Britain’s imperialist monuments face bitter reckoning between Black Lives Matter protests

Sunday, Black Life Matters protesters BristolEngland captured the statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston and rolled it on the streets uncertainly before throwing it into the River Avon.

Some applauded the movement, while others decided what they called the “mafia rule.”

Together colonial history Centuries – and a mania for sculpting in the 19th century – the towns and cities of England are decorated with monumental monuments such as Colston.

For some, the sculptures fell into the background of everyday life, but many people still question whether they will stand on their pedestals.

On Tuesday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a commission to study the future of landmarks in the British capital, including murals, street art, street names and sculptures.

The Diversity Commission in the Public Sphere aims to promote diversity in the public sphere of London to ensure that the capital’s landmark structures appropriately reflect London’s achievements and diversity.

Actions against sculptures associated with slave trade and imperialism have also gained traction in other parts of Europe. Protesters in Belgium King II. He falsified several monuments to Leopold, and one was removed from a square in Antwerp on Tuesday.

A series of Confederate statues in the USA removed By widespread protests on the death of George Floyd by the authorities.

As these actions divide the public, they are increasingly fed into what happens to the sculptures of individuals who benefit from the suffering of many, such as Colston.

Winston churchill

The statue of Winston Churchill in London’s Parliament Square appears to be defaced with the words “racist” after its name after a Black Life Item demonstration on June 7, 2020. Credit: Isabel Infantes / AFP / Getty Images

Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill is organized as an example of inspirational leadership, heading the country’s defeat of Nazism. In 2002, nationwide BBC survey To find the 100 Great Britain and his portrait is now on the British £ 5 bill.

However, he is known to have views on social hierarchies that will be considered racist today, and policies accused Because it caused the Bengal shortage of 1943, which is estimated to take more than three million lives. In March 2019, a study used soil analysis for the first time to claim that famine was due to Churchill policies rather than serious drought.

During the Black Lives Matter protest on Sunday, a Churchill statue standing in London’s Parliament Square was dared with the word “… racist”.

Cecil Rhodes

Despite an ongoing campaign for its removal, Oriel College has preserved the Cecil Rhodes sculpture so far. Credit: Carl Court / Getty Images

Helping build England’s empire in south Africa, Cecil Rhodes was immortalized in a statue outside Oriel College, part of Oxford University.

In 2016, despite the joint pressure by the college, the university refused to remove the job. Rhodes Should Fall To Oxford He continued his efforts to abolish the campaign group.

“There is no room for sculptures that respect vile black-racists in South Africa, the USA, Bristol or Oxford” tweeted On Sunday, he invited people to join a protest at the university on Tuesday.

“It hates racism and discrimination of all kinds,” Oriel College said on Tuesday. The university said it supports the right to peaceful protest and believes in Black Lives Matter.

“As a college, we continue to discuss and discuss the controversial heritage examples related to Cecil Rhodes on our site.”

Oxford University did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

In 2015, a statue of Rhodes was removed from the Cape Town University campus in South Africa.

“It represents the old colonial representation of that country – supremacy, racism, misogyny”, Ramabina Mahapa, the head of the student group that was carrying out the sculpture removal campaign at the time.

David hume

He deciphered his racist views to protest a statue of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume. Credit: jpi media

In Edinburgh, the statue of the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume was decorated with a poster that gave his views on his white superiority.

Hume is considered one of the leading thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, and his bronze statue is found in Edinburgh Royal Mile, the main street of the city’s Old Town.

However, Hume’s fame has darkened in recent years, focusing more on his views on race. The sign left on the statue contains a line in Hume’s article titled “National Characters” that says “to suspect negativity … naturally lower than whites.”

Nelson’s Column towers on Trafalgar Square in central London, topped with a statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson. Credit: evenfh / Shutterstock

Henry Dundas

Scottish politician Henry Dundas statue stands on top of the Melville Monument in Edinburgh city.

Dundas, who served in a number of state posts, including the Minister of the Interior, is known to support the removal of slavery towards the end of the 18th century.

The monument was vaccinated during Sunday’s protests. online petition now requests Dundas statue to be removedand to rename the streets named in his honor.

The campaigns instead took the name of the Scottish-Jamaican slave Joseph Knight, who was successfully released in courts, proving that Scotland did not recognize slavery.

Different approaches

Also, Admiral Horatio Nelson – Famous for Napoleon and now referred to on a column in Trafalgar Square in London – Opposition to the abolition of slavery.

Similar appeals, William GladstoneThe former prime minister who helped the slave-owning father to seek compensation from the British government after the trade was declared illegal.

William Gladstone served four times as Prime Minister of England in the 19th century. His father had slaves. Credit: View Pictures / Universal Images Group / Getty Images

Destroying sculptures is a form of dignified protest, from the overthrow of Lenin’s sculptures when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 to the demolition of Saddam Hussein’s monument in Baghdad in 2003.

These cases of destruction received wide applause in the Western world, but recent campaigns to lift the sculptures of controversial figures in places like the US and the UK shared the public.

An alternative approach was adopted in Paraguay, where artist Carlos Colombino was asked to redesign a statue of former dictator General Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled the country from 1954 to 1989. Two large cement blocks as a monument to the dictatorship victims.

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