Statues

[Bryn]

. . . There are aspects of this debate that remind me of the vandals who daubed 'Paedo' over a doctor's house because they didn't know the difference between paedophile and paediatrician, and I still think history will reinstate Colston as a social reformer and reject the description of 'slave trader'. When issues are seen more cooly.

The names Marietta Higgs and Geoffrey Wyatt might have had something to do with the confusion in the vigilantes' minds. Their misuse of the now-discredited anal reflex diagnosis was used by some, at the time, to identify the two errant paediatricians as more like paedophiles.

[Flay]

....All part of History....the statue will be dredged from the Floating Dock,,,,taken to Museum, hopefully red paint and all, and displayed on its side (laying down)....All part of history and a even more thought provoking than it was, as well as cathartic and a beacon of hope....It has been suitably punished....Hooray...

....I speak as a Bristolian, it is a fabulous city ....

It sounds like your wish will come true. It is to go in a museum complete with daubed paint and ropes:

Edward Colston statue pulled out of Bristol Harbour https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-53004748

[jayne lee wilson]

....All part of History....the statue will be dredged from the Floating Dock,,,,taken to Museum, hopefully red paint and all, and displayed on its side (laying down)....All part of history and a even more thought provoking than it was, as well as cathartic and a beacon of hope....It has been suitably punished....Hooray...

....I speak as a Bristolian, it is a fabulous city ....

....so the Performance Artwork moves onto its next phase: mock-display in the metaphorical stocks of a historical gallery.....(cf #60)......

[Count Boso]

It sounds like your wish will come true. It is to go in a museum complete with daubed paint and ropes:

Edward Colston statue pulled out of Bristol Harbour https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-53004748

More and more I'm beginning to feel it should be my Life's Work to rehabilitate Alas Poor Colston. The record of hIs own life shows no evidence that he was a 'slave trader' (1999 study), and a study of the Bristol Slave Traders (1982) makes no mention of his name - both studies I found online. He was a trader and he was a shareholder and worked for a portion of his time (maybe 11 years) as a court assessor to the Royal African Company, including a single year as Deputy-Governor (the governor I assume being James II). If holding shares and sitting on committees constitute being a 'slave trader', then pull down the statues of Charles II, James II, William III, Sam Pepys, John Locke and many, many others. But when did facts change anyone's mind? Daub slave trader on his statue. Job done, the mob will do the rest.

Declaration: I have no connection with the man, pecuniary, bloodline or other, but I did once half write a book called The Stone Jug, looking at historic cases where it seems that punishments were a bit excessive.

[eighthobstruction]

....no wonder you are quite good at dashing intelligible text....quite the man of letters n'all

[Count Boso]

....no wonder you are quite good at dashing intelligible text....quite the scrivener....

Haha, it wasn't published or even finished. I have about four more like that!

[Frances_iom]

If holding shares and sitting on committees constitute being a 'slave trader', then pull down the statues of Charles II, James II, William III, Sam Pepys, John Locke and many, many others.

Actually to bring this comment up to date I suspect many in senior positions of the city of London in the pursuit of profits knowingly have taken decisions that have impacted extremely negatively on innocent lives - social responsibility plays no part in much of the City

[vinteuil]

.
.

... "and David [hath slain] his ten thousands... "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Michelangelo)#/media/File:'David'_by_Michelangelo_Fir_JBU002.jpg

David must fall...

[eighthobstruction]

Actually to bring this comment up to date I suspect many in senior positions of the city of London in the pursuit of profits knowingly have taken decisions that have impacted extremely negatively on innocent lives - social responsibility plays no part in much of the City

Yes....I don't know which of David Olusogas' aways brilliant doc's it was in [but there are very many on utube]....but he walked around City of London pointing out Buildings built with finance from Black Oppression.Slavery....

[Andrew]

Similar thoughts occurred to me Gongers when I saw the news from Bristol. Colston was indeed involved in slave-trading, but was in his way (and given the ethics of his time) a benefactor. In many ways, removing his statue is an attempt to 'change history' as totalitarian regimes, communist or otherwise, are wont to do. We are surely a mature enough society not to need to do that sort of thing? I can absolutely understand why yesterday's event happened, and I can also understand why the police didn't go in heavy-handed to stop it. On the one hand, the treatment of the Windrush generation by May's nasty petty-minded ultra right government brought it on. On the other, nobody in Europe thinks slavery is a good idea and have not for the past 150 years at least. The treatment of ethnic minorities is another matter for which peaceful protest is surely the best solution?

