To think - let’s just have loads of statues and information.

[Ozgirl75]

So wouldn’t it be nice if in loads of public places it was just statue central - parks etc instead of having two statues, they’ve got like, ten statues of interesting people who have done notable things. And then on their plaques, have real information about the good and maybe the not so good things they’ve done.
Every time you went for a walk it could be like a little bit of a history lesson.
Plus it wouldn’t be such an argument as to who gets a statue because there would be thousands of them, dotted about with their little mini history lessons (oh and a QR code for more information) all over the place.
Yes I know, cost, who writes them etc - details we could work out. Some sort of committee.

I don’t like the jimmy Saville comparison- jimmy saville raised money for hospitals etc by way to
gain access to vulnerable children, to manipulate and control people.

Churchill/ Nelson led the U.K. through wars and battles that were integral to making the U.K. a “safe” country. Far from perfect but the history shouldn’t be erased.

Churchill/ Nelson led the U.K. through wars and battles that were integral to making the U.K. a “safe” country. Far from perfect but the history shouldn’t be erased.

Nobody is saying they should be erased - just not necessarily put up on a big high plinth in all their finery to be exalted by all. Personally, I've no problem with the statues' being displayed at floor-level (no plinth) in a museum which puts them in their proper context, alongside the historical information: "This man did all of these great things, but he also did all of these appalling things and had these very offensive/controversial views too."

Even if Churchill (and other war-time 'heroes') hadn't had any offensive views about whole nations and races in general and just saw the war as a necessary evil to get the job done, a statue in a city centre still elevates him to the point where it looks like it was HIS war which HE bravely fought and won single-handedly. The men (sometimes just boys) who were sent to fight and die in the war get one little line on a single local memorial, if they're lucky; the womenfolk who worked for the war effort and all of them who kept the country going and raised and cared for the future generations in the meantime get absolutely no recognition whatsoever.

I think the racists among us will pretty quickly twig that if they take a few statues down they'll be able to claim to have "fixed" racism, and it will go away for the next 50 years. Much as having pop concerts fixes" world poverty.

Sadly, I think you may well be right there. Like a serial murderer claiming to have solved the problem of murder in their town when they were the only one going around killing people in the first place.

I like the cage idea and have developed it a bit to tackle problem in a creative, simple, visually effective way.

Keep the statues up but put them into metal cages, designed, created and installed by BAME artists. That way the statues can still be seen but the cages represent the fact that they were involved in the slave trade. This doesn't eliminate the history, in fact it adds to it, giving a far more accurate representation of their lives.