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?

The response to the Oliver Cromwell statue outside Parliament is interesting.

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1298681/oliver-cromwell-statue-parliament-UK-george-floyd-black-lives-matter

@user194729573

Modifying the landscape people live in is a way to assert power. Whether that's through monuments, statues or naming.

It has always changed all the time, and should change all the time to reflect who we are now and our values.

THAT is more sensible.

But changing doesn't have to mean removal. There has to be some way to model our living landscape and retaining physical reminders in a way that measn we learn from the past!

As many others have already suggested...

If statues are proposed to be removed and placed in museums, or if streets are proposed to be renamed, the decision should be be that of the local people who live there, following majority democratic means. It should not be at the diktat of a baying mob of unrepresentative, self appointed moralists.

To get a statue has always been a honour, a celebration of the persons achievements and a commemorations of them. Statues have never just been a record

You don't see areas putting up people of historical importance to learn about them if they weren't the "good guys". You don't see statues of those who commit war crimes locally being put up even if they had a huge impact on the local area

Can you imagine if historical significance was the only criteria? Hometowns of perpetrators having 9/11 bombers stautes

Sorry your town has been allocated the Enoch Powell statue because he was important so someone has to have him

If you want to honour the event then you have a memorial or something like the titanic/ 7/7 statues rather than that of a figure

We can put them in museums as a record but not leave them up as public celebrations

I think that statues of controversial figures should come down. As others have said, they exist not educate, but to celebrate. It's not like these people are being edited from history, they will just no longer be honoured by an image on public display.

Rather than putting the statues in museums or destroying them though, I like the idea of burying them. Not only is it symbolic, it's creating the archeology of the future. They could even be buried with time capsules to explain why.

@HijabiVenus

If statues are proposed to be removed and placed in museums, or if streets are proposed to be renamed, the decision should be be that of the local people who live there, following majority democratic means. It should not be at the diktat of a baying mob of unrepresentative, self appointed moralists.

I suppose a lot of that would come down to a 'balanced' conversation about the historical figure so people could see all sides of a figure and decide if that person should still be honoured.

It can be hard to have a balanced conversation and some people are more than happy to honour those who are massively controversial to others.

Of course it's not. Statues have always been removed with changes in fashion/art/politics (or we wouldn't be able to move for them and the Dr who angels would have been even more terrifying). And streets have regularly been renamed over the cities.

We get this idea in school that history is a static set of facts when really our interpretation and understanding of those facts (plus finding new facts and new persepctives) is always changing. The history of history and what it says about the society writing the history is pretty interesting.

@MarieLaveau

*People can still learn about these people in books. In films*

And if these books, these films, were created by writers and directors that we later discover are racist. Should we burn them?

I think what we see around us are important markers of time that has gone by. Ruins, churches, statues, place names - they were all created with the blood of someone else.

Should Dublin dismantle Trinity College?

How are churches or colleges even remotely similar to a statue of someone who persecuted people or who stood for values no longer acceptable today?

@terrywynne

Of course it's not. Statues have always been removed with changes in fashion/art/politics (or we wouldn't be able to move for them and the Dr who angels would have been even more terrifying). And streets have regularly been renamed over the cities.

We get this idea in school that history is a static set of facts when really our interpretation and understanding of those facts (plus finding new facts and new persepctives) is always changing. The history of history and what it says about the society writing the history is pretty interesting.

Yes.

Change them, replace them, update the information about them, change their purpose.

But not angry removal because... something!

But not angry removal because... something

So you are ok with statues being removed then?

That seems to go against your previous comments

If we cleanse our living environment of any bit of the past any cohort feels unfcomfortable with what do you think we will end up with

I'm an archaeologist and we frequently talk about preserving the past for the future however we also know that time moves on and we can't allow our past to detrimentally affect our future. It's why we excavate some archaeology in housing developments rather than forcing other forms of mitigation and preservation. I think the same thinking should be applied to more modern artefacts like monuments etc. We shouldn't preserve them just because they've been there a while, it's time to move on in many cases. What I would like to see is something like the blue plaque scheme, where there is a little detail about what once stood here and why it was removed. We are constantly moving forward and changing out landscape why shouldn't our street decoration and monuments reflect this.

My issue with our is that it changes nothing , but government and cuckold think they've done their bit by taking down a statue most people walked past without even seeing, there will still be systematic and endemic discrimination there will still be profound structural racism and misogyny but it's ok because we took the statues down. What's the policy, where's the legislation where's the cultural shift? It's tokenistic and doesn't achieve anything other than to relegate discrimination to something that happened in the past, so they can all pretend it doesn't happen anymore.

