statues to remove and statues to reinstate

[Nearholmer]

3 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

current lynch mobs

It would be difficult to choose a more back-to-front and upside down term to describe recent demonstrators if you tried.

 

To put it in proportion, the event that sparked all this was the killing of a real, live human being, which is what lynchings are about. Tearing down a statue is not a lynching, whatever else it might be.

[Metr0Land]

1 hour ago, Killybegs said:

Just heard on the BBC news that a statue of Baden Powell is to be taken down. Where will it stop. Cecil Rhodes is on the list. Who's next, Queen Victoria for encouraging empire building?

 

I can see trouble brewing in the Scouts and Guides.  When my wife was a Guider back in the 80's, the top badge the Guides could achieve was Queen's Guide.  Due to pressure from the BP family that award was changed to the Baden-Powell badge (not sure about the Scouts).  The Guiders at the time felt it wasn't as inspiring a name as Queen's Guide (nothing to do with PC but wouldn't you rather have a badge related to the monarch?)

 

I assume the system is unchanged - happy to be corrected if it has.

 

 

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

9 hours ago, fezza said:

 

Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.

 

In government Gladstone renounced slavery and sent British troops to suppress the slave trade.  He demanded that imperial leaders respect the nobility and rights of all men whatever their race.  As PM he supported disarmament negotiations as he believed an arms race would lead to a European war.  He was the man who introduced what amounted to universal manhood suffrage in 1884, establishing mass democracy in Britain.  He created the modern civil service, a comprehensive national network of elementary education, a better system of local government, health and safety at work legislation... I could go on.

 

To any sensible, informed person he is probably the greatest prime minister we ever had and should be a national hero.

 

Next thing you know they'll be demanding that the NRM rename their LBSC B1 class. 

 

Mind you, I was surprised that they targeted Gladstone. Given their recent form I'd have thought the crusty extreme left protesters would be more likely to target Benjamin Disraeli. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by pete_mcfarlane

[Colin_McLeod]

21 hours ago, Fenman said:

Personally, I'm not keen on "historical" statues which show only the rose and ignore the dungheap.

 

That's where the pigeons have a role to play.

[Reorte]

16 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

 

Maybe not, but the current lynch mobs who are going around trying to tear down any and every statue they can find an excuse for, aren't asking the rest of us for a considered opinion either.  Plus ca change.....

 

It's all boiling down to people looking at things in simple extremes, and bizarrely deciding to get worked up by aspects of the past that are long enough ago that they should really be academic only. When it comes to "understanding the protests", British involvement in slavery two centuries ago has no connection to the police in the USA killing someone this year, beyond perhaps part of the history of current American race relations. As far as the point about being simple goes, when the statue was erected we see people who were interested in the positive contributions without being sufficiently bothered about the negative aspects of where that came from (I say sufficiently because I believe there's been some controversy with the statue from the start). Nowadays there's the opposite extreme, people who refuse to acknowledge any positive if it's overshadowed by a negative (and it doesn't even take much of a negative, although it's a pretty big one in this case). In both cases there's denial going on.

 

But it's the absurdity of getting hung up over the actions of the long dead that bothers me, the sort of thinking that perpetuates feuds long after the people who started them are gone but those carrying them on still use those origins as justifications for bickering (or worse) with people they've got no reason to have a problem with.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

The whole point of the demonstrations are that one one is to actually know what is going on

Anyone paying attention would know what sparked the demonstrations, why people are angry, and why they chose to pull down the statue they pulled down.

 

There is no mystery.

 

Agree or not with what was done, but don’t spin a candy-floss of mystery around the blooming obvious.

[Fenman]

27 minutes ago, Reorte said:

...

But it's the absurdity of getting hung up over the actions of the long dead that bothers me, the sort of thinking that perpetuates feuds long after the people who started them are gone but those carrying them on still use those origins as justifications for bickering (or worse) with people they've got no reason to have a problem with.

