Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

[titbumwillypoo]

I understand a lot of the anger out there right now, it's 2020 FGS and the colour of a persons skin shouldn't matter, what gender they are shouldn't matter, whether they believe in a God or not shouldn't matter. But obviously they still do and there are still massive inequalities in our society that shouldn't be prevelant in this day and age.
So when I see statues being pushed into rivers and people complaining about Do they know it's Christmas and calling it to be banned or JK Rowling being racist because she wasn't inclusive enough it bothers me that instead of trying to improve the present we are more concered about deleting the past.
How can we grow as a society if the past has been censored. Books, music and art are a snapshot of how things were at that time in history, so surely it's better to have these things to discuss and learn from than to try and write them out of our collective consciousness. Imagine the uproar if Poland decided to level Auschwitz and build something nice on it. It's there and will remain there to remind us and future generations of mans inhumanity to man.
Finally there was a 38 degree's petition set up 3 years ago about Edward Colstons statue being removed, it got 10 signatures. If people find something offensive then there are systems in place to change things if they can be bothered to engage.

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/remove-the-edward-colston-statue-from-bristol-city-centre?bucket&source=facebook-share-button&time=1591119305&utm_campaign&share=d20ed235-f13a-4959-a06a-fd99dd9d7e94&fbclid=IwAR20VPeTfcewycIMCIkFNPc_W2Sy9VVNbHncGA352K1KpEmppi-y7FUV7iA

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-45825768
YANBU: We can and should learn from history and censorship is bad.
YABU: Burn it all and start again.

I would argue that the act of taking down the statue is a very clear engagement with history. History is not a static entity but an evolving story about people's lived experiences and personal responses.

Throwing the statue of a slave trader into the same river where his ships would have docked, mimicking the fate of thousands of victims who didn't survive the journey across the Atlantic? I'd say that was a pretty symbolic gesture rather than mindless thuggery.

History is what people make it. The City of Bristol has made an emphatic contribution over the last few days.

"So when I see statues being pushed into rivers and people complaining about Do they know it's Christmas and calling it to be banned or JK Rowling being racist because she wasn't inclusive enough it bothers me that instead of trying to improve the present we are more concered about deleting the past."

I'm the poster objecting to the 'Do they know it's Christmas song'.

I am in no way interested in deleting the past. The problem is not in essence the song itself, the problem is that the song is still influencing how people in the UK view Africa and African countries.

If there were a lot of updated, more nuanced representations of the African continent floating around in the UK media, then the song's existence would not bother me at all. That is not the case though, and that's where my problem lies.

This song is still used to try and get people to donate. It's still one of the most played songs during the Christmas period. We are still talking about Africa as a homogeneous entity which needs to be saved from its own misfortune in school, on TV, on social media.

The pictures attached are not from 1984, they are from June 2020. The message is still exactly the same. All children in Africa are starving and Africa is a barren, lost-cause continent which is only being kept afloat by the generosity of Western donations.

It would be the same if Housekeeping Monthly's 1955 article “The Good Wife’s Guide,” was still one the main pieces of media used to portray a woman's place within UK society.

I recall quite a few people being pissed off when Donald Trump highlighted how the UK was having a terrible time with Covid, so he generously donated some of his excess ventilators to help the poor souls. It was offensive, and, in my opinion, so is this.

I used to find the phrase ‘white feminism’ offensive, but I get it now.

But no one complains about the fact the installation of the station was a deliberate attempt to censor history and push a false version of history. (Which toppling the statue does not.), and similar comments.

To go back upthread a bit, since it isn't that long yet: no. I doubt whether installing the statue was a deliberate attempt to censor history, and it was not to push a false version.

It was to push one version of history. Not the one you like, not the one we see today, not the one of the African slaves. But it was the version of history that was seen as the mainstream one at the time.

History is all about story. There is a story for every person in it, for everyone who has ever existed. Picking the story to tell is creating a new interpretation. Destroying the one that was accepted at the time because we don't like it now, is deliberate censorship and re-writing: very deliberate, very specifically destructive.

By all means, as was suggested on another thread, melt it down and re-cast it as another statue showing that Bristol was built on the lives and sacrifice of slavery, together with a plaque explaining the history of the metal it contains. That is re-interpreting history now and telling a different story, a different perspective of the same time. I would prefer to keep it in a museum with all the information myself, keeping all the perspectives that were operational at the time together.

Do you see the difference? I'm not the most articulate person on here.

Melting it down is passing a judgement on the past which is made in the present actually. It's often not a good idea, not if your aim is to understand the past, and thus hopefully the present.

chomalungma
The one we are told about or the more complex past that we have to research ourselves.

That's my point, if we remove all the frames of reference to the past how will we know what to research?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52978121
An acceptable middle ground?