My previous comments were curtailed because I wanted to say something about the problems with vox pop decisions.

And cleansing is not simply removing some things.

Of course street furniture gets removed. It happens all the time.

But there is no need to remove anything because it reflects a past we no longer inhabit. It's social purpose could change to one of remembering past wrongs, learning a lesson from history, etc.

It's the 'cleansing' aspect that bothers me...

Government and councils

@Northofsomewhere

I like that idea

Its not about erasing history but finding aways to aknowledge it for what it was.

What's the policy, where's the legislation where's the cultural shift? It's tokenistic and doesn't achieve anything other than to relegate discrimination to something that happened in the past, so they can all pretend it doesn't happen anymore. That!

That better articulates what I mean than anything I have typed!

But there is no need to remove anything because it reflects a past we no longer inhabit. It's social purpose could change to one of remembering past wrongs, learning a lesson from history, etc

Do you not think there are people who don't want to walk past a constant reminder of something that reminds them of events and attitudes that we not longer find acceptable?

"Maybe because people whose ancestors were affected by the historic figure don't want to see them still honoured in a modern world?"

Maybe people's whose ancestors were affected need to mind their own business? I don't go to France and demand they take down their statues of Napoleon or William the Conqueror. Even though they were responsible for the deaths of thousands of MY people. They are heroes to the French people and it is THEIR history and their right to celebrate them.

The vast majority of notable figures celebrated from the past are leaders, fighters, conquerors, traders. Yes there will be some, for example, who made scientific contributions that have benefited the world, but most of a people's heroes are heroes precisely because they advanced the interests of THEIR OWN people at the cost of someone else.

Now there aren't any statues of Muhammad (for obvious reasons) but he would be the Occam's razor here OP. Are you going to tell Muslims the world over they cannot celebrate or admire his achievements because of his misdeeds? I'd imagine not.

There should be a reasoned debate about such things but this mob mentality is just as bad.

A small number of people shouting on social media does not make a consensus which is what the media would have you believe.

Oh I know there are people who feel that way! We saw them taking action last year!

But that's not the only perspective. It has it's own dangers.

Is there anything wrong with remembering past iniquities and learning from them? Is there anything wrong with changing celebration of such events and people to learning about what drove it, what the loing term results were and how the world changes to, hopefully, prevent such things happening again?

Of course not. And that is one reason not to remove all visible reminders. I'm not saying they need to remain forever and ever. There's no reason for that. Just urging caution before allowing a groundswell to remove something that still require global changes to social mores.

This doesn't have to be combative! There is no definitive right and wrong.

@scatterolight you still haven't learned your place in history, have you?

Bad guy. British. Colonialist. Gobshite. Root of all evil.

Don't forget you are always on the wrong side! No debate!!!

[That's humour, just in case!]

Maybe people's whose ancestors were affected need to mind their own business? I don't go to France and demand they take down their statues of Napoleon or William the Conqueror

I wonder what the people of France know about what William the Conqueror did in England and whether he should still be remembered and honoured?

Is there anything wrong with remembering past iniquities and learning from them? Is there anything wrong with changing celebration of such events and people to learning about what drove it, what the loing term results were and how the world changes to, hopefully, prevent such things happening again

We need to learn from history.
Do we need to publicly honour people with statues and road names etc whose history has been controversial?

@Northofsomewhere

I'm an archaeologist and we frequently talk about preserving the past for the future however we also know that time moves on and we can't allow our past to detrimentally affect our future. It's why we excavate some archaeology in housing developments rather than forcing other forms of mitigation and preservation. I think the same thinking should be applied to more modern artefacts like monuments etc. We shouldn't preserve them just because they've been there a while, it's time to move on in many cases. What I would like to see is something like the blue plaque scheme, where there is a little detail about what once stood here and why it was removed. We are constantly moving forward and changing out landscape why shouldn't our street decoration and monuments reflect this.

I am more familiar with the architectural side but I imagine you must have some of the same debates - how tonwe balance preserving the past against the needs of modern societies? What do we preserve and what do we alter or remove completely?

And of course in architecture half the time you want to preserve something that it is only there because the owners in the 16th-19th centuries completely knocked down what was there before because it wasn't modern enough. Or because it wasn't authentically medieval enough.

I don’t think there is one blanket correct answer to the problem, we have preserved concentration camps and removed statues of Stalin. Both of these responses feel right so I guess it depends on the actual location and scale of the problem item/name. It’s a difficult balancing act but there is a reasonable argument that tearing down all statues hides the history. I’d like to see some kept with new plaques detailing their crimes to remind people that we aren’t that far removed from what they did.