 

I think you're being too simplistic. The statues represent the oppressiveness of what some people say is their lived experience today; for example, from the video timeline provided by the Washington Post, the killing of George Floyd looks to me to provide prima facie evidence of something rotten in the system, something we know has been going on for a long time. So what should the oppressed people do? Suck it up? Lay down quietly and accept their fate?

 

Many of them have been peacefully campaigning for a long time, with little result (how long has that debate been going on in Oxford, about the Rhodes sculpture?). Or should they now forcefully express their views, taking out their feelings on inanimate symbols of what they believe to be their oppression instead of engaging in violent riots against people?

 

Attacking the inanimate symbols seems to me the preferable approach, given many of the alternatives -- I'd rather not have more people (on either side) killed, and a democracy means accepting that not everyone will think the same as me. Just as I accept there are people on here who sincerely believe racism doesn't exist today -- but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be free to protest the opposite.

 

What is going on right now, rough-edged and imperfect as it is (and much as I would rather some things had not happened or had happened differently), seems to me to be mostly within the bounds of a reasonable demonstration of passions in a democratic society, in the context of people from some groups continuing to die or be killed in disproportionate numbers, including those who are killed by agents of the state.

 

Paul

 

 

[iL Dottore]

17 hours ago, JeremyC said:

I have been watching Michael Portillo's journey through the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. It was noticeable that in these countries that there were still many statues to former colonial governors and that local people were quite prepared to discuss those times and even admit that colonialism had not been totally evil. The attitude was that the colonial era was part of their history and citizens needed to know the influence, good and bad, this had had on the development of the country

The problem in the UK is that there are a significant proportion of the population who will not accept the wrongs of colonialism and refuse to accept responsibility or apologise for the past actions of this country, while at the same time holding grudges against other counties for their actions, even when those incidents were hundreds of years ago....

Very true, but there is also a “flip side” to that particular coin: we must also acknowledge the good things that happened under/because of British rule  (India being the World’s largest democracy, instead of a myriad of states being run on the whims of the local potentate, being one of them).

As far as empires go Britain was better than most and worse than none. It’s interesting to note how little, by comparison, the French and the Belgians “beat themselves up” over their colonial history, despite those two empires being far worse than Britain’s. And when compared to the Roman and Persian empires (to name but two) Britain’s empire was run by soft-hearted wimps.

By all means get a better perspective on all aspects of a historical event, but save your energies for dealing with today’s problems.

16 hours ago, wasabi said:

The slave trade was triangular.  Merchants from Europe (and I think the Portuguese were most prominent) took goods to sell to African kings, who paid for them with slaves - often criminals or prisoners captured in the many wars between different states.  The ships then took the slaves on, mainly to sell to Americans, and bought goods to take back to Europe.  The trade started with Muslims buying slaves to ship east.  It is actually a very complex history and simplistic actions like throwing statues into harbours do nothing to aid our understanding of what went on.  Better to start with a bit of serious research.

It’s funny how Africa’s involvement in the slave trade gets so conveniently overlooked. A number of African empires of the time did very nicely indeed out of the slave trade, to the point where they went to war (or at least sent out raiding parties) in order to get regular supplies of individuals to sell into the slave trade. Nor should we overlook the role of the Arab slave traders in all of this. They were dealing in slaves long before the British and then the Americans got involved with the trade. However, this does not fit in with the simplistic worldview of those wanting to decry Britain’s history.

[Dagworth]

Any individual who made their money out of the suffering of others, no matter how much of that money they then gave away to salve their conscience, does not deserve to be glorified with a statue to their memory.

 

Andi

[The Stationmaster]

13 hours ago, runs as required said:

So far, apart from my opening proposal, I haven’t seen anyone post of any fantasy they would like to put on, even say a model layout, plinth !
 

Sorry hadn’t read Kevin’s post when l stuck this up

I think that if any statue is removed to suit the baying of the mob (which I don't think is a good idea  anyway) Bthen the plinth should go too.  That way there will be no abuse by monstrosity of something else being put on the plinth (which will probably be removed by the next flavour of the month mob..

[Fenman]

18 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

...

