The Guardian, Saturday 30th January 2021
Aamna Mohdin and Rhi Storer tell us today in The Guardian that ‘scores of tributes to slave traders, colonialists and racists have been taken down or will be removed … hundreds of others are under review by local authorities and institutions.’ Here is a list I have derived from their compelling article: an audit of sorts.
1. ’39 names – on streets, buildings and schools – and 30 statues, plaques and other memorials have been changed.’
2. ‘Pressure to remove contentious landmarks has come from schools and universities, private landlords, pubs, churches, charitable trusts and councils.’
3. Names include: Sir John Cass, William Beckford (City of London Corporation); ‘kneeling black man sundial’ at Dunham Massey Hall, near Altrincham; Sir Thomas Picton, Cardiff City Hall (‘in the process of being removed’); David Hume Tower (renamed) at Edinburgh; Imperial College, London, ‘has stopped using its Latin motto’ which includes this approximate translation: ‘safeguard of the Empire’ (a letter in The Guardian two days later: ‘So Imperial College has stopped using its Latin motto because it refers to “the empire” … I wonder whether they have spotted any irony there?’); Gladstone Hall (renamed) at the University of Liverpool; schools referencing Sir John Cass in their name have been renamed (decisions of London Metropolitan University and University of East London); street names under consideration or being changed include Sir John Hawkins Square (Plymouth); Havelock Road, Black Boy Lane, Cassland Road Gardens (London).
4. Twenty-one street names in Great Britain are also under current consideration and consultation; statues have been removed from two schools; six schools have changed name; seven have removed “inappropriate” house names; ‘other renamings or removals’: five ‘Black Boy’ pubs; one ‘Black’s Head’; two graves using the N-word.
5. ‘The Guardian understands the Bank of England is removing portraits’ …
6. ‘In November, the Welsh government identified 209 monuments’…
7. ‘Similar reviews have been commenced by Glasgow City Council, by the mayor of London … and 130 … councils, including Manchester and Birmingham’ …
8. The Bristol protest and the removal of the Colston statue were just one part of 260 BLM protests last summer.
9. In June, the Archbishop of Canterbury announced “a very careful review” of statuary ‘at major places of worship’.
10. In Dorchester, at St Peter’s, a plaque praising the “bravery” of John Gordon in ‘helping’ to suppress the 1760 Jamaican revolt ‘was covered up and is in the process of being removed’.
11. In Bristol, apart from the toppling of the Colston statue, ‘The university announced a review of buildings linked with slavers, and investigated its own crest; Bristol Cathedral and St Mary Redcliffe church removed stained-glass windows of Colston; the Colston statue at Colston girls’ school was removed and the school was renamed … the Colston tower was renamed … Colston Hall was renamed.’
12. ‘In Birmingham, the city council said it was reviewing the “appropriateness of local monuments and statues” on land under council control. In December, it announced six new names, including Respect Way and Humanity Close.’
13. In response, a “Save our Statues” petition garnered 195,000 signatures; Boris Johnson spoke about protecting history (as it were) in the summer; Robert Jenrick penned his ‘baying mobs’ piece in the winter, and Kwasi Karteng spoke in January of a “cartoon-like view” of Britain’s imperial history, with a not totally coherent viewpoint: arguing against what he understood as decolonising of curricula –“I’m saying the opposite – that you’ve got to learn more about colonialism.” As regards memorials, “ripping down” statues, … ‘counter-productive and illegal’; as regards study, ‘people should “learn more” about the British Empire in all its facets’. "I'm not someone who is obsessed with trying to correct history. I think you've got to understand history and understand that it's very complex and there are different arguments that are presented and I have a plea to understand the arguments and the context of the British Empire." "Even when you say the phrase the British Empire, you're talking about something that lasted more or less 400 years and covered a huge expanse of territory. "So within that time and geography there's a huge amount of variety, different cultures and different time periods and getting a sensitivity to that is hugely important. Is the implication that it's a colonial relic and that you've got to try and decolonise it? I'm saying the opposite - that you've got to learn more about colonialism." (He spoke to the BBC; text taken from a Daily Mail on-line article) (See addendum for David Olusoga’s different perspective via the BBC)
14. Back to The Guardian: ‘Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association said museums have a crucial role to play in hosting conversations and debate on these issues and providing historical context. “This isn’t erasure, it’s the deepening and a broadening of our understanding of Britain’s past.”’
15. ‘Nikhwat Marawat, co-founder of the Delicate Mind in Birmingham … believes that without proper historical interrogation, the removal of statues will feed into a “culture war” … “You need to have the dialogue and lexicon of understanding, to know why this history took place and look how we can bring people together”.’
A ‘Lexicon of Understanding’
(as opposed to social media: ‘A performative space for the fetishization of conflict’, as Jonathan Liew so pithily put it):
Compassionate; considerate; empathetic; forgiving; generous; kindly; perceptive; sympathetic; discerning; forbearing; kind; patient; sensitive; responsive.
A ‘Lexicon of Knowledge’
(as opposed to social media: ‘A performative space for the fetishization of conflict’, as Jonathan Liew so pithily put it):
Awareness; comprehension; discernment; education; enlightenment; expertise; facts; grasp; inside story; insight; judgement; learning; light; observation; picture; principles; recognition; scholarship; schooling; substance; tuition; wisdom.
A ‘Lexicon of Dialogue’
(as opposed to social media: ‘A performative space for the fetishization of conflict’, as Jonathan Liew so pithily put it):
Communication; conference; conversation; discourse; discussion; exchange; chat; colloquy; confab; confabulation; converse; interlocution … polyphonic rather than univocal …not ‘changing Britain’s history’ or ‘correcting it’ or ‘erasing it’ but questioning …
Addendum:
TV historian David Olusoga claims it is "palpable nonsense" to say that removing controversial statues "somehow impoverishes history".
Prof Olusoga says statues, such as those of slave traders, are not useful ways of teaching history or explaining the values of previous eras.
Instead the historian argues they are a continuing public "validation" of people who did "terrible things".
He says studying the British empire, in its strengths and weaknesses, is "absolutely critical" to understanding present-day Britain - in terms of the "economy, culture, cuisine, as well the people who are living here" …
But when it comes to issues such as examining links with the slave trade, he says there is a reluctance and a push towards "distraction and deflection" and "various ways of saying 'We don't want to talk about that'."
He argues that debates about statues - such as the statue to slave trader Edward Colston that was pushed into the harbour in Bristol - should face up to the historical evidence of who is being commemorated.
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick recently promised more safeguards to monuments, saying they are "almost always best explained and contextualised, not taken and hidden away".
"What has stood for generations should be considered thoughtfully, not removed on a whim or at the behest of a baying mob," said Mr Jenrick.
Prof Olusoga says there has been particular hostility to suggestions there were enslaved black people in 18th Century Britain, as well as in the colonies.
This seems to make people deeply "uncomfortable", says the presenter of the A House Through Time TV series.
"I think that's because we've created a moral firewall between what happened in Britain and what happened in the empire - with the idea that what happened in the empire doesn't really count."
The Black Boy Clock in Stroud
I wrote this a few years ago when I went around Stroud and the Five Valleys, looking at the way information boards and plaques in the area presented history and heritage. The piece below on the link was written from within that perspective.
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