please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Leeds statue of Queen Victoria. Unbelievable.
The Two Ronnies have been exhumed and charged with racism offences by the Met Police. #BlackLivesMatterUK please log in to view this image
The government's adviser on extremism is investigating whether it's possible to ban behaviour that leads people to hate each other. like supporting chelsea
Wouldn't you say that about pre-existing history books? Certainly ones from years back, who do you think wrote those? Do you not think that a particular slant would be put on those, editing out things that don't reflect well? Now we have access to more information than ever as to the bigger picture and the more facts that are known, the less the facts can be ignored.
I go to Lagos in Portugal for holidays quite often as my brother-in-law (who is Portuguese) owns an apartment there. The town square was Europes first slave market. Quite rightly, they are a bit embarrassed about this, but instead of hiding all the evidence, they have a museum on the square dedicated to explaining everything that is known about the trade that went on there. I've not been in myself, but I've been told it's very informative and certainly doesn't glorify this dark period of their histiry. https://www.travel-in-portugal.com/attractions/slave-market-site-lagos.htm
Is there really any point( as stroller loved to say)in judgeing people and how they lived two hundred years or more ago through our eyes How far should we go back Is two hundred years enough I hope I have moved on from my parents way of life Certainly my kids view stuff differently than I did History is just that Stuff that happened in the past Why try to rewrite it Bloody romans
Have they mentioned the Statue of Boudicca....she massacred thousands of innocents. Mandela......Self admitted terrorist Ghandi.....Racist and *****phile The list is endless
Frontline Worker's lives matter too. "One week we’re clapping the Emergency services and the next we’re attacking them and throwing glass bottles, fireworks and bikes at horses?" I can't argue with her comments. please log in to view this image
It's a fair question. My take would be that if there is still a deep structural problem in society today as a result of actions in relatively recent history, then it is worth considering how we portray that history; through the education system, through public monuments, and beyond. When it comes to slavery, that history is far more recent than a GSCE textbook will have you believe; everything did not end with the passing of the abolition act in 1833. In 1833 the British Government spent £20 million - 40% of its total budget at that time - to pay compensate slave owners for their loss of earnings. [Let's put to one side the fact that the former slaves received absolutely nothing.] That debt was being paid off until 2015. Hopefully that gives you an idea of how close this history really is. Of course this only deals with the immediate ending of slavery. The long shadow of the slave trade was the fundamental dehumanisation of anyone with black skin, which meant society was comfortable treating black people differently for over a hundred years after 1833, with protection in law around race discrimination only coming into existence in 1965. That is within the lifetime of many individuals posting on this board. No wonder this issue still has huge ramifications for the society we live in today, and it is hardly a surprise that those affected today by the brutality and long shadow of the slave trade might take issue with who we choose to edify in society today, be that through street names, statues or who we put on our bank notes. By contrast, the impact of Boudica on the societal structure of today is much harder to see, and I'd suggest the example is puerile if we're being honest about it. I'd challenge the notion expressed by a few posters that "we can't rewrite history". History is constantly contested, challenged and rewritten. By way of an unrelated example, the history of the Peasants Revolt of 1381 has gone from being seen by contemporary historians and society as an unwarranted uprising; to being seen by later historians as a rightful uprising of the poorest in society; to being seen as a bourgeois rebellion by modern historians. Likewise, how we view the history of the slave trade, Empire, and discrimination in the 19th/20th centuries will rightly be challenged and evolve. To bring that into the current debate, challenging how we discuss and display those who grew rich on the back of slavery is, to my mind, right and certainly unsurprising. In the case of the Colston statue, if that is through putting it into a museum so people can still learn about the history without it being glorified, fine, although I particularly like the Banksy suggestion of capturing the moment of the statue being pulled down, which of course is now history itself. Changing the wording beneath the statue would be a minimum response, which itself has been debated for years by the local council with many blocking the changes.
Now that is one hell of a great post an absolute pleasure to read!!! Wanna hear something else, a bit crazy this one, the UK only a few years back finished paying back a loan taken out at the end of the slave trade for reparations, so taxes taken from our pockets, mine and yours, great you might think, rightly so.... Only the reparations weren't to the slaves, nor the families of slaves. This money was paid to slave owners as compensation for them having to give up their slaves
