TBH I think Mongolians would love plunder, pillage, rape and conqueror nearly all of the world, but Horses and bows just doesn't cut it anymore. Obviously I have never actually met a mongolian in my entire life.
Winston Churchill
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TBH I think Mongolians would love plunder, pillage, rape and conqueror nearly all of the world, but Horses and bows just doesn't cut it anymore. Obviously I have never actually met a mongolian in my entire life.
Rape/Pillage/Plunder while seems grotesque and awful was the norm in the world up until later part of history
From the Babylon/Greek/Chinese/Egypt/Sumerian/Japan/Europe partake in the same method of conquest. For that we're all guilty of something
Well you are putting words in my mouth and again, making assumptions, what my post suggests is what I say. I'm suggesting that you could pick some low hanging fruit and I'm hardly dictating what is acceptable by everyone in society just suggesting that education doesn't usually start out with peeing off your students but I can tell from your conciliatory tone that we should wait for you to tell us white folk how to lead change, apparently you don't like it when they attempt to help though..
Hardly constructive.
Well it's actually still happening everywhere today where there is war and strife.
Very fine people on both sides, really.
Come on. Several posters pointed out this earlier. Especially in light of the protests in London and the idiots who showed up to protect the statue. But you were happy to ignore them. Not sure how this argument works, especially if you consider yourself against the rhetoric used by Boris or Farage.
I've pointed out this was what would happen when I started posting in this thread. You come on.
I think what you’re saying is fair but it’s also wise to keep in mind that it doesn’t mean nothing is too far. Even amongst the Daily Mail crowd the number of them who actually give a feck about keeping statues of slavers around is very small. They might not at all be ok with people toppling them in a protest, but they’d be ok with their removal generally. I think it’s great that people chucked the Bristol one in the river, it sent a message that no people won’t wait forever, and now they’re taking about councils removing the others. It worked.
But when suddenly people are talking about removing statues of Churchill, now a LOT of people are all going to get fired up and oppose everything because they feel under attack. And unfortunately they have the government by a large majority. I think it’s counterproductive. Churchill is wildly popular in this country, and that’s not going to change overnight.
Whoever wrote that sign needs firing immediately, I mean jesus christ that’s some white nationalist bullshit.
Just incredible
There's a hierarchy when it comes to 'common sense', it seems: when people are (justifiably) angry, they are deemed unreasonable; worse, they are portrayed as lacking the intelligence and foresight to understand what it is they're angry about. It's 'mansplaining' writ large.Kentonio said:
Let me be clear - my writing style isn't an indication of my tone, my attitude or my demeanour. If I was feeling anyway other than neutral, rest assured, it would be obvious.
I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, i'm trying to make you understand that there's no way to protest peacefully or in an accepting manner - the whole point of a protest is to be chaotic & inconvenient - that's the only way that will make wider members in society pause & think.
I don't think there's low hanging fruit in society when it comes to racism, but that's neither here nor there - the point remains that it can't be black people at the forefront of making laws which make society equal, because - society isn't equal and black people aren't in positions of power to dictate change.
So it's frustrating to hear the same old argument about how black people need to act in order to gain acceptance and ally's, that doesn't mean I don't like the attempt, so you shouldn't make assumptions about that.
I don't disagree with that, and I don't even think I mentioned Churchill, I was speaking on statues in general.
Indeed. It's so poorly written (and I'm being kind there). A writer can provide a similar message without appearing like they don't care at all.
Perhaps you need to work on understanding what is being said then because it comes across that you misinterpret everything said. I just don't know how you cannot understand that the white government intends on doing nothing and while you are being inconvenient and chaotic maybe it might have a positive effect to make some demands that will help other white people to understand the equality needed when they appreciate that recommendations have already been placed before the white government that could educate other white people.
Instead all we get from you is that you have successfully educated people on Churchill and other statues by blocking their ears and minds to an attack on their 'history'.
I very obviously have different ideas to you in which way to educate white people to bring about change, but then again, I'm only white.
