Slave Trader Edward Colston's statue torn down in Bristol

Nermal

super_furry wrote: »

Really? I'm sure you're not trying to draw a blatantly false equivalence here.

It's not a false equivalence. There are plenty of Irish people in the UK, every day 'forced to walk past a state-supported memorial to a man who enslaved and killed their ancestors'.

Plenty of Irish in Liverpool. Perhaps one of them should take a knife to say, Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger in the Walker Gallery? He was no friend of Ireland, was he?

Everyone involved in this deserves multi-decade prison sentences.

bocaman

Odhinn wrote: »

As with the confederate stuff over in the US, it should be taken down and kept in a park, with various signs and the like explaining their context and time.

Totally agree. Visited Statue Park in Budapest, quite the experience.

nullzero

Mitch Connor wrote: »

What protests regarding slavrery have you taken part in this week? If you have not, what protest that you feel is more important than modern day slavery that you have taken part in, this week?

Is this your argument?

Nermal

super_furry wrote: »

Indeed.

Is what is going on in the UK now a revolution against colonialist oppressors?

If so, identify them for me.

El_Duderino 09

Calhoun wrote: »

The Churchill question has arisen from his statue being targeted yesterday. So the two of them got merged together, Churchills past in India is being brought up which is very interesting history.

Yeah fair enough. I imagine a lot of historical figures will come in for scrutiny. I'm fine with that - even if it means uncomfortable facts about historical figures I like.

Truthvader

nullzero wrote: »

I'm off to the phoenix park to blow up the wellington monument, I'm sure we'll all be better off for it.

Good Man! try to call into the National Gallery on the way and shred a few paintings by anyone English to get them back for the famine

El_Duderino 09

James o brien on LBC radio is doing an interesting discussion on this topic all morning. Really Interesting chats with locals in Bristol and others. Highly recommend tuning in online.

super_furry

Nermal wrote: »

Is what is going on in the UK now a revolution against colonialist oppressors?

If so, identify them for me.

No it's a protest against systemic racism in a society that still sees fit to honour a man who sold 100,000 people into slavery. That statue was just one symptom.

Do keep up.

Nermal

super_furry wrote: »

No it's a protest against systemic racism in a society that still sees fit to honour a man who sold 100,000 people into slavery.

Now who's engaging in false equivalence?

super_furry

Nermal wrote: »

Now who's engaging in false equivalence?

Still you I'm afraid.

BlitzKrieg

Hector Savage wrote: »

Not about slave trading, it's about history, he did a lot of good for Bristol, sorry to say but back then slave trading wasn't such a big deal - not saying any new statues should be put up, but either leave it be or move it to a museum.

It's not a good idea to judge past characters on todays morals, what we do today that's considered normal will be considered utterly disgusting and cruel in time.

There is a difference between actual historical monuments and sites and a statue that was built over 100 years later as a celebration of a person.

It's the equivilent of tearing down the Eiffel tower in Las Vegas and saying it's the same as tearing down the Eiffel tower in Paris.

It's not

is_that_so

super_furry wrote: »

No it's a protest against systemic racism in a society that still sees fit to honour a man who sold 100,000 people into slavery. That statue was just one symptom.

Do keep up.

As always the truth is lot more difficult to entangle. We can't just wipe out history but we can view it differently.

Tordelback

If people can't even see that public monuments to slave traders - or Confederate generals - celebrating their philanthropy and prowess play a role in the discrimination currently experienced by the descendants of slaves and those rightly or wrongly grouped into the same racial categories, it's no wonder that the eventual response is direct action.

Almost 100 of the descendants of 16th-19th C slaves who were brought to the Caribbean as chattel were wrongly deported from the UK only two years ago under the responsibility of the current Home Secretary - there are still, today, almost 4,000 Windrush cases under investigation.

And sitting in a town built on the riches of the triangular trade was a statue uncritically lauding the civic virtues of one of its key drivers, despite attempts to have it removed - or even placed in its full historical context - legally. Its continued presence was a real affront to the long-standing and currently heightened concerns of the black community and its allies.

A statue like this isn't history - it's a celebration of an individual. The 'history' part is why and by whom it was erected in the late 19th C, and why and by whom it was thrown down last weekend. We got rid of the statue of Queen Victoria in Leinster House: the history part is British rule of Ireland in the 19th C, the removal (and its decades-long delay and controversies) is Irish post-colonial concerns into the '80s: no-one has forgotten either Victoria, her legacy, or the cultural sensitivities of a Republic, just because the statue of some plump grandmother who was the uncaring figurehead of a state that presided over the genocide of Irish people has been dumped on Sydney.

I'd prefer it was otherwise, these things should be managed smoothly through local government democracy, but a state that has repeatedly shown that it can't deal fairly with the implications of how it presents its past invites this kind of action.

Truthvader

Truthvader wrote: »

Good Man! try to call into the National Gallery on the way and shred a few paintings by anyone English to get them back for the famine

Nobody would have a problem with the statue being placed in a museum where they actually explain his history.