As far as empires go Britain was better than most and worse than none. It’s interesting to note how little, by comparison, the French and the Belgians “beat themselves up” over their colonial history, despite those two empires being far worse than Britain’s. And when compared to the Roman and Persian empires (to name but two) Britain’s empire was run by soft-hearted wimps.

By all means get a better perspective on all aspects of a historical event, but save your energies for dealing with today’s problems.

It’s funny how Africa’s involvement in the slave trade gets so conveniently overlooked. A number of African empires of the time did very nicely indeed out of the slave trade, to the point where they went to war (or at least sent out raiding parties) in order to get regular supplies of individuals to sell into the slave trade. Nor should we overlook the role of the Arab slave traders in all of this. They were dealing in slaves long before the British and then the Americans got involved with the trade. However, this does not fit in with the simplistic worldview of those wanting to decry Britain’s history.

 

Doesn't this all come under the basic lesson in morality that was taught to us by our mothers -- "two wrongs don't make a right"?

 

Someone else being even more evil than us doesn't justify our own evil. 

 

The fact that there are mass murderers and serial killers does not justify me indulging in "only" a single murder.

 

Of course you can flip it round: if I had to live under only one tyrannical blood-sucking empire, which one would I choose as the least-worst? From examples you've given, for sure I would probably choose, say, the British rather than the Belgian. But that's not much for the British empire to boast about, is it?

 

A lot of modern states are much happier living their lives through denial: Austria today, for example, likes to present itself as largely a victim of those evil German Nazis, rather than being an enthusiastic participant in the regime. Sweden and the Netherlands largely pretend their colonial pasts didn't really happen (I'm doing them a disservice, but the gist is right). Germany has probably done more than many states to live up to its own historical failings and the consequences that resound today. We British seem to prefer to look only at the spread of railways through the world, ignoring, for example, the rampaging genocide we carried out in, say, Australia. Of course there are nice things in our history too. But pretending our history was only lovely strikes me as odd. Just as only having statues which pretend slave owners were fine upstanding people -- to be celebrated because they whitewashed a bit of cash on public works -- is a bit, well, partial.

 

Paul

[Reorte]

46 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

I think you're being too simplistic. The statues represent the oppressiveness of what some people say is their lived experience today; for example, from the video timeline provided by the Washington Post, the killing of George Floyd looks to me to provide prima facie evidence of something rotten in the system, something we know has been going on for a long time. So what should the oppressed people do? Suck it up? Lay down quietly and accept their fate?

 

I don't think it's being simple to not agree that that link exists. The statue represents the world at the time it was erected, not now, in a similar way to how Stonehenge doesn't represent anything about current British religion. I know some people are drawing that connection, it's not that I don't understand it, I just don't agree with it at all.

Quote

Many of them have been peacefully campaigning for a long time, with little result (how long has that debate been going on in Oxford, about the Rhodes sculpture?). Or should they now forcefully express their views, taking out their feelings on inanimate symbols of what they believe to be their oppression instead of engaging in violent riots against people?

 

No, they shouldn't forcefully express their views, at least not in a country where they aren't actively suppressed from giving them and trying to persuade people to share them. The modern world is full of things I loathe that seem to be generally accepted, if I fail to get anywhere trying to change peoples' minds is it OK for me to resort to breaking things? No. It means I can understand their frustration to a degree (but regard their choice of targets as lacking in reason) but that doesn't mean I think they should be able to get forceful.

 

Quote

Attacking the inanimate symbols seems to me the preferable approach, given many of the alternatives -- I'd rather not have more people (on either side) killed, and a democracy means accepting that not everyone will think the same as me. Just as I accept there are people on here who sincerely believe racism doesn't exist today -- but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be free to protest the opposite.

Sure, better to attack statues than people, but attacking things that have no relevance to the issue in a mistaken belief that they do damages rather than helps your cause because it just alienates some who might otherwise support you.

 

Quote

What is going on right now, rough-edged and imperfect as it is (and much as I would rather some things had not happened or had happened differently), seems to me to be mostly within the bounds of a reasonable demonstration of passions in a democratic society, in the context of people from some groups continuing to die or be killed in disproportionate numbers, including those who are killed by agents of the state.