I definitely am in the mood to take on some educating now.
edit, and I'm not telling black people how to act, I'm suggesting what on in a very small white voice which is all I have
I think i've had a brief interaction with you before about the lack of representation in the archaeology/heritage industry which leads to the people making the decisions at the top level being still largely eurocentric and from white male perspectives. The industry has improved in terms of female representation but is still severely lacking in non-white representation. A study a couple of years ago showed that 99% of archaeologists in the UK were white and like many arguments it comes down to incentives. There isn't an incentive or interest for people of non-white backgrounds to enter an industry that is underpaid, under-represented and unrelateable. There's even a lack of interest at a volunteering level because it's not promoted enough or in a relevant way to people of ethnic minority backgrounds that would make them want to invest in the industry. I think it also comes down to how much your industry will socially impact people and I don't think that there is the thought now that archaeology/museums can do that as much as politics could or scientific advancements. I think in a few ways we have become so focused on the future and how we can attain things that we have lost some focus on what got us here and why things are in place as they are today. I think that everyone would want to understand their heritage and history from a personal level but not enough are interested from a career point of view because of the way it is still portrayed today like the tweet shows. Why would someone from a non-minority background want to enter that industry if it is still represented in that way or the truths aren't educated in schools or when they try to speak they're shut down by a middle aged white bloke from England who is in charge of his 5th field school excavating an indigenous site in Belize despite never entering that country before his first field school there.
I remember going to an archaeology festival 2 years ago at the BM during the Rapa Nui debate and I was talking to a few people and brought up it up. They all told me (they worked at the BM) that they weren't allowed to talk about it and the BM knows best laughing as if it was a little joke to them all. I doubt they'd have said the same if I wasn't a white bloke. I had a little look through the petitions that people have tried to make regarding reparations and they're mostly always rejected by the government because it is a matter for the British Museum/Other Museums to decide. I reckon that to enforce some sort of change on that front the UK Government and UNESCO will need to reassess their cultural heritage laws/regulations.
I would be in favour of museums taking statues or creating a digitial archive of the statue because I do think there is a value in them that we can grasp but only if the right narrative is shown. It's not for me to decide that or really but I think a conversation should probably be opened for debate with people who these statues/monuments etc will have impacted and narratives they would put forward about the racist/colonial backgrounds to them. As your tweet shows though and other exhibitions do, the narrative sometimes is still way off and it's difficult to trust them to make the right decisions.
Sorry for the waffling post and If i'm shite at explaining, I suffer from that a lot (especially in this thread
).Isn't that what these protests are about? for BAME to feel apart of Britain would require acknowledging Churchill and his past for what it is. It is bound to make people who believe the myth feel insecure and uncomfortable. But that is necessary and part of the process of decolonization. If anything, it is long overdue given how far behind and outdated our education system is. The racists who are in power are still going to use this argument against you anyways.
On the other hand.
My grandmother was born 1912 her dad died in the first war which is why she was in service as a maid to an aristocrat until she married my grandfather. Her only brother died retaking Caen after D-Day. To her Churchill represented the moment Britain was asked the ultimate question and answered it correctly despite the sacrifice that followed. Much loved and often missed family members who gave everything to keep fighting against all odds. They didn't know that the Nazis would be defeated. If we had capitulated in 1940 her brother would have lived. Then the revisionists say it wasn't that important.
It seemed to me when she spoke to me about it that it meant a great deal to her.
It wasn't my home being bombed, I, and others whose lives have been so different to those who have suffered, have no argument.
Who decides which memories remain important and which irrelevant.
Does anyone else find that it's difficult to look at statues of historical figures without their own biases coming into injurious play? As an example, here's Rodin's sculpture of the great novelist Balzac:
If I didn't know of Balzac's novels & his reputation, I might be tempted by this representation to think he was anything from a long-suffering beggar to a ruthless demigod to an artist whose works are universal to a merciless aristocrat who exploited the poor to make his fortune to Ozymandias etc etc. And this problem makes my view of the Churchill statue itself unreliable.
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Okay i'll just say that this and your previous post toward me read quite condescendingly, if that was prompted by anything I said then i'm not understanding why that would be, but if I said anything to make you feel that way, then by all means let me know. If that wasn't your intention, then I apologise for misinterpreting your tone.