CrankyHaus

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah fair enough. I imagine a lot of historical figures will come in for scrutiny. I'm fine with that - even if it means uncomfortable facts about historical figures I like.

Everything I've seen online suggests that the popular perception of Churchill will merely change from:

"Hurr durr British Bulldog hero, Spitfire go zoom"

To

"Hurr durr nasty racist deliberately perpetrated the Bengal famine all on his own"

Neither position has any nuance or historical understanding behind it, in fact neither would brook any challenge. If you think the mob taking it on themselves to topple statues would give you the oportunity to disagree with them if they were ever in power I've got a bridge to sell you.

robinph

nullzero wrote: »

Pulling this statue down has had no practical effect on people's lives,

It actually does.

Try explaining to a young black kid in Bristol why their cities most prominent statue is of a slave trader and why every other street, school and building in the town is named after them... And then try explaining to them about how there isn't any racism.

It does make a difference to people's lives who it is that their city is celebrating as being 'great' and how welcome that makes them feel to live there.

paw patrol

super_furry wrote: »

No it's a protest against systemic racism in a society that still sees fit to honour a man who sold 100,000 people into slavery. That statue was just one symptom.

Do keep up.

what systemic rascism ? in the UK - fcukin hell you must live in an alternate universes
none of those protesting are oppressed.

Christy42

I reckon more people have learned about Colston in a day than since the statue was actually constructed.

So not really forgetting history.

Yellow_Fern

super_furry wrote: »

Well how about the statue of George II on the Grand Parade in Cork? That was sent for a swim by a 'baying mob'. Was that wrong?

Tossing statues down isnt always wrong. I wouldnt condemn it being done to Saddam Huessain or Stalin statures but with George II it was wrong.

Yellow_Fern

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Everything I've seen online suggests that the popular perception of Churchill will merely change from:

"Hurr durr British Bulldog hero, Spitfire go zoom"

To

"Hurr durr nasty racist deliberately perpetrated the Bengal famine all on his own"

Neither position has any nuance or historical understanding behind it, in fact neither would brook any challenge. If you think the mob taking it on themselves to topple statues would give you the oportunity to disagree with them if they were ever in power I've got a bridge to sell you.

That is true. For people here I reccomend this to challenge your misperceptions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4m_BwYeIRo&t=11m30s

Gradius

With all the people of Irish ancestry living in the UK it's a wonder that Cromwell stuff hasn't been ransacked, considering two nations that live beside each other with centuries of antagonism.

Mustn't be trendy enough for all these busy people on a mission handed down by social media.

markfinn

FVP3 wrote: »

I am sure modern Sinn Fein would be happy to see it go. Some of their younger members might lead plant the charge.

FTFY.

Nermal

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

There is a difference between actual historical monuments and sites and a statue that was built over 100 years later as a celebration of a person.

People of Germany, France and Iran, did you know that a statue of a man who enslaved and murdered your ancestors stands unmolested to this very day in the Vatican?


Statue-Augustus
Vatican Museums
/ Public domain

It does not matter that today you are free and equal before the law.

From two millennia ago, this man insults you as a barbarian. Are you going to let this go unchallenged?

Lefty Bicek

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

It's a monument to a slave trader.

It is not.

ancapailldorcha

Nermal wrote: »

It does not matter that today you are free and equal before the law.

From two millennia ago, this man insults you as a barbarian. Are you going to let this go unchallenged?

Why the silly whataboutery? Have you nothing constructive to add?

Mitch Connor

Lefty Bicek wrote: »

It is not.

How is it not?

He was a slave trader.

It is a monument to him.

Its a monument to a Slave Trader.

kowloonkev

robinph wrote: »

It actually does.

Try explaining to a young black kid in Bristol why their cities most prominent statue is of a slave trader and why every other street, school and building in the town is named after them... And then try explaining to them about how there isn't any racism.

It does make a difference to people's lives who it is that their city is celebrating as being 'great' and how welcome that makes them feel to live there.

The kid and his family are not slaves anymore. They can leave Bristol and stop being cry babies using the suffering of their ancestors to whinge about whatever little problems they have living in the UK today. Or better yet they can move to Africa and experience real oppression which will be alright because they will be oppressed by their own colour.

The funniest part of it all is a bunch of white Irish people whingebags supporting their calls for history to be changed while speaking English when they wouldn't fight for their own people to warm themselves, as history also tells us.

ancapailldorcha

Lefty Bicek wrote: »

It is not.

That's objectively what it was.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why the silly whataboutery? Have you nothing constructive to add?

Also I'm genuinely lost on what historic merit there is to the statue. But I'm totally fine with throwing it in a museum and adding a description of the man.

FVP3

super_furry wrote: »

Really? I'm sure you're not trying to draw a blatantly false equivalence here.
https://www.irishcentral.com/news/oliver-cromwell-bust-alarm-politician-kept-turning-it-to-face-wall

? Why the false equivalence? Cromwell was viciously anti-Irish, anti-Catholic and brought near genocide to this Island, followed by a century or two of massive discrimination.

Is it ok because we is white?

The British and American antifa dont really spend much time on the continuing imperialism of both countries, #nonamericanlivesmatter