 

Is that really true for the UK though (allowing for the fact that yes, the UK's certainly not perfect and there's definitely improvements to be made)?

 

But you're right about "mostly". Most of the protestors are not vandalising things and have every right to make their voices heard whether me or anyone else thinks there's any sense to it or not.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Reorte

[hayfield]

15 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

 

 

 

It’s funny how Africa’s involvement in the slave trade gets so conveniently overlooked. A number of African empires of the time did very nicely indeed out of the slave trade, to the point where they went to war (or at least sent out raiding parties) in order to get regular supplies of individuals to sell into the slave trade. Nor should we overlook the role of the Arab slave traders in all of this. They were dealing in slaves long before the British and then the Americans got involved with the trade. However, this does not fit in with the simplistic worldview of those wanting to decry Britain’s history.

 

I have thought on similar lines, the slave trade would not have been so large had it not been for native slade traders assistance. And I am led to believe modern slavery sadly is still rife !!

 

Then of course just look at how many invaders the UK has had, with most making slaves of the local Ancient Brits. Does that mean that having Celtic blood in me I can complain about the way my ancestors were treated as slaves, or just massacred by the invading hordes from Europe. Perhaps I should go to Italy and complain about the statues of emperors, or to Scandinavian countries and complain about the statues of the Viking Kings, Of course not

 

The real truth sadly is we are told there are more slaves in this country now than ever before, some being smuggled into the country others being allowed in as servants of the mega rich. There is very little we can do about the past, we can do something about today. Slavery is rife in many emerging countries. Why don't those who complain about the past make a difference and do something about today !! 

[Reorte]

3 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

Doesn't this all come under the basic lesson in morality that was taught to us by our mothers -- "two wrongs don't make a right"?

 

That's true of course, but it does mean that a sense of proportionality is needed. Otherwise you have a danger of people splitting things into the goody side and the baddy side.

Quote

We British seem to prefer to look only at the spread of railways through the world, ignoring, for example, the rampaging genocide we carried out in, say, Australia. Of course there are nice things in our history too. But pretending our history was only lovely strikes me as odd. Just as only having statues which pretend slave owners were fine upstanding people -- to be celebrated because they whitewashed a bit of cash on public works -- is a bit, well, partial.

We don't do that though. Oh, you can always find some cranks who do, but the general view certainly isn't that the Empire and colonialism was a big lovely benevolent thing. The concensus definitely seems to be these days that the good was very much outweighed by the bad. It seems more common to find people who refuse to accept that there could be any good if there's bad though, and who treat even mentioning it as being equivalent to justifying Empire.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Reorte

[hayfield]

21 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I think that if any statue is removed to suit the baying of the mob (which I don't think is a good idea  anyway) Bthen the plinth should go too.  That way there will be no abuse by monstrosity of something else being put on the plinth (which will probably be removed by the next flavour of the month mob..

 

I can feel the sentiment but those in Bristol involved in mass vandalism should be brought to justice, in my opinion the Mayor of Bristol should be upholding the law irrespective of their opinions, there are ways things should be done, mob law has to be stamped out. A civilised society must act lawfully at all times

[Reorte]

26 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

Any individual who made their money out of the suffering of others, no matter how much of that money they then gave away to salve their conscience, does not deserve to be glorified with a statue to their memory.

 

 

Was it to salve his conscience, or simply because he didn't see a contradiction (as ludicrous at that might seem to us nowadays)?

 

We shouldn't put up statues to people like that, but we're not. But it's part of our history that we have done. But just part of our history. The continued existence of such statues represents our history, not our present.

[Nearholmer]

While we’re talking about British history, it might be worth trawling back to look at the history of “riot” as a tool for achieving social change.

 

Its a long history, and if you look at many significant social advances, you will see that moments of “appalling behaviour” were involved in securing many of them.

 

We like to kid ourselves that we’ve advanced entirely peacefully, by debate and consensus, but we haven’t.

