Not to want

[FraughtwithGin]

some form of "Disneyfication" of history?
What happened in the past has gone. There were reasons for why things happened as they did. We cannot apply today's perceived standards to events that took place 2 or 3 or more hundreds of years ago.
By the same token we cannot change the past, it has happened and is gone.
Why not learn from the past and try to avoid or minimise in the future?

In what way do you mean?
I don’t think taking down a couple of statues means suddenly people won’t remember or learn about history in the same way?

Nobody is trying to change the past, people are just realising that maybe glorification isn't the best idea. The suggestion is that the statues are put in museums where people learn about what happened, which is surely going to teach more people about the past?

I think removing statues and putting them in museums with text giving the full story about them would do more in terms of teaching history than just having statues in the streets that most people barely even notice much less know the truth about the person depicted.

I wonder if in those places you could put up memorials to those who lost their lives to slavery, rather than statues of the enslavers who profited from them? Then it’s a memorial and acknowledgment of the victims, rather than what could be perceived as a monument to the oppressor.

There's nothing wrong with having museums and websites informing/reminding/educating people in context about the events and prominent people of the past - good and bad.

However, the entire purpose of a statue is to venerate, exalt, glorify and even worship a magnificently great person. If anybody should doubt this one iota, they should ask themselves why they're almost always put on a high plinth. Nobody is perfect and all great people will have had minor faults, but an alarmingly large number of these people of whom statues have been made did monstrously appalling things throughout their lives and, in many cases, it is exactly those appalling things that brought them prominence and veneration.

I can't remember the exact wording next to the statue of Colston, but I believe it mentioned something about pride in one of our most virtuous and treasured sons and not a single word about the tens of thousands of black people he deliberately sent to their deaths and/or exploited throughout their lives in order to bring himself riches. Buying himself PR (for genuine altruistic charitable giving is done anonymously or with as little fanfare as possible) by paying for buildings and facilities for the folk of Bristol with some of those ill-gotten gains does not absolve him one bit.

Moving statues into museums seems like a good idea. Educate without exalting the slave owners etc.

So by your logic should we be putting up statues of Nazis? If your answer to that is ‘of course not’ then in your opinion black lives don’t matter, and that is the whole point of the BLM - to make non-Black people realise that the black people who died because of slavery matter just as much as the white people who died in the Holocaust.

There was a great thread by a historian on Twitter (Bret Devereux), explaining how statues came to Europe from ancient Egypt via ancient Greece. They have always been used for commemoration and celebration; they have never been about teaching history.

History is taught in schools and universities, in museums and via tv, podcasts etc. Statues of people that we abhor need to be in museums where they can be contextualised.

There are no longer statues of Hitler. It doesn't mean that we've forgotten him or his crimes. If we take down the statue of, for example Rhodes, and move it to a museum we wouldn't be airbrushing him out of history; we would just be showing that he isn't somebody who we as a society wish to celebrate.

I am not talking about statues, I am talking about trying to re-write or "re-invent" history to conform to the modern "woke" world.
Modern society would not be where it is today, whether you like or loathe it, without what happened in the past.
I assume there were reasons for why things happened as they did, just as there are reasons why, for example, the UK is in the state it is in today, although nobody is currently questioning this...only a couple. of decades ago

If you're not talking about statues, I'm not sure what you mean. Can you give a couple of examples of how you feel people are trying to rewrite or reinvent history?

Your last post doesn’t make sense. If you want a debate stop waffling and make your point.

@FraughtwithGin can you give actual specific examples of what you’re referring to? Being vague means nobody can understand the point you’re making.

Well from abroad it looks like the UK wants to remove anything that is not now politically correct, in modern terms.

Again - examples?

Are you just referring to streaming services deciding to take off a few comedies because they include examples of racism?

There are hundreds of other shows/episodes available so viewers still have a wide variety to choose from.

Streaming services never show every single film or tv programme that they have available. They always offer a limited choice. Removing offensive episodes seems as good a reason for making their selection as any. Hardly worth getting agitated over.

I see being politically correct as a synonym for being kind, thoughtful and respectful.

People who use it as an insult often mean that they should be allowed to be sexist, racist or disablist and anyone who is upset or offended by that needs to toughen up.

Gosh OP have you been drinking too much gin? What's actually happening is that people are finally learning the truth about historical figures. That is the exact opposite of ' disneyfication' as you call it.

Do you have a specific example?

some form of "Disneyfication" of history

I assume by Disneyfication you mean profiting from offensive depictions of racist stereotypes for decades then mumbling something about outdated cultural references and carrying on regardless?

If so, I agree.

No, the Disneyfication is what we are currently teaching taught, not what actually happened.