Just to make a point about the Bristol statue, I have very mixed feelings about it. I worry about attempts to erase certain individuals from our history because they have a history we find unpleasant and uncomfortable in a modern context. I think it important to also remember unpleasant histories as well as our national triumphs because they help to create a sense of humility on a national level. We should have a certain sense of shame about how the UK got its position as a world leader despite our size. It doesn't necessarily help to just remove our unpleasant history from our visibility. We need to remember the unpleasantness of the past in order to prevent it happening again. Part of the unpleasantness is our history of glorifying slave traders.
There is also the factor that few of these figures from our past are purely evil. It was a time when philantrophy was hugely important. Whether we agree with philanthropy or not, it also helped to shape our country. The duality of so many figures is equally important to our history. Maybe we should simply think about figures from history as less one dimensional and rather the notion of national heroes think of them as influential people who had strengths and great failings. I think our desire to think in binary terms when it comes to history is the problem more than anything else here. Should we be building new statues and naming buildings and streets after slavers in this era? No. But should mobs be taking down statues they don't like without consequences? I find that a more difficult question to answer tbh.
A thread worth reading with the intervention of Trevor Phillips.
David Aaronovitch @DAaaronovitch
To illustrate some complexity in the statue debate. The Grade II listed statue of the rapacious imperialist Robert Clive is often listed as the next to go. 100 years ago he was almost universally portrayed as one of the great men of British history.
But to show how his life is inter-woven with our modern history, without Clive and Britain's conquering and occupation of India it is doubtful that Britain would be home to millions of people of Indian and Pakistani heritage. France, for example, isn't.
Even more complex, he has a statue inside the huge Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, which is lovingly maintained by that city and has been since independence by a largely communist administration.
Myself, I would be happy to move him into a new museum devoted to Britain's imperial and colonial and migration legacy. Perhaps in a repurposed Houses of Parliament, with those institutions moved to something fit for democratic purpose in the 21st century.
But this is Britain and changing anything here, as the parliamentary voting fiasco showed, is incredibly difficult.
Finally, there's no reason why any building or statue bequeathed to succeeding generations, should be sacrosanct. A fashion in 1895 needn't guide people in 2020. If it has merit and people want it, then keep it. The question is how to decide.
Trevor Phillips @trevorptweets
I agree with that. But there are others before we get to Clive. The single largest beneficiary of compensation at the abolition of slavery was the Gladstone family. John Gladstone owned the ancestors of several hundred thousand people walking British streets. Who makes that call?
David Aaronovitch @daaronovitch
I’m happy to see any statue of John Gladstone subjected to scrutiny. I didn’t know there was one.