If the government doesn't listen to a large group of people in society, then that government isn't fit for purpose, and their incompetence shouldn't be excused or ignored.
It shouldn't be the job of black people to educate white people to understand equality, everybody has access to information at any given time and equality is something that affects everyone, that onus shouldn't fall on the shoulders of the oppressed group.
But, nonetheless - some of the top level 'demands' that have been highlighted have been centred around: deaths in police custody, windrush, grenfell, education on colonialism, police powers. But like I said in our PM exchange, there is no 'leader' and each area will have different motives for different reasons.
One aspect which my friends & associates have been focusing on is the slave labour that's employed in prisons, but that's been something we've been passionate about for the last 3 years or so. Which is why I said earlier that focusing on one thing (such as David Lammy's report) doesn't mean you can't focus on other facets within society, because the inequality runs deep and permeates in lots of places.
I never said I have successfully educated people on Churchill & the other statues, I haven't even mentioned Churchill in this exchange - and the rest of your post reads sarcastically, but I could be wrong.
With some sculptors they sometimes intend to portray something of their personality and character rather than a direct representation of the physical. At least that is what I was taught.
Mongolia is full of Genghis Khan statues and monuments, regardless of who owns that huge thing. His face is on their banknotes in the same way the Queen is used on ours.
Jesus, that's as hard to look at without vomiting as his prose is to read without passing out.
I took that to mean that you felt that the job done with vandalising the statue of Churchill, and Colston had educated people who needed to learn. That is a message others have tried to claim and as I've said, it hasn't done that job, people usually take the path of least resistance and that to them was to ignore that message and understand an attack on what they believe was taking place. Now, if that wasn't your intended meaning than I can only say that I was wrong but associated it with other people's claims.
Most of us here know that our Government isn't fit for purpose, we didn't vote for it. It will obfuscate and delay. I have to confess I find it hard myself to be dictated to. Perhaps I'll try to get used to it. A lot of what I'm learning is that we don't mesh in our communication and I'm not sure the will is there to try.
I think i've had a brief interaction with you before about the lack of representation in the archaeology/heritage industry which leads to the people making the decisions at the top level being still largely eurocentric and from white male perspectives. The industry has improved in terms of female representation but is still severely lacking in non-white representation. A study a couple of years ago showed that 99% of archaeologists in the UK were white and like many arguments it comes down to incentives. There isn't an incentive or interest for people of non-white backgrounds to enter an industry that is underpaid, under-represented and unrelateable. There's even a lack of interest at a volunteering level because it's not promoted enough or in a relevant way to people of ethnic minority backgrounds that would make them want to invest in the industry. I think it also comes down to how much your industry will socially impact people and I don't think that there is the thought now that archaeology/museums can do that as much as politics could or scientific advancements. I think in a few ways we have become so focused on the future and how we can attain things that we have lost some focus on what got us here and why things are in place as they are today. I think that everyone would want to understand their heritage and history from a personal level but not enough are interested from a career point of view because of the way it is still portrayed today like the tweet shows. Why would someone from a non-minority background want to enter that industry if it is still represented in that way or the truths aren't educated in schools or when they try to speak they're shut down by a middle aged white bloke from England who is in charge of his 5th field school excavating an indigenous site in Belize despite never entering that country before his first field school there.
I remember going to an archaeology festival 2 years ago at the BM during the Rapa Nui debate and I was talking to a few people and brought up it up. They all told me (they worked at the BM) that they weren't allowed to talk about it and the BM knows best laughing as if it was a little joke to them all. I doubt they'd have said the same if I wasn't a white bloke. I had a little look through the petitions that people have tried to make regarding reparations and they're mostly always rejected by the government because it is a matter for the British Museum/Other Museums to decide. I reckon that to enforce some sort of change on that front the UK Government and UNESCO will need to reassess their cultural heritage laws/regulations.
