to think removing certain statues and renaming certain street names is not erasing our history?

[chomalungma]

It's just not celebrating people who are seen as controversial.
People can still learn about these people in books.
In films
At school.

It's just that they aren't being celebrated by having public recognition and the honour of a statue or a street name.

I would link to a story - but there would be so many of them as the Government (and certain media organisations) seem to think that it's a war on our history.

I guess a lot of it is down to the person being celebrated. And whether that celebration is still deemed 'worthy' 100s of years later.

Statues have been removed in the past for a range of reasons. I wonder how many of the Victorian statues will still be up in 200 years time?

@chomalungma

They’d be applauded. Why wouldn’t they

I am sure that some papers would try to catch them out on something that they weren't tackling - or accuse them of virtue signalling.

So the NT isn’t virtue signalling now?

I don't think it matters one way or the other. The statues are invisible to most people.

YABU.

If names change or statues are coming down it should be through local referenda. I for one am not keen on a vocal minority deciding on behalf of the rest of us who should and shouldn’t be honoured through a statue.

Where I live people were complaining about a statue of Nelson- one of this country’s greatest ever war heroes. Madness.

@chomalungma

I get what some people are saying about contemporary issues.

It would be interesting to see the reaction if an institution such as The National Trust or a University took a strong action against modern slavery by refusing to buy goods from companies unless they ensured that there were no issues, that they supported local action to ensure there was no slavery or racism going on.

I have a feeling that the National Trust already do try to make sure all their goods are ethically sourced. I doubt they interfere in local action: they are nationwide, so local would be everything and they probably can't actually devote all their effort to that: they have all those properties to run.

I have a feeling that the National Trust already do try to make sure all their goods are ethically sourced. I doubt they interfere in local action: they are nationwide, so local would be everything and they probably can't actually devote all their effort to that: they have all those properties to run.

I agree. At the level of large companies and organisations there are legal requirements in respect of modern slavery:

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/modern-slavery-statement

The issue is a more insidious one that has crept into towns all over the country, in cash-in-hand businesses like the ones mentioned above (nail bars, car washes, etc.). I understand the criticism that people are allowed to be concerned about different things, but I find it particularly egregious that we are convincing ourselves that we are righting the wrongs of historical slavery by removing statues and decolonising university curricula, and patting ourselves on the back for doing so, while we are walking past and even using businesses that are run on slavery whenever we go into our town centres.

It would be interesting to see the reaction if an institution such as The National Trust or a University took a strong action against modern slavery by refusing to buy goods from companies unless they ensured that there were no issues, that they supported local action to ensure there was no slavery or racism going on.

All the companies I use already do this? It is very wide spread. EU and U.K. laws also require checks and audits to combat modern slavery happening way down the supply chains.

The issue is a more insidious one that has crept into towns all over the country, in cash-in-hand businesses like the ones mentioned above (nail bars, car washes, etc.

Agree. Recent convictions of subjecting people to slavery have involved farm hands, construction labourers, domestic cleaners, even family businesses- bring in a second cousin from abroad and then they’re slave labour in a family restaurant or other business.

Erg...and how can we forget trafficking? The biggest modern slavery of all is sex trafficking of mostly women and girls (and a few boys).

‘And yet.....I remember Emily WIlding Davison because she threw herself under a horse. I remember Constance Lytton because she carved a V into herself whilst imprisoned. Those brave, but lawless, acts are what they are remembered for with (hopefully) gratitude.’

You seem to be deliberately missing the point in order to draw a comparison between the suffragettes and people defacing statues during the pandemic. People aren’t grateful for women dying, breaking the law and interrupting horse races. They are grateful for women dying, breaking the law and interrupting horse races to get us the vote.

The people defacing statues aren’t actually making any demand that would materially improve people’s lives. They are just defacing statues.

It is playing pretend revolutionaries.

Stripesnomore I don’t miss the point at all. There may well be some malign influences within groups associated with movement such as BLM, many have a very clear motivation and desire to stop the public idolatry associated with slave traders on plinths in out public spaces.

Many would welcome the success of minor law infringement to remove these men to anti-slavery museums, or at least to have the narrative changed around them.

Does that mean ignoring modern slavery? Absolutely not. One can do two things at the same time. More importantly the continued celebration of slavers as a force for good gives an ongoing subliminal message to society about the acceptance of oppression, the power and wealth human trafficking and slavery brings and the imperial right of one people to own another.

They are grateful for women dying, breaking the law and interrupting horse races to get us the vote.

Well even then, the suffragists did make a very persuasive argument that the actions of the extremist suffragettes, WSPU, set the movement for the vote back by fifty years. These women throwing themselves under horses hooves, planting bombs in churches, attempting to storm Parliament, smashing windows, doing arson by setting post boxes and buildings on fire did not get women the vote.

U.K. women only got the vote because after the disaster of WWI, the government knew they had to extend suffrage to the working class men returning from war. They also knew they’d likely vote Labour. So they needed to add voters who’d likely be conservative. Which would be respectable, married middle class matrons. So they passed the vote for the rest of the men, and some of the women. But don’t kid yourself, it was in spite of the suffragettes not because.