 

 

[johnarcher]

32 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

Any individual who made their money out of the suffering of others, no matter how much of that money they then gave away to salve their conscience, does not deserve to be glorified with a statue to their memory.

 

Andi

I think the word 'glorified' makes a good point.

A statue is a bit different to being in a history book, or even in the National Portrait Gallery, statues are generally set up to people considered (at the time) admirable, so it does suggest that this person is to be looked up to (literally in the case of most statues!).

I have read that there has been a long campaign against this one, the authorities have blocked not only removing the statue but even adding a plaque explaining that, as well as building hospitals etc, this person made the money that enabled that by enslaving and killing many people.

Mind you it could go a bit far. I saw in the paper that someone has their eye on Nelson's Column because Nelson once said something critical of Wilberforce for his anti-slavery movement. Actual slave traders are one thing, but the expression of an opinion? After all more than 100 years ago almost everyone was racist by modern standards, even campaigners against slavery often did it from a superior, paternalistic position that many today would find objectionable.

Edited June 11, 2020 by johnarcher

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Metr0Land said:

 

I can see trouble brewing in the Scouts and Guides.  When my wife was a Guider back in the 80's, the top badge the Guides could achieve was Queen's Guide.  Due to pressure from the BP family that award was changed to the Baden-Powell badge (not sure about the Scouts).  The Guiders at the time felt it wasn't as inspiring a name as Queen's Guide (nothing to do with PC but wouldn't you rather have a badge related to the monarch?)

 

I assume the system is unchanged - happy to be corrected if it has.

 

 

 

That's not true, the Queen's Guide award is still there and always has been.

 

 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

37 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

I think you're being too simplistic. The statues represent the oppressiveness of what some people say is their lived experience today; for example, from the video timeline provided by the Washington Post, the killing of George Floyd looks to me to provide prima facie evidence of something rotten in the system, something we know has been going on for a long time. So what should the oppressed people do? Suck it up? Lay down quietly and accept their fate?

 

Many of them have been peacefully campaigning for a long time, with little result (how long has that debate been going on in Oxford, about the Rhodes sculpture?). Or should they now forcefully express their views, taking out their feelings on inanimate symbols of what they believe to be their oppression instead of engaging in violent riots against people?

 

Attacking the inanimate symbols seems to me the preferable approach, given many of the alternatives -- I'd rather not have more people (on either side) killed, and a democracy means accepting that not everyone will think the same as me. Just as I accept there are people on here who sincerely believe racism doesn't exist today -- but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be free to protest the opposite.

 

What is going on right now, rough-edged and imperfect as it is (and much as I would rather some things had not happened or had happened differently), seems to me to be mostly within the bounds of a reasonable demonstration of passions in a democratic society, in the context of people from some groups continuing to die or be killed in disproportionate numbers, including those who are killed by agents of the state.

 

Paul

 

 

But the statues also represent people who contributed to the overall economy of Britain and also contributed in such a way that the price of some goods became much cheaper, and more readily available, for ordinary people.  It might well be a 'bad' thing that tobacco and sugar became more widely available at a reasonable cost to 'the ordinary working man' but it in health terms it was no doubt a good thing that clothing made using cotton was more hygienic and better than wearing clothing made of wool especially for undergarments.   In other words a considerably greater part of the country than, say. Edward Colston, benefitted from the consequences of shipping African slaves to the Caribbean and Americas (a  trade which, as it happens, the British did not start and one which the British led the way in ending).  It is all too easy to forget in what we were taught in school about the Great/Golden Triangle Trade there were two other legs which produced benefit which extended far beyond those directly involved - so one can readily conslder that we are all guilty and that most of us, including a substantial part of the mob are no better than the people commemorated by a few of the statues.

 

So it can be said, with far more than a grain of truth, that a very large percentage of the population of Britain benefitted from the slave trade.  So presumably we should all exhume our forebears and burn their bones in shame?   Statues celebrated achievement, sometimes not very nice achievement but one which in many cases the entire country got something from.   I presume if the mob - for no other word adequately describes their behaviour - were to really think things through they would immediately stop buying and using cane based sugar in any way at all, they would immediately stop wearing any garment which includes so much as an ounce of cotton in its make up, and they would stop consuming any product which involves tobacco.  Equally of course if they really cared about slavery they would stop consuming cannabis in any form because much of that is produced by gangs who use imported Far Eastern people as modern day slaves to do the real work for them. 