I would be in favour of museums taking statues or creating a digitial archive of the statue because I do think there is a value in them that we can grasp but only if the right narrative is shown. It's not for me to decide that or really but I think a conversation should probably be opened for debate with people who these statues/monuments etc will have impacted and narratives they would put forward about the racist/colonial backgrounds to them. As your tweet shows though and other exhibitions do, the narrative sometimes is still way off and it's difficult to trust them to make the right decisions.
Sorry for the waffling post and If i'm shite at explaining, I suffer from that a lot (especially in this thread
This is a great post, thanks for the insight.
It's tricky, I used to believe that representation in every industry at the top level will bring about more equality, and to an extent I still believe that to be true, but then I think that is a parallel argument to the idea that 'in 50 years everyone is going to be mixed race, so racism wont exist anymore' - which of course isn't true because there are mixed race societies where racism is still heavily present - such as brazil & ultimately it's an attempt to wipe a slate clean without addressing how the dirt got there. (that was a terrible analogy, i've been awake since 5am so forgive me
)In theory more representation could work on a wide scale and in most industries, we haven't seen it to really know whether or not it's the best solution.
But I think no matter what method we use, ultimately education and accountability is at the forefront - and that means that even if an institution is 99% white, the confidence is that the people within that institution aren't complicit in allowing discrimination to fester, and hold each other accountable, so in your example about the BM joke, that situation wouldn't have come about at all, regardless of your race, you know?
White people account for 80-85% of the population in this country, there's no reason to believe that, that will change drastically in the next 3, 4, 5 generations at least - so ultimately black and other ethnic minorities will always represent a small percentage in most industries because of numbers.
But yeah ultimately i'm here for education, I actually enjoy visiting museums and learning about various civilisations and lost history - digital archives is a great shout, I think education in school should be addressed first & foremost, and museums should be an extension of that education.
Not really sure if that made sense, and I kinda waffled too.
Fair enough, just that people had been using that enormous statue in particular as an argument.
There may be a slight nuance to Mongolia's veneration of GK seeing as they a mostly homogeneous population, so his presence in statues, monuments, banknotes and the like is arguably inoffensive to most. England, on the other hand, has many 'colonial' peoples in its midst, so there is the opportunity for that veneration to cause upset.
That line wasn't about the wider british public who adore Churchill (I didn't even mention Churchill actually, only Colston), but actually someone like myself who didn't attend the BLM protest, but never liked the idea of statues that celebrate slave owners. Really it was in response to what you said here:
Basically I interpreted that to mean that 1 person may have spray painted 'was a racist' therefore it wasn't a sentiment that was wide spread, and I was arguing that the message was conveyed by a much larger group of people, even if it was only the actions of a few.
If that wasn't clear, I apologise.
I’m ‘from’ the UK. I want British history including empire and Churchill truthfully taught. I reckon at least 51% feels the same.
Then what?
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Doubly stupid when we live in a mobile digital age, when facts and truths, or alternate versions of history can be sourced within seconds and a few clicks.
I would also imagine that this recent outburst of BLM will inspire many movies, documentaries, books and articles presenting the balanced facts, whole truths, and alternate versions of history.
I wonder what the propagated and ill-educated segment of British population on Empire and Churchill will do then: Will they bomb cinemas, smash iPads and burn books? Or will they go through an awakening and cure their racist mental illness once and for all?
It won't make much difference. British history is written for British people. Very few people are going to say, hang on a minute, that's not quite true, mostly it wouldn't occur to them , secondly they couldn't be bothered to check. Thirdly any hint that the history isn't as they think it actually is, is a gross insult to the nation and I don't mean just the hardline nationalists but the mild proud Englishman.
Just this afternoon in this thread, someone writes something, a bell goes off, I'm sure that's not quite true, ten seconds later checking online , oh yes thought I was right.
Before anyone says it, it is probably true for most nations where history is biased to suit the nationalistic narrative.
Lies and myths are shaping the future, at the moment especially the UK's future.
Bet you can't remember how many times you've been abused over the years? In the 100's I'd guess? And I bet your father had it even worse.
