I really don't see the need for this now. After the Colston statue was (quite rightly) removed, there does seem to be a movement to reevaluate and discuss whether Britain in 2020 really should have statues honouring things like slavery. To me it smacks of us not having the Will to face up to what our ancestors did in the past to make money. Obviously there is going to be varios shades of statues regarding what people did. I see Churchill was singled out the other day, and from what I know of the guy, while his political career was chequered to say the least, he was a stand out point in the fact that Great Britain stood up to the threat from Nazi Germany, and that eventually we were a springboard to overthrow that regime. If you look as some of the people who have been cannonised by the Catholic church, there are some fairly dodgy characters in there. If the saints are not entirely above board, what do we do about a bunch of politicians and monarchy types, given the sort of kill or be killed attitude that ran for most of the history of the world? The problem is that there are people who will defend all the statues. Colston is being vigorously defended by the MP for Bristol (who I read somewhere may still be recieving compensation from the government for the bill that abolished slavery in 1836 (or there abouts) among others. So where do you draw the line? Slavery is logically out. But is it okay to kill people if they are not English? Most Irish people would throw their hands up in disgust about a statue of Cromwell, but he's on display in Westminster. Edward the hammer of the Scots? And anyone involved in the colonisation of India? I guess we eventually go down the puritan line where all statues are false images. At which point we move into the art galleries. I'm a painter. I just finished a picture of Clive Mendonca, and I'm currently doing another of Patrick Bauer scoring the winner at Wembley. (I tried to load the Mendonca one on here but it contains too many megabytes or something). As I suppose I was in favor of toppling the Colston statue, I should welcome the hoardes of Sunderland fans when they march into my house and burn the paintings as 'anti Sunderland'. But I won't - my two never killed anyone.
None of the statues of wealthy slave traders were erected to honour that profession. They were usually put up to celebrate other things they did, such as begin a youth movement (the Scouts) which is widely regarded as a good institution. Or give money for the building of hospitals or other local civic projects. But making your fortune from slave trading is obviously unacceptable and very offensive to almost everybody in these times, and it was fairly widely opposed even two centuries ago, albeit not with as much enlightened recognition of the right to full equality of all races and colours as we accept today. I guess this was why statues were regarded as OK in the 18th and 19th centuries. Slavery was out of sight and out of mind to your average working man in the street in those days. He had the immediate problems of putting bread on his family's table to worry about. I believe also that in those times there were substantially fewer individuals from the races abused by slavery and colonial conquest actually here in the UK, and of course they (like white working class folk) had no voice in the press or at the ballot box. Today many things have changed. Everybody has the vote. We have universal education and the great resource of the internet, an aid to learning as well as communication. In these modern times I think it is right to remove from public places statues to figures who were heavily connected with the Slave trade. There is a large grey area in my view regarding those seen as Colonial Imperialists. But it is healthy to have that debate fully - with all sides free to put their case so we can all decide what is best to do. Slavery, the Empire and British History are woven together in ways that still profoundly affect the everyday lives of all residents of our Country. We should not be afraid to have some frank discussion about healing wounds from the past. About educating, not forgetting. In the same way we would never dream of forgetting the Holocaust. Education and full knowledge of those times must always serve to ensure it never happens again. Peace loving, right thinking German folk will be forever ashamed of what was done during those dark years. But that does not mean they will forever be ashamed of being German. Their Nation does not stand for those historical twisted values anymore. It has totally disowned them. Here in the UK we should be ashamed of our slave-trading heritage. And as far as we possibly can we should disown it. But that should not make us forever ashamed to be British. We must work to make sure that the whole world can see that Britain does not cherish those old, wrong values. We are better than that now.
Churchill's statue and the Cenotaph have been boarded up. It would be better to leave them be, because at least then the authorities could pinpoint which treasonous scumbags wish ill against the memory of our Glorious Dead. Having said that, the offenders would probably get away with a light slap on the wrists. How on earth has our country been brought to its knees in this manner? I despair, I really do.
If this coming weekend of protests is going to be dominated by attempts to destroy statues and War memorials, wider public sympathy towards the question of equality and covert (background) racism will be lost. It is not right that many times a black candidate for a job is overlooked when he/she is just as qualified as white candidates. It is not right that black people find it more difficult to get good rent deals, access credit or do many other things because the powers who provide such services are quietly but resolutely inclined not to offer them (if they can avoid it) to black people. It is not right that Police decide to stop and search individuals purely based on their skin colour (racial profiling). These things and a hundred others happen every day, and hinder the efforts of law abiding black people to advance in their lives. I don't have to be black myself to acknowledge that this goes on all the time. There are bad black people just as there are bad white people. But it is wrong to assume that many or all black people are bad, just because a few are - and exclude all black people from chances to better themselves because of the criminality of a small minority. Just as it is wrong to assume many or all white people are racist, just because a few are - and refuse to listen to reasonable debate offered by white people because of the overt racism of a small minority. The vast majority of protesting done last weekend was peaceful. But those attacks on Police in London, and the destruction of the statue in Bristol, gave the impression that rioting and criminal damage was all that happened. If more statues and Police officers are attacked this weekend, that impression will be amplified even more. Whether deliberately or just out of a desire for sensationalist headlines, the media will headline violent incidents - and the entire protest movement will be discredited. The many thousands of people of every colour who protested peacefully will have their voices drowned by the outrage at the behaviour of the violent fringe. Outrage then encouraged further by racists who wish to see the end of general public sympathy for the cause of the protests. The band of extremists targeting statues and memorials for desecration are hate-mongers, not protesters. They don't want justice or reconciliation or equality. They don't even really want revenge, even though they might tell themselves they do. They want to cause conflict for the sake of it. For the sheer blood-lust of it. While people like that are infiltrating and influencing the huge anti-racist peaceful protest movement, they will stop it from ever achieving what it wants. They are the enemy of race equality as well as law and order. EDIT: Sadly I read this morning that a statue of black playwright Alfred ***on has been vandalised in Bristol. The targeting of statues is a huge mistake by the BLM protesters. I think it likely now that their message will be lost in a tide of tit-for-tat racially motivated attacks. And the danger of race riots is only made worse by this kind of criminality. Nothing good can come of this unless it stops. Peaceful voices in the protest movement must speak out against it, or all their efforts will come to nought.
