So, british mumsnet, how do you feel about statues of Queen Victorian and QEII torn down in Canada?

[Evangeli]

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57693683

While we're talking about statues, curious to hear opinions on this. Are you shocked, outraged or just "meh"? I feel this is different from the slaver captain who was torn down last year (in Plymouth?) or the military/politician men who have been toppling across Canada- it feels even more iconoclastic?

Personally I'm anti-monarchist, so it's all good to me, but would like to discuss it. fwiw, I grew up in the UK but immigrated to Canada as an adult.

That's not to say it stopped in that school the mid 80s, or abuse wasnt continuing at other schools. I'm not well versed on the particulars of the abuse, but obviously Gordon Indian Residential School has some particular notoriety.

@Ratalie

Thank you. I will read more about the Gordon School.

One of the difficulties is that community standards were so different for all of us. I was in elementary school in the 1960s and I vividly remember the physical punishment meted out by the teachers and principal. My grade 7 teacher used a yardstick on people in front of the class, and made kids sit with their arms out to the side until they cried. Kids were also humiliated by having gum stuck on their noses for the day if they were caught. We were petrified of the "strap." Looking back, I wonder how I survived it all. And I am white and went home everyday.

My childhood dentist in the same town was convicted of sexually abusing children. Thankfully not me.

Could someone who knows please explain what "atrocities" against children took place in the 1990s.

Before you even get to what happened at the schools, there is the very fact that Indigenous children were still being forcibly removed from their families in the 1990s, which seems to be often overlooked. That forced separation causes enormous trauma in children, let alone what they had to deal with when they actually got to the schools.

"The government's official policy was assimilation, "taking the Indian out" of the boys and girls so they would join mainstream society." From this article below:

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/red-road-forward-what-happened-at-gordon-s-1.969653

That`s without going into all of the many current issues Indigenous people in Canada face - the systematic racism, the "Saskatoon Starlight Tours" (happening as recently as early 2000s), the huge number missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls which grows ever year and the sterilization of Indigenous women against their will and/or without their knowledge, which has been happening as recently as 2018.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-lawsuit-could-expand-1.5102981

Pulling down statues doesn't erasure history. It's entirely pointless. Just makes a few publicity hungry individuals feeling good about the limelight for five minutes.

One of the difficulties is that community standards were so different for all of us. I was in elementary school in the 1960s and I vividly remember the physical punishment meted out by the teachers and principal. My grade 7 teacher used a yardstick on people in front of the class, and made kids sit with their arms out to the side until they cried. Kids were also humiliated by having gum stuck on their noses for the day if they were caught. We were petrified of the "strap." Looking back, I wonder how I survived it all. And I am white and went home everyday.
Although standards were different, if you do read up on some of the abuse at Gordon, I think you'll cringe a little at your comment. We're talking widespread rape, children being knocked out then beaten even when already unconscious, or picked up by their hair and thrown against walls. I dont think you can attribute that to changing standards....

@TooYoungToNotice

Pulling down statues doesn't erasure history. It's entirely pointless. Just makes a few publicity hungry individuals feeling good about the limelight for five minutes.

I'm genuinely curious as to why you think statues are put up.

It's barely been reported in the UK media, and I haven't heard anyone in real life discussing it at all.

I can't get worked up about it at all.

What has the Queen done that is so terrible? I honestly don't know. I realise some of her ancestral relatives were responsible for, and indifferent to, awful things but at least the empire has long gone and many Commonwealth countries are now independent with our Queen's blessing - and help.

@Maggiesfarm

What has the Queen done that is so terrible? I honestly don't know. I realise some of her ancestral relatives were responsible for, and indifferent to, awful things but at least the empire has long gone and many Commonwealth countries are now independent with our Queen's blessing - and help.

The Empire isn't that long gone. Quite a lot of countries got independence in the 1970s and 80s. It's not the Queens fault, of course, that she was born into the family that did most of the land-grabbing and inherited the crown of so many places, but she is a visible symbol of it and didn't seem to do much giving back independence of her own volition.

@DeathByWalkies

It's barely been reported in the UK media, and I haven't heard anyone in real life discussing it at all.

I can't get worked up about it at all.

It has been reported here in the media, I have also seen it on the news. As for it not being disussed, a Canadian friend thinks it is all lies because he has seen archived photographs of happy smiling indigenous children !

That remark reminded me of Donald Trump who, when asked about the South American children who he kept in cages said, they were not cages but enclosed spaces to keep them safe, they were clean and well fed and the staff looked after them. Says it all really.

I sometimes think about children in the care of Dr Barnardo's who were sent to Australia to have a new life; many ended up as virtual slaves who were abused.

Never mind how the indigenous people of Australia were treated.

Then I think about Oliver Cromwell who was an icon to many, who practiced ethnic cleansing in Ireland.

It is hard to bear. Not as hard as for the people who experienced it all and suffered.

I'm neither Canadian nor British but I think the people who did it are knobs.

As for it not being disussed, a Canadian friend thinks it is all lies because he has seen archived photographs of happy smiling indigenous children!
Wow.

@Ratalie

I did not attribute anything to changing standards. The reason I described my schools is to show that quite frankly children were all treated very badly. Governed by fear.

I do not see why the abuse my classmates suffered being described should make me feel bad. I don't need much help in that department anyway.

I accept that the things described by the survivors happened.

I grew up in the interior of BC. Two of my classmates, Patricia Darlington and Gail Weys, were raped and murdered. They are always on the missing women posters, although if they were indigenous I certainly didn't know. It was terrifying to live in Kamloops at that time as a young woman.

As long as they recycle the metal then I have no other opinions about what Canadians do with their own Country.

Unless statues are topped with a traffic cone, I give them very little thought.

The British have done a lot of terrible things worldwide, they have also done a lot of great things, statues like these should be moved to a museum so you can learn both sides of their history, not just the good.

I think its sad to destroy any statues, even those that I think horrible, a recent one comes to mind!! I love the Queen and can't think that she's knowingly hurt anyone or a group of people.

But mumsnetters would think that saying they were bothered would make them uncool.

You thought it was sad when Iraqis pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein?

Interesting.

Does it matter to you who destroys them?

Is it different if it's the state say, to when it's a mob?

I think its sad to destroy any statues, even those that I think horrible, a recent one comes to mind!!
Jimmy Saville?

I don't think the circumstances around the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue and QEII in this case are in any way comparable! The Queen had nothing to do with this.

I think its sad to destroy any statues, even those that I think horrible

Why?

Not the point.

It's sad to destroy any statues. Context was not mentioned.

I don't care

Then I think about Oliver Cromwell who was an icon to many, who practiced ethnic cleansing in Ireland.

This gets brought up time and time again but it's disputed by many historians. There isn't really any evidence of it

...also that Churchill used lethal poison gas on civilians. Another oft repeated myth