 

We are really looking at nothing more than a mob, probably inspired and pushed by forces keen to disrupt democracy in Britain seeking to demolish our history and the lessons it teaches as part of enforcing their own version of fascism on anybody who disagrees with them including the use of violence against the police.  Any original sense of protest or demonstration regarding the illegal killing of a criminal by thuggish US police - has been lost, suborned by the mob.

[iL Dottore]

21 minutes ago, Fenman said:

Doesn't this all come under the basic lesson in morality that was taught to us by our mothers -- "two wrongs don't make a right"?

Someone else being even more evil than us doesn't justify our own evil....

It’s not a justification, just a statement of fact. Many of the modern empires built by the Europeans were much worse than the British one. And as for us being “evil“ that is true only by today’s standards. You wouldn’t crucify a thief nowadays, would you? It would certainly be considered an “evil” act, yet for much of the history of the Roman Empire it was an acceptable form of punishment. We can certainly can (and should) comment on how we would morally regard historical events, but you can’t take them out of context which is what is being done nowadays. Much as we would wish it otherwise, moral relativism is very much a feature of history. Nothing in humanity’s  history, apart from, perhaps, “do not kill”, “do not steal” and “do not commit adultery” has ever been morally absolute (and even then, for example, the injunction “thou shall not kill” for some societies did not extend to heretics and outsiders)

[Hroth]

The BBC are now reporting that the Baden-Powell statue in Poole is to be removed because the local authority

Quote

recognised some aspects of his life were considered "less worthy of commemoration".

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-53004638

 

 

The government will be advertising vacancies in MiniTru soon...

 

 

 

[Dagworth]

2 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

illegal killing of a criminal by thuggish US police

Citation needed. 

 

Floyd was NOT a criminal at the time he was murdered by the police. Yes he had done time 15 years ago but he had done his time and had 15 years clean. He got stopped by the police for passing a counterfeit banknote, how many of us have done exactly the same without knowing?

 

Change is brought about by protest, protesters are not a "mob", they are people like you and I. Direct action is the only thing left when you have tried all the other avenues and been ignored. We would not have universal suffrage in the UK were it not for the actions of "mobs" of protesters, would you give up your right to vote because you disagreed with the people who rioted to bring about that right?

 

Andi

[The Stationmaster]

27 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

I have thought on similar lines, the slave trade would not have been so large had it not been for native slade traders assistance. And I am led to believe modern slavery sadly is still rife !!

 

Then of course just look at how many invaders the UK has had, with most making slaves of the local Ancient Brits. Does that mean that having Celtic blood in me I can complain about the way my ancestors were treated as slaves, or just massacred by the invading hordes from Europe. Perhaps I should go to Italy and complain about the statues of emperors, or to Scandinavian countries and complain about the statues of the Viking Kings, Of course not

 

The real truth sadly is we are told there are more slaves in this country now than ever before, some being smuggled into the country others being allowed in as servants of the mega rich. There is very little we can do about the past, we can do something about today. Slavery is rife in many emerging countries. Why don't those who complain about the past make a difference and do something about today !! 

Let us not forget that ordinary British people were being plucked from their villages, or from  ships sailing in coastal waters, to be sold as slaves in North Africa in the latter half of the 17th century.  Very easy to overlook the simple fact that colour didn't have anything to do with the people who were forcibly taken as slaves then and on into the early 18th century.   Just as with modern slavery in Britain - which the mob seems not to have any concern about at all.  Surely if they really cared they would not be going round attacking statues but would be trying their hardest to find and  release people being held in slave conditions?

[Nearholmer]

Come on chaps: what were the demonstrations really about?

 

Because they surely were not about slavery 200+ years ago.

 

Get your head round what they were really about, then you can get your head round why a statue that people have been itching to topple for years got torn down.