Slavery is (was) a TERRIBLE thing and thank God it's ended. Some British businesses made money out of it and this is also terrible, BUT..... We ought to remember the fact that it was THIS country that started the movement to outlaw slavery, and I'm proud to say that it was a resident of my town, Barnet, who pushed Parliament to pass the legislation that eventually made this hideous trade illegal. That man was William WILLBERFORCE, and I wonder if HIS statue will eventually pulled down....

We oughtn't to judge the actions of people hundreds of years ago by the standards of today. Time changes things!

[MrGongGong]

Slavery is (was) a TERRIBLE thing and thank God it's ended.

Just down the road from me, and I used to drive past most weeks, there is a place where people were held against their will in conditions of slavery.
The people responsible were jailed in 2017
for many people, it hasn't ended at all............

[Serial_Apologist]

Just down the road from me, and I used to drive past most weeks, there is a place where people were held against their will in conditions of slavery.
The people responsible were jailed in 2017
for many people, it hasn't ended at all............

Navvies, weren't they - working on motorways for some cowboy contactor?

[MrGongGong]

“Plans to design, construct and install the Harold Shipman Memorial Statue are being ramped up,” a spokesman for all the historically ignorant and racist social media commentators, oh and the UK Government, told LCD Views, “we hope to install Mr Shipman far from water, on a plinth, outside a lucky hospital by the end of the summer.”

But critics of the decision have attacked the plans to raise a statue honouring one of the UK’s worst mass murderers.

“They’re missing the point,” the spokesman hit back, “just like the left wing snowflakes who completely ignore the philanthropy of slave traders. So what if someone murdered thousands of humans, threw thousands of humans into the sea, actively profited off the worst of humanity’s ability for evil, so long as they left some cash after to a charity. I mean, let’s get a sense of perspective. Besides, the Colston statue only really offends people who aren’t white, right?! So who’s colour blind here?”

Wow.

But surely there is no justification for erecting a statue to a doctor who betrayed the trust placed in his profession so absolutely, to the point of murdering vulnerable people?

“I’ve just explained all this. We’re not erecting the statue to remember all the people he killed. We’re erecting it to remember he also prescribed antibiotics. I mean, that’s a one of a kind achievement that more than counterbalances the other stuff, which we’d prefer people didn’t mention.”

GET DUNKING DONE : The committee overseeing the design and construction of a statue commemorating Boris Johnson’s time as PM have released a press statement today regarding their future (proof) intentions.

“No one should be in any doubt that recent events in Bristol have dissuaded the committee from forging ahead with total belief to finish our great undertaking,” a spokesman said, “and we will actually be ramping up our efforts. We have the capacity to construct a statue to celebrate our greatest current prime minister and we will fill it to the brim. Then we will take it over the edge.”

All well and good. But what about the concerns over the security of the statue, once it has been installed?

“No one will want to harm the statue of Mr Johnson,” the spokesman appeared genuinely baffled, “it is a very eye catching design. Mr Johnson is depicted in his running gear, seated on a white, wine stained sofa, a secondhand water cannon clenched in his hands, one boot sheathed in a rugby boot which is on top of a young boy and a mischievous glint in Mr Johnson’s eye. The eye by the way, it roams, constantly. Nice little touch. The other eye has a bendy bus designed into the iris and a garden bridge protruding from it. All up it’s a very representative design.”

And where will the statue be installed?

“Why on the riverbed of the Thames of course,” the spokesman shrugged, “to save time later. And the plague will be full of quotations of all of Mr Johnson’s favourite racist tropes.”

[MrGongGong]

Navvies, weren't they - working on motorways for some cowboy contactor?

This

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/12/family-members-lincolnshire-jailed-chilling-slavery-case-rooney

[gurnemanz]

Re re-naming streets. Lots of examples in Germany, for obvious reasons. Worth mentioning is the case of a street in Leipzig which had three different names within the space of one year. Südstrasse was the main thoroughfare going south out of the city. From 1933 to 1945 it became Adolf-Hitler-Strasse. In 1945 the Americans liberated Leipzig and immediately reinstated the old name, Südstrasse. However, Leipzig was to be part of the Soviet Zone and in August of the same year the occupying Russians renamed it Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse after the co-founder of the German Communist Party. I knew someone who lived there who told me that some whimsical local residents occasionally like to refer to it as "Adolf-Südknecht-Strasse".

Interestingly, when in 2002 there was a suggestion to rename it "Straße des 17. Juni" in honour of German reunification there was majority against. People had grown attached to the existing name and nowadays it is often affectionately referred to as "Karli".