Proof that everybody is sick to death of political correctness... Fawlty Towers episode 'The Germans' has been deleted from iPlayer. Here's what two people who have minds of their own think about it; He is absolutely right of course. When people watch that FT episode, they laugh at Basil Fawlty's manic behaviour, (which was a hilarious expression of an early kind of political correctness in this particular episode). We aren't laughing at the Germans themselves. Cleese also tweeted "We laughed at Alf's reactionary views. Thus we discredited them, by laughing at him," "Of course, there were people - very stupid people - who said 'Thank God someone is saying these things at last'. We laughed at these people too. Now they're taking decisions about BBC comedy." He continued: "But it's not just stupidity. The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats. It used to have a large sprinkling of people who'd actually made programmes. Not any more. "So BBC decisions are made by persons whose main concern is not losing their jobs... That's why they're so cowardly and gutless and contemptible. I rest my case." For me that first tweet is just about the best thing Cleese has said in the past 20 years or so And Carl Anka is also correct when he says actions like this merely feed growing fears that the BLM protests are attacking the whole of British culture. Well done the BBC Political correctness never helps. It just makes fools think they've achieved something without putting any effort or thought in.
I remember reading an interview with John Cleese way back when, when he made it fairly clear the biggest object of ribald laughter was Basil Fawlty. Yes, he was saying (along with his sidekick the Major) some fairly nasty stuff - but it wasn't a political broadcast, it was a comedy laughing at those attitudes. Probably less so now we're so polarised, but Brits can laugh at themselves from time to time.
Where does this stop? Pull down some historical statues because of what they symbolise? The pyramids were built by slaves. The Colloseum was built so the people of Rome could watch slaves battle to their death. How many people were executed for political reasons in the Tower of London?
Bit of a cross connection there. Neither the Colosseum or the Pyramids specifically honour a particular person who made their money on slavery or promoted it. I said in an earlier post it's a very tricky subject, and the urge to airbrush history is a good one to avoid. But why would we commemorate the person of (for examplw) Jan Smuts, a founding father of Apartheid and someone who regarded black Africans as being racially inferior?
I don't think the Pyramids were built by slaves. That is a common misconception. They were built by Egyptian and foreign labourers, who were free to come or go as they wished. But the building trade was a good job in ancient Egypt. You got board and lodgings, good food and possibly even wages. Long before there was welfare of course. Nobody slacked off in those days and lived for very long. I doubt that the Colloseum was built by slaves either. Maybe they did the menial work, but the stonemasonry and timber infrastructure would surely have been made and assembled by skilled craftsmen. Much like those who built our great Cathedrals. A bit off-topic I know, but I am at a loose end right now while out and about (not going to a protest, in case somebody might wonder!).
The Granddaughter of Winston Churchill says his statue should perhaps be moved to a museum for its own safety; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53033550 That must never happen. You cannot give in to violent thugs. You cannot give them one inch. If the Churchill statue is taken away because of their threats to destroy it, we might as well surrender the streets to mobs and stop policing demonstrations at all. Just let them become riots and looting sprees. Take our public places away from law abiding folk, shopkeepers and tourists etc. and hand them over to criminals and mob rule. If they get the Churchill statue removed, these people will simply target something else. Shall we put the Cenotaph in a museum next? And then surround our museums with security forces to prevent those monuments being attacked within them? I would rather see the Churchill statue and the Cenotaph each surrounded permanently by 100 Grenadier Guards in full uniform than see them removed and hidden away as though we are ashamed of them. That would make a splendid display for the tourists. I would rather see Parliament Square and Whitehall made into secure zones where all protests are banned, than see those memorials removed in an act of gutless surrender. If protesters cannot remain peaceful, then they should have no right to protest in certain areas.
It was inevitable of course, but was still sad to see reported. A large number of right-wing extremists and sympathisers who have decided to support them, gathering in London. They claim to be there to protect monuments, but what they seem to have spent most of their time doing is clashing with police and hurling abuse at any BLM protesters they could find. Other BLM protests in England (peaceful as far as I am aware) have been targeted for abuse by far-right counter-protests. I still believe the number of hard-core far-right extremists in this Country is relatively small. A few thousand perhaps. But the toppling of that statue in Bristol, and the 'target list' of other monuments drawn up by BLM extremists (as well as the desecration of Churchill's statue and the Cenotaph last weekend) has acted as the perfect recruiting sergeant for reactionary groups on the far-right. They will exploit the fear and revulson many of us felt at what the BLM extremists appear to want, and their numbers will swell. Race riots and race related violence is now more likely, anywhere in the UK. There are a thousand potential flashpoints. The BLM movement must disown the monument wreckers if it wants mass peaceful protests to continue, and continue to enjoy the understanding and support of most peace-loving, fair-minded people. However I'm afraid it is probably too late for that now.
Update: The episode is back on UKTV platforms now - with a warning about "offensive content and language". Credit to the PC brigade for actually being willing to alter their position after such a crass mistake.