In my opinion, the above 3 posts from @oates and @SteveJ are the very best posts in this thread. They have both listened carefully to a different lived experience on the consequences of a whitewashed history of Churchill and empire, not tried to critique those experiences with their own lived experience and invested deeply in empathy for the other. It's evidence right here, on our own little forum, that with proper (and sometimes fierce) debate, without fear or prejudice, British society can quickly move forwards. I salute both of them with admiration and respect.
The minority but noisy segment of British racists could be engaged to evolve their views in a similar manner.There is so much to admire about modern British society, and so many 'white' British people actively help minorities in education, employment and through love and friendship. There are so many who’ve been able to see through the propaganda. But all BAME people are also still constantly aware of insidious racism, which they can encounter at any moment, often by complete surprise, and its hurtful and holding our country back. Imperialism and 'white exceptionalism' is an old idea that cant ever be reactivated in the mixed cultural nation the UK has become. So it makes no sense to me that Britain retains these myths and symbols as a force of inspiration.
As we saw in opening ceremony for London Olympics, Britains stated intention for 21st century is to thrive as a multicultural nation. And if the nation is to thrive in its post Brexit identity, it needs to fully embrace the energies of multiculturalism, and eliminate any residual sentiments of imperialism, to succeed.
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I just saw a Churchill statue on Woodford Green.
It was there when I was a kid (it's been there a long time) - he was their MP for ages.
Yes I read up on it. He was at the unveiling by Monty.
Every country takes a selective view of its history, France very much included. Complete honesty and frankness can be painful and destructive and, if the delusions which are necessary to create and maintain the “imagined communities” are to be revisited, it needs to be done sensitively and gradually. We can move on from the Churchill legend at some point but not in the space of 3 weeks and not by deliberately provocative posts on social media.
change doesn't happen gradually and the winston ship has sailed at this point, i'm never going to unsee those videos from Kenya and neither are the significant number of people that also saw it.
the fact is there's just no way to reconcile the man of churchill with the myth of churchill and the British state with the myths of the British state. this is what's really causing a lot of the polarisation in society, i and too many other people have zero interest in being party to what the state does in our name and we have little alternative representation so we're going to support the fringes because what we're asked to support isn't conscionable
the myth doesn't even match up to todays action, we talk about heroic stands against fascism and our heros killing the nazis while we help commit atrocities throughout the middle east, it's comical how brazen the lies are and how obviously corrupted and needlessly violent our current and past leaders were and are. and we're somehow asked to respect these people and give them public displays of prominence. no thank you.
the fact is there's just no way to reconcile the man of churchill with the myth of churchill and the British state with the myths of the British state. this is what's really causing a lot of the polarisation in society, i and too many other people have zero interest in being party to what the state does in our name and we have little alternative representation so we're going to support the fringes because what we're asked to support isn't conscionable
the myth doesn't even match up to todays action, we talk about heroic stands against fascism and our heros killing the nazis while we help commit atrocities throughout the middle east, it's comical how brazen the lies are and how obviously corrupted and needlessly violent our current and past leaders were and are. and we're somehow asked to respect these people and give them public displays of prominence. no thank you.
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I say in my post that most countries have a biased view of their history - and yes Napoleon is quite a national figure in France. It is not the space of three weeks, what about the last 80 years or earlier history was it OK to not have the truth up till three weeks ago? I've been frustrated with lies for decades.
It is more than something that just snowballed in “3 weeks”. It has been in the making for decades and it is high time we deal with it.
For the majority of the population (the ones you need to persuade to support your cause), it is the last few weeks. Focusing on statues is playing on the other team’s turf - it may increase majorities in already safe seats in London and other big cities but in the rest of the country it will deliver another big majority to the Tories in what is becoming a one party state. If you fight on the basis of enabling minorities to benefit In practice (rather than just in theory) from the same advantages as the majority white population, it’s very hard to oppose that objective without effectively admitting you are a racist (or, at best, in denial). If you focus the debate on the likes of Churchill, you can spend 40 years in utterly impotent protesting like Corbyn.
You will also never unsee videos of Bengal famine. Very rare as its 1943, but some images exist. This is dubbed in an Indian language, but the images tell the story well enough.