@CherryRoulade
No one “celebrates” slave traders and a statue is not “public idolatry” do you even know what idolatry is? It is literally to worship as a god. No one is doing that either. You are making these largely ignored statues that birds shit all over into some sort of sacred cow that everyone treats like the Kaaba

PlanDeRaccordement In which case there is no problem in having them removed is there? If nobody cares, nobody is interested except those who feel aggrieved seeing them in places of honour, there is no reason to keep them, is there? Absolute win; nobody cares enough to want them, people want them removed - it’s a win win.

To be pedantic, Idolatry is almost the opposite of worshipping a God. It is worshipping an image of a false God. That includes statuary.

We honour Rosa Parks for her guts and determination, not her civil disobedience.

But why do we honour her as an individual when she was part of an organization that specifically chose her for that act, helped train her for what would likely happen, was one many people who had help facilitate the over year long boycott that sparked off others like the Bristol Bus Boycott in the UK (which oddly I'm not sure has any commemoration... the UK seems to have very few to its own civil rights history). It the mythology that has grown up around her that suits a particular idea of how these events work, one that's kinda damaging when discussing change.

Statues commemorate mythology, there can be benefits to having a cultural mythology represented, but they can't really capture or teach the complexity of history. It's part of how we've gone from Never Again & protests to fight for better care of veterans to remembrance ceremonies where young children wear Future Soldier T-shirts. Statues didn't change, people's knowledge of them did from many other sources which affected how people saw and treated them - or how those in power did as far more have been moved or put away for changes from them than those from people going on a rampage.

We honour the women who fought for our right to vote, not their vandalism. We honour Rosa Parks for her guts and determination, not her civil disobedience.

Really? I honour all of those women for their civil disobedience.

I know racists and misogynists sometimes don't honour them, but I do.

Civil disobedience is an entirely laudable approach. Rosa Parks' 'civil disobedience' was ... sitting down on a bus while being black. I am disgusted you feel the need to say you think that was not worth honouring.

Please do not presume to speak for the rest of us.

@CherryRoulade

PlanDeRaccordement In which case there is no problem in having them removed is there? If nobody cares, nobody is interested except those who feel aggrieved seeing them in places of honour, there is no reason to keep them, is there? Absolute win; nobody cares enough to want them, people want them removed - it’s a win win.

To be pedantic, Idolatry is almost the opposite of worshipping a God. It is worshipping an image of a false God. That includes statuary.

People do care. I care about not erasing our history. Those statues - for about the millionth time - aren’t celebrations, they’ve commemorations. They’re part of our history and many of us don’t want our towns and cities denuded of their history because of 21st century intolerance.

@SarahAndQuack

We honour the women who fought for our right to vote, not their vandalism. We honour Rosa Parks for her guts and determination, not her civil disobedience.

Really? I honour all of those women for their civil disobedience.

I know racists and misogynists sometimes don't honour them, but I do.

Civil disobedience is an entirely laudable approach. Rosa Parks' 'civil disobedience' was ... sitting down on a bus while being black. I am disgusted you feel the need to say you think that was not worth honouring.

Please do not presume to speak for the rest of us.

I am as far as it’s possible to get from not honouring them. And I find your accusation of misogyny and racism deeply offensive. How dare you?

Well, then, please explain what you said?

Because I thought you said we actually didn't honour Rosa Parks for her act of civil disobedience in sitting down on a bus, as a black woman.

Who are we removing though and why? No one is perfect, Churchill, Queen Victoria, etc.and we rightly judge many of them harshly by today’s standards. No one is perfect and we should not pretend they are. Equally though, people can do good or important things while also doing bad things.

statutes etc to such people are part of our history and so are the people depicted in them. I don’t think we should erase them rather comment on them. Also I don’t think we should necessarily see street names or statues as honouring anyone these days. But they are part of our history and landscape.

Who wants to change the street names every couple of years- not me.

YANBU. We have a lot to learn from Germany. They are genuinely sorry for the atrocities that happened, and do their best to move with the times. They’ve removed any nazi symbols, torn down statues of SS officers, and erected numerous memorials and museums so that the past is never forgotten, and the same mistakes aren’t made again.
I’m prepared to be flamed but I often think the type of people who are upset about the statue in Bristol being torn down probably didn’t have a clue who the statue was of, didn’t live in Bristol and also have tea towels saying “keep calm and carry on”.

@SarahAndQuack

Well, then, please explain what you said?

Because I thought you said we actually didn't honour Rosa Parks for her act of civil disobedience in sitting down on a bus, as a black woman.

I meant - I thought it was clear - that I honour those women for their determination, integrity and belief in their cause. I don’t honour their civil disobedience and deplore that it was necessary.

I agree that there’s definitely a distinction between civil disobedience and vandalism too. Vandalising a statue because you don’t like it isn’t civil disobedience in my book.

@fairynick - did the people of Bristol vote to take it down? It was my understanding they didn’t.

@VinylDetective, it was necessary, though.

And how are people meant to show dissent when all other protest options have been exhausted, except by civil disobedience?

She did exactly what she should have done. For you to say you don't honour her for that is disgusting.

I do generally think protest should be peaceful but what Rosa Parks did was definitely civil disobedience.