Removing statues is it right or wrong

RandySavage said:
Another question that may need answering soon is when do people move on from removing statues to removing books and artwork? Even worst case scenario removing people?
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That’s the conundrum now we have started down this path - and who is the judge and jury who decides. It’s gonna be interesting!
 
FatCat said:
That’s the conundrum now we have started down this path - and who is the judge and jury who decides. It’s gonna be interesting!
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Public opinion? Guided (or misguided) through social media nonsense pushed by shady companies and think tanks, with big business or Russian backers?
 
They are seriously talking about re-naming Penny Lane as it is claimed it is named after James Penny a slave ship owner.
If that is the case half of Liverpool will have to be changed.
Will it be proposed to pull down St Georges Hall and The liver building they, and most of Liverpool city were built with slave profits.
 
this is why its not just equality needed & racism ended but a fundamental change in how we are governed & how are influence & power made accountable.

Statues of those involved in slave trade should be taken down though a fuller version of history needs to be expanded not re-written.
 
Some guy on twitter said this.....
My view on this is pretty clear and straightforward. We shouldn't be ripping down our history! End of story. Not everything involved in our history is comfortable, and not everything is good, to say the least. It's still our history though and we can't change it. You can't define people from the past as simply 'good' or 'bad' - characters are complex and context is important. Besides which, who gets to decide? There's no such thing as impartiality on this.

What starts with slave traders statues is a slippery slope. What about Ghandi? He wrote some pretty racist things in his early life. Nelson Mandela? Some people say he was a terrorist and condoned violence. Lord Nelson defended slavery. Twelve of our British Monarchs presided over the colonies... Churchill? The Romans had slaves, shall we tear down the Baths and the Aqueducts? Where does it end!? What will we have left?

In a country built on empire - in fact in a world which has largely been built on empire and war for centuries - there is very little history that isn't associated with things we don't like in some way!

We can deny it and pretend it didn't happen, banish it from our memories, or we can respect our heritage and learn from it. Preserve our history and teach the lessons of the past to our children, so we don't make the same mistakes again. It would be an insult, in my view, to those that have been caught up in the atrocities of the past to try and remove all trace of their plight from our lives. Those statues serve as a reminder and a discussion point. They are how we remember.

There is no good ending to a process of stripping out the bits of the past we don't like!
 
My take on it - for what its worth - is that obviously dodgy ones like slave traders, etc. should be removed. They are pretty offensive.

I don´t see any reason not to remove statues or rename streets as time goes on. People don´t have to be celebrated as heroes forever just because they once were.

We should, however, be very careful about judging people from the past by todays standards. Captain Cook didn´t behave in a particularly good way regarding the natives he came across but I wouldn´t support removing his statue. I guess it comes down to the degree of wrongness. I think Cook was just a man of his time whereas the slave traders were more evil. Its difficult to judge though. Churchill undoubtedly had some pretty unpleasant views looked at from 2020 but you can´t take it away that he was a hero of this country. Like everything else in this life its not black and white - no pun intended.
 
JaenBoro said:
My take on it - for what its worth - is that obviously dodgy ones like slave traders, etc. should be removed. They are pretty offensive.

I don´t see any reason not to remove statues or rename streets as time goes on. People don´t have to be celebrated as heroes forever just because they once were.

We should, however, be very careful about judging people from the past by todays standards. Captain Cook didn´t behave in a particularly good way regarding the natives he came across but I wouldn´t support removing his statue. I guess it comes down to the degree of wrongness. I think Cook was just a man of his time whereas the slave traders were more evil. Its difficult to judge though. Churchill undoubtedly had some pretty unpleasant views looked at from 2020 but you can´t take it away that he was a hero of this country. Like everything else in this life its not black and white - no pun intended.
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Nobody can know the full story surrounding Captain Cook. History had proven it can be rewritten or adjusted to suit a particular agenda.
He could have been an evil git or he and his men could be innocent. It was that long ago nobody would truly know for certain.
 