I think it's relevant that Edward Colston died in 1721. That statue was erected in 1895. It wasn't built at the time that the slave trade was happening, it was in fact erected 60-odd years after the UK's act abolishing slavery had been passed. It's quite possible it was perceived at the time as a giant slap in the face to all the Bristolians who traced their ancestry to the people enslaved and brought to the UK.

It was insensitive, to say the least, from the moment it was first placed, rather than reflecting then-current attitudes.

I doubt whether installing the statue was a deliberate attempt to censor history, and it was not to push a false version.

It very clearly was.

The statue was erected 160 years after Colston died. Decades years after slavery had been outlawed.. At the time the statue was erected, people knew perfectly well that slavery was an evil that had scarred the planet.

The people who funded and installed the statue, who chose the wording for the inscription, knew that the words they used were lies. Colston’s actions in mass murdering black people for insurance money were not acceptable at the time the statue was installed. They knew this, and they chose to lie and whitewash.

Here is an article explaining some of the myths behind Colston and the statue, and the late 19thC propaganda campaign to rehabilitate his image:

www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/myths-within-myths/

There is evidence that locals objected to the statue at the time, and that it was unpopular. The fact they struggled to raise the money to fund a statue of Colston (at a time when putting up statues to “great men” is was practically the national sport) shows it was not popular.

FFS, the statue contains reference to a ridiculous story about a Dolphin rescuing his ship by plugging a hole with its nose or something. Unless Colston was a Disney Princess in disguise, that didn’t happen. Putting up that statue was a piece of myth-making and propaganda.

There are still roads/streets bearing his name...but difficult to chuck one of those in the drink.

The value of local knowledge. It sounds like this object has one heck of a story of power manifestation and legitimacy practices. I hope someone has written/ is writing / will write its story somewhere.

ChocolatelyAsFuck, good article.

I think Prof Geoff Palmer has put my point across better than me when he said "We need to tell our story and make sure people understand Edinburgh's role in the world historically - not just the bits that we're proud of but frankly the bits we're ashamed of as well.

"It's not about telling a warts and all version, I think it's about telling a version that's just accurate and more reflective."

I'll be honest, I'd never heard of him (along with thousands of others) but now everyone knows about him and can see who he was and what he did. Now the statue is gone- how will future generations learn?

@Sargass0 I’m not Jewish, I’ve never been to Auschwitz, and yet I know about the Holocaust, because I was taught about it. If Black history is added to schools’ curriculum, it can be taught, thus erasing the need for monuments to racists.

Excellent comment by @ChocolatelyAsFuck given the historical context to the statue, it's removal is part of a fascinating story about how societies use their history, community identity, memorialisation and propaganda, local attitudes to historical figures. In a museum there is an opportunity to explore that story and give the statue far more educational value than if it is in the street with a 19th century revisionist history plaque on it (since the council were clearly never going to push through an updated plaque).

Statues have regularly been removed and/or lost. This is not some great sacrilege. If every statue that has ever been erected was still in place there wouldn't be much space left on historic buildings and in town centres.

Geoff Palmer's excellent lecture on Edinburgh's connections with slavery can be seen here:

Edinburgh and the Slave Trade
www.facebook.com/edinburghworldheritage/videos/edinburgh-and-the-slave-trade-live/2025626700837127/

Hadjab, in school you were taught only a tiny bit about WW2, black history month is covered in schools but again it's minimal. There is so little focus and time given to history in schools due to the demands of the curriculum that people have to take an interest in independently finding out more. If we start removing things like statues to put in museums only people who are already interested in learning more will learn from them. If we destroy them, nobody can learn from them. If we put plaques that are more historically acurate on them people can learn. I said up thread that Bristol Council dropped the ball on this but I don't think mob rule and vandalism is the way forward either. We live in a democracy which isn't perfect but sometimes compromise is the best solution.
One of the things that bothers me about trying to erase the past is that it could diminish minority voices. If a minority starts demanding removal of this and that because it offends them and councils/government grant their wishes racists could use that same argument back. The racists could argue that books and songs with offensive words like bitch, ho and n*er or glorification of violence or drug use should be banned because they have no place in a tolerant society. So no more Fear of a black planet, no more Straight Outta Compton, no more To kill a Mockingbird and many more important works.
I think the only way society can change the racist mindset is by things being out in the open and available for discussion, not hidden away preaching to the converted.

Titbum, could you answer the question put to you about Jimmy Savile?

Christ, zombie thread!

Sorry!

The past is not 'being erased'. There is a categorical difference between what forms part of the historical record and what society chooses to celebrate.

Oddly, everyone I know IRL bleating about statues being taken down 'erasing the past' was happy at Saville's tributes being removed or defaced. Funny that.

As an aside, in Bristol, how many years did the slaveowner's statue stand without context. How many days did it take for the council to remove its unofficial replacement.