It is what we get taught at school, the impressions we get of life as we grow up and what happens around us. Today my mind boggles at how different subjects are renamed to "PC" status. Our children are being taught by younger and younger teachers. I have a few friends who are or have been teachers including Millfield and other "top" educational establishments [ UNI's ] a current teacher said in a conversation about 3 new teachers starting at his school [ 2 years ago ] they were so controversial would not follow the curriculum only 1 survived past first half term .. she was [ her parents ] from the island of Nevis her subject was history. … as my friend put it "with no holds barred" It is great to grand children, of an age when they have an opinion and they listen and form own opinions at 15 she has not heard of COLSTON's real history just the negative bit and the fact there is things named after him or RHODES ..when pressed about Rhodesia she knew about Ian Smith a dictator!!!! rather than history being taught the mindset of the teacher's belief's is being implanted in our younger generations what a different world we would be living in had there been no slave trade
It just seems to me things have gone a bit daft . It’s a bit like Poppy Day where it’s as important to be seen wearing one if your on the TV , I imagine most right minded people are sympathetic to the issues BLM are talking about , but all politicians seem to be falling over themselves to be seen to be taking the knee, to me it doesn’t seem sincere .
and the posed picture of sir smarmy KEIR SMARMY and cohort [ shades of JC past ] is sick … political points [ votes ] grabbing
Just been listening to an interview on Radio 5 live with Sir Geoff Palmer, whom reasonably voiced disapproval of taking these statues down, taking away the history of what was considered to be normal of it's time. We can not delete what happened, however wrong it was..If we dismantled everything that people find offensive in this country and what it was built on, it would be half empty. If you get a chance to listen to him.....It's spot on.....2 hours 51 mins in of this Emma Barnett show https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jxt8
It's actually nice to see a reasoned debate about the Colston statue between people who come from the general area and should therefore have a vested interest in what happens to it! One small thing that interests me though is the number of individuals who have come forward to say that they walked by the statue on a daily basis and were offended by its presence. I'm nearly 66 and south Bristol born and bred. As a youth I would take the 142 (latterly the number 12) bus to the Colston Hall and then walk to Broadmead via Christmas Steps or Baldwin Street. I then worked in the general centre area from the age of 18 until I was 40. Only once during that entire time have I gone up to and looked at the statue simply because, for me, it was out of the way and to be quite honest, I hadn't really noticed it!! I am sure that there are others on here who would be the same. I do wonder how many of Sundays protestors, if asked a month ago, would have had a scooby-do about the location of the statue! To me, its location on the centre, near to the Cenotaph, is a place that isn't really a natural route for the vast majority of pedestrians. It may be me, but I do wonder what others think.
How do you guys equate the murder of one British soldier to the enslavement of millions of black people? You're showing the bias right there and you don't even realise you're doing it. Not to mention the fact that Lee Rigby has been adopted as the poster-boy for every right-wing march and rally up and down the country ever since. There was a complete and utter outcry, and quite rightly too, so I've no idea where you've got this idea from, that everyone just put up and shut up. And please stop saying people are trying to 'erase culture and history'. It's the second time you've done it and it's completely and utterly untrue. Highlighting a bit of history that Britain tried to hide (as it so often does) is not erasing it. I'd like to see you back this up.It's really not the case - one of my lecturers at uni hated the EU, and coming out of school I had far more right-wing views than I do now. I've read Tommy Robinson's book, I've watched his speeches, none of my left-wing-ness comes from my education in any way. I've been on both sides, and this idea that unis and the like indoctrinate kids is a total fallacy. If anything, university these days is full of posh Tory wannabe's rather than left-wing do-gooders. Please, just for the 2 of you. No. One. Is. Erasing. History.
Whilst I agree with you I find it quite ironic that the person who is pointing it out is the same person who compared Edward Colston to Jimmy Saville
If taking statues down, banning TV programmes and films from decades ago, and now looking at every opportunity to discredit anyone who made this country or the British Empire what it is, for better or for worse, isn't trying to erase history then I really don't know what is. There have been suggestions about putting the statues into museums, but I don't see what that is going to achieve and they will still attract the idiots that will spray paint or deface them. The Jews probably aren't very fond of Auschwitz, but they've not gone there en masse to pull it down. They have allowed it to stand in memory of a place for Nazi German shame, and the starvation and murder of millions of Jewish people. Personally I'd rather see the statues of Colston, Rhodes and everyone else remain exactly where they are for now instead of this knee jerk reaction by councils across the country. Kowtowing to mob demands at the slightest hint of civil rebellion isn't what made Britain great originally.
Only statue that I ever really looked at was Neptune by the harbour,is that still standing? then there ws John Cabot, perhaps the mob of thugs will pull them down and chuck them in the river, I saw the Colston statue but in all of my years I never really took any interest in it. Time the police stopped mob rule from left or right.
They'll probably sink the replicate Mathew next or set fire to the SS Great Britain if they get an inkling that John Cabot or Isambard Kingdom Brunel were rumoured to have acted in an inappropriate manner. Might as well knock down the Suspension Bridge down while they're there too,
Same here Wiz - I was more interested in the dolphins around the plinth than in the man himself. I grew up with an awareness of the slave trade and Bristol’s part in it, but not the link to Colston. I naively assumes that he was famous for giving us the Colston Hall - I didn’t know or care how he made his money. Now of course I find it extraordinary that the statue survived as long as it did. It is strange though how we view history and heritage - particularly our empire days. There seems to be a growing culture of self loathing around our imperial past - how bad it was - but the Italians aren’t doing the same with regards to their Roman past. imagine the Italians attacking the Colloseum, or throwing a statue of one of their emperors into the sea in protest against symbols of the oppression of the Roman Empire!!! As a former colony of Rome, everyone looks positively at Roman statues and mosaics and wonders at Bath and all the technology they brought to our islands, yet they didn’t come here peacefully at all - they invaded our land, enslaved and massacred our people, killed our leaders and enforced their ideals, civilisation, technology and architecture on us and yet we celebrate them as dragging us into civilisation. Maybe one day people will feel the same about us, introducing schools, railways, shipping ports, industrial awareness, democracy and the foundations of the structure of modern Society and sense of nationhood - and even sports - which most of our former empire now enjoys.
Learn something new everyday. I see that in 2010 they discovered that it wasn’t built by slaves. Anyway I believe they were built before the world was last wiped out. There is no way 4000 years ago, they could cut stone all the same size by chiselling it. Also to calculate the footprint takes a lot. As you were then.