FatCat said:
And I guess that’s the debate if someone was racist let’s use Churchill as the example - but he also did many good things - are you saying that you personally think his statue should come down?
I’m not Britain First but I like the Mandella argument as it highlights the point - does someone who has done bad things in their life deserve the accolades because they have also done great things.
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Churchill is a difficult one, he undoubtedly did some things worth celebrating. He undoubtedly had some horrific behaviours and attitudes. Personally, I don't think they should come down (at this point in history), however, I think it's time we stopped selling him as some iconic unquestionable figure. The history taught at school should definitely be more balanced, paint him as a 3 dimensional character warts and all, NOT the sanitised idolisation of Churchill in some/many quarters, its unhealthy, and dishonest.

Churchill wasn't directly involved in the slave trade, which is very different to the particulars of the 2 statues that have so far been removed.

The big issue with the Mandela argument is that they simply had no means to change the status quo and emancipate the people. They didn't have the vote. Not only that, they were economically subjugated, and had no freedom to express their issues to a public audience. So, much like those French resistance fighters in the second world war, they had to take action into their own hands. The inequality was so stark, and the legitimate recourse removed by a racist government, that there simply was no other alternative. Thus they cannot rightfully be called anything but freedom fighters. Pretty much every human right abuse in the book had been bestowed on them for years before they took up arms against their oppressors.
 
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There is a huge danger that something like removing statues will be all that gets done and it'll be used as an appeasement to the BLM movement.
Sort out the injustices first then address the history aspect later, not the other way round.
We can't change history, but we can change the future.
 
RandySavage said:
View attachment 3891

This will be a big job for someone.

(Shamelessly stolen from Twitter)
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I like the native american response, we will build our own monument from a mountain, and you can fit your four racist heads in the head of our great hero....and no, stick your federal money to build it, we'll build it ourself. I visited it 20 years ago, would love to go back again in another 20 when it's near completecrazyhorse.jpg
 
FatCat said:
My view on this is pretty clear and straightforward. We shouldn't be ripping down our history!
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a 120 year old statue isn't history in itself. It's a commentary on history, and that's exactly the point. the commentary is harmful and needs to change. The history is exactly the same, we're just viewing it through a healthier set of morals.
 
FatCat said:
And I guess that’s the debate if someone was racist let’s use Churchill as the example - but he also did many good things - are you saying that you personally think his statue should come down?
I’m not Britain First but I like the Mandella argument as it highlights the point - does someone who has done bad things in their life deserve the accolades because they have also done great things.
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Was Churchill racist? I’d not even considered that, I think the point about Colston was his involvement in the slave trade. What is it that Churchill did that you object to?
 
dooderooni said:
There is a huge danger that something like removing statues will be all that gets done and it'll be used as an appeasement to the BLM movement.
Sort out the injustices first then address the history aspect later, not the other way round.
We can't change history, but we can change the future.
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Well said!
 
EI_Owen said:
Was Churchill racist? I’d not even considered that, I think the point about Colston was his involvement in the slave trade. What is it that Churchill did that you object to?
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Im Asking the question about Churchill - personally I don’t think the statue should come down. The argument being bandied about is that he is racist and believed in eugenics hence should not be celebrated despite his other achievements.
 
FatCat said:
Im Asking the question about Churchill - personally I don’t think the statue should come down. The argument being bandied about is that he is racist and believed in eugenics hence should not be celebrated despite his other achievements.
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His other achievements being sending many British conscripts to their death?
 
Siri show me some classic whataboutery

What about Ghandi? He wrote some pretty racist things in his early life. Nelson Mandela? Some people say he was a terrorist and condoned violence. Lord Nelson defended slavery. Twelve of our British Monarchs presided over the colonies... Churchill? The Romans had slaves, shall we tear down the Baths and the Aqueducts?
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Thanks Siri
 
FatCat said:
That is one of them also - but you get the point - for many people he is a hero.
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I have far more admiration and respect for the many who fought in the 2nd world war than I do for the politician who sent them there.
Colston wasn’t a war time leader, he was a man that got rich from the slave trade, he was a benefactor to Bristol, but the money came from exploiting, enslaving and murdering innocent people. Sometimes you have to weigh things up it doesn’t seem appropriate to have a slaver glorified in a time when we should be striving for racial harmony, Churchill on the other hand is respected by a fair amount of the population for defeating the Nazis and overall the balance of opinion is in his favour as at least he was leading a moral cause.
 
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