step away from 'taking the statue down was racist because it was black in colour'

[s1962a]

oddball1313 said:

So if we rewrite history and pretend no-one ever did anything nasty to anyone ever including in no particular order

vikings
Romans
Greeks
Persians
Ottomans
Prussians
Norman’s
Conquistadors
Russians
mongols
Japanese
Chinese
British
Etc
Etc
Etc

... then the world will be better place and every white black Asian African Polynesian Indonesian Eskimo Arapaho Mexican etc etc etc will cease being a prick. and never stab rape kill deal drugs steal loot vandalise invade their neighbours ever ever again because deleting some of the more unsavoury pieces of history is clearly a solution to the all the worlds problems.

The logic is faultless.

If you work backwards you also get a good sense of how recent some of this stuff is

Germany
Israel
British Empire
Slave trade
Australia
America
Russia
Ottoman Empire

And thats just the last few hundred years. Is that what you want to unwind? Good luck with that.

[mx5nut]

s1962a said:

Didn't we loot them already - plenty of stuff from the pyramids in our museums.

Somebody will be along in a moment to pretend that they don't know what a museum is and the only way they could ever learn of anything happening in the past would be to display it outside in a city centre.

[saaby93]

Is stonehenge safe?

[mx5nut]

oddball1313 said:

So if we rewrite history and pretend no-one ever did anything nasty to anyone ever

Is there a contest to deliberately misunderstand the issue this evening?

Again, for the hard of thinking, there is a difference between remembering and celebrating. We remember with a museum, we celebrate with a statue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Hitting_a_Ne...

This lady has a statue. We learn about Hitler without a statue of him in our city centres.

Do you see the difference?

[s1962a]

saaby93 said:

Is stonehenge safe?

Dont worry, the summer solstice is safe. For this year anyway.

Who are you dressing up as?

[mx5nut]

Anyone on the pro-slaver statue side willing to take a step back, realise what it is you're fighting for and admit that you don't have to make everything this divisive? That in 2020, you don't have to pretend to support slavers just because you think the "other team" to your politically are against it?

[oddball1313]

chrispmartha said:

oddball1313 said:

So if we rewrite history and pretend no-one ever did anything nasty to anyone ever including in no particular order

vikings
Romans
Greeks
Persians
Ottomans
Prussians
Norman’s
Conquistadors
Russians
mongols
Japanese
Chinese
British
Etc
Etc
Etc

... then the world will be better place and every white black Asian African Polynesian Indonesian Eskimo Arapaho Mexican etc etc etc will cease being a prick. and never stab rape kill deal drugs steal loot vandalise invade their neighbours ever ever again because deleting some of the more unsavoury pieces of history is clearly a solution to the all the worlds problems.

The logic is faultless.

Who’s trying to rewrite history?

The point surely is to make awareness of history.

Whether you agree with the method or not, rewriting history is pretty much the opposite of what is trying to be achieved.

It’s your logic that’s all out of shape

No it’s not - removing statues, changing the names of streets and buildings, deleting names from the history books as some form of making a wrong a right achieves nothing. Pulling down a statue of slave trader and defacing the cenotaph which honours the thousands who defended our country diminishes your cause to worthless. Do you think trying to burn the Union Jack on a war memorial because you’re life hasn’t been a permanent bed of roses ingratiates you to the majority of the public?

[gregs656]

It is striking that on the threads about the protests and murders of black people there is a string of comments about how black people shouldn’t remind white people of the history of slavery, and on this one a celebration of that history is now a monument worth preserving.

[popeyewhite]

chrispmartha said:

Electro1980 said:

saaby93 said:

Being a slave wasnt all bad if you landed in a decent household

What the fk? Are you actually saying “well, some people who owned others as property treated them ok so it’s not all bad.”? I can’t believe someone would actually say that.

There’s some bizarre stuff written on here but that’s way up there!

As far as the occupation of being a slave goes he's right. If you were taken by Vikings, or North African pirates/traders, or Saharan traders your lifespan was potentially extremely limited. Romans were sometimes particularly kind to their slaves - offering them freedom and a stipend. So were some Americans. What many people don't realise is that there were black people buying and selling slaves in the States, competing with the white slavers. At the turn of the century many black slaves were even owned by American Indians. That could turn out a bit awkward... .

[cherryowen]

In Shrewsbury, in the market square, there is a statue of Clive of India. It's been sat there for many years.

I moved to Shrewsbury in 1989 (and have lived in Shropshire ever since), and in the last 30 years I've had no idea who Clive of India was or what he achieved. On a related note, the Lord Hill Column in Shrewsbury is the tallest free-standing Doric column on earth, IIRC; I still have no idea who Lord Hill was.

Anyway.

Over the last few days, a couple of thousand signatures have signed a petition to have the Clive of India statue in the square taken down. Ordinarily, I'd have thought it a little pointless as (personally) it's a statue of a person erected by no-one remembers in memoriam of someone locals know nor care about. Certainly, in the time I've been living in Shropshire, Clive of India is someone rarely - if ever - mentioned.

However, a read of Clive of India's entry on Wiki earlier today reveals that he was a particularly nasty piece of work even as a child.

But....................

Over the years, I doubt very much that his statue has had a detrimental effect on the number of shoppers and tourists and casual visitors coming to Shrewsbury. Nobody cared, you see.

But now, more than ever, that statue needs to remain as a reminder that if we don't learn from previous mistakes.......................

[Europa1]

s1962a said:

Didn't we loot them already - plenty of stuff from the pyramids in our museums.

You missed the obvious cliche of the Elgin Marbles.

Amateur.

[mx5nut]

oddball1313 said:

Pulling down a statue of slave trader and defacing the cenotaph

Unless you believe these two represent the same things, attempting to draw comparisons is unscrupulous at best.

[menousername]

mx5nut said:

Is there a contest to deliberately misunderstand the issue this evening?

Again, for the hard of thinking, there is a difference between remembering and celebrating. We remember with a museum, we celebrate with a statue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Hitting_a_Ne...

This lady has a statue. We learn about Hitler without a statue of him in our city centres.

Do you see the difference?

Do you see that had the statue been in a museum, they would have demanded the statue gets removed. If not, they would demand museum gets torn down for supporting racism

[Red 4]

saaby93 said:

Is stonehenge safe?

Are there are statues of slave traders at Stonehenge ?

[Jazzy Jag]

Red 4 said:

saaby93 said:

Is stonehenge safe?

Are there are statues of slave traders at Stonehenge ?

Maybe it was built by slaves?