Is no statue safe?

[Lenny Rider]

Problem is now we’ve got mob rule, so how long before the Churchill gets targeted again?

Or we will end up with opponents of the protests ‘guarding’ potential targets, which then presents potential public order issues?

The BLM thread on NSC provided some heated debate, I do wonder if some of the most ardent defenders of the protest can really justify the events of the last 48 hours?

As been said many times elsewhere on here, if it wasn’t for Winston Churchill leading this country against the Nazis, there would be no democracy or free speech.

 

[Blue3]

It's about thought v action.

Every single form of homage to anyone ever would need to be torn down otherwise.

Most people are celebrated for their deeds. And Ghandi did something pretty major in his life. Although I'm not quite so sure it worked out as well as it could.

He was racist and had run-ins with indigenous South Africans. There was other stuff (although I'm not sure it's all substantiated).

Colston is different. He actively was involved in a terrible trade. Ghandi just had an attitude that was prevalent at his time, as did Churchill.

In the end we are all racists to a greater or lesser degree. Maybe we just shouldn't have statues.

I agree people's views and attitudes are a product of our surroundings education and life experiences it was no different for Ghandi who like us all was on a journey that included time as a lawyer, editor of a newspaper, questioning of his faith, and his life of vegetarianism, having read several of his books my first thought was that some of his actions while in South Africa could be misconstrued as racist but instead I felt he was probably more elitist, his time in South Africa he was either taking on the causes of the Asians against landowners or editor of an Indian newspaper and he made some mistakes from which he learned eventually over time that life is a journey he was a complex man a great thinker and influencer up there with Nelson Mandela and in my opinion one of the great individuals of history.

While Colston was a slaver who made a fortune which he left to the City of Bristol, it is estimated up to 20,000 died due to the journey of being traded but in his defence he was a man of his time and in leaving his weath to others possibly offered some atonement but what is really unforgivable is that Bristol City Council have continued to honour his memory in naming schools, roads, parks, housing after him who ever is was at the council thought that was a good idea was at the least insensitive and at worst a racist

 

[BN9 BHA]

Meanwhile in Boston.

 

[Springal]

Problem is now we’ve got mob rule, so how long before the Churchill gets targeted again?

Or we will end up with opponents of the protests ‘guarding’ potential targets, which then presents potential public order issues?

The BLM thread on NSC provided some heated debate, I do wonder if some of the most ardent defenders of the protest can really justify the events of the last 48 hours?

As been said many times elsewhere on here, if it wasn’t for Winston Churchill leading this country against the Nazis, there would be no democracy or free speech.

Bristol police flapped it with the Colston statue though. The Met especially after getting their arses kicked won’t make the same mistakes.

 

[Bold Seagull]

View attachment 124660

Meanwhile in Boston.

That is a photo of the "District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln”.

 

[BN9 BHA]

That is a photo of the "District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln”.

Thank you for pointing that out.

 

[banjo]

This is very fishist.

 

[The Large One]

The Antifa are now making noises about levelling the Coliseum and the Pyramids..


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

No they haven't. You've made that up.

 

[cunning fergus]

I agree people's views and attitudes are a product of our surroundings education and life experiences it was no different for Ghandi who like us all was on a journey that included time as a lawyer, editor of a newspaper, questioning of his faith, and his life of vegetarianism, having read several of his books my first thought was that some of his actions while in South Africa could be misconstrued as racist but instead I felt he was probably more elitist, his time in South Africa he was either taking on the causes of the Asians against landowners or editor of an Indian newspaper and he made some mistakes from which he learned eventually over time that life is a journey he was a complex man a great thinker and influencer up there with Nelson Mandela and in my opinion one of the great individuals of history.

While Colston was a slaver who made a fortune which he left to the City of Bristol, it is estimated up to 20,000 died due to the journey of being traded but in his defence he was a man of his time and in leaving his weath to others possibly offered some atonement but what is really unforgivable is that Bristol City Council have continued to honour his memory in naming schools, roads, parks, housing after him who ever is was at the council thought that was a good idea was at the least insensitive and at worst a racist

The key problem I think there is with this view of Ghandi against Colston is time. Ghandi was intelligent and academically minded, he understood clearly the oppression of his own people under the British Empire but he did not extend that sentiment to the Africans because he considered them close to animals (his words not mine). His belief system included racial superiority, with Africans at the bottom. This was clearly a racist view he had about 75 years ago.

Colston was intelligent and enterprising, and over 300 years ago he likely held the same view of Africans as Ghandi. The fact he traded them and made a fortune from that trade is repugnant now, but 300 years ago a lot of repugnant shit was happening.

For example, the 30 years war reduced the population of what is now Germany/Poland and Czech Republic by half approx. 8m in what was statically one of the most destructive wars in history. In London in 1665 an outbreak of the plague killed 75,000. This was at a time when white Protestants and Catholics (in Europe and the U.K.) were at each other’s throats and had involved a civil war in Britain, occupation of Ireland by Cromwell and a period that would culminate in the Glorious Revolution.

White lives were just as expendable then as black lives......it’s just now a BLM more so Colston out Ghandi in.

 

[schmunk]

Fruitist

 

[East Staffs Gull]

There must be a few Roman emperors getting a bit jittery now. Can’t see Rome or Bath still standing in a couple of weeks.

 

[Billy the Fish]

No they haven't. You've made that up.

No shit!!! Double whoosh

 

[schmunk]

Can’t see Rome or Bath still standing in a couple of weeks.

They've already taken down Bath...

 

[cunning fergus]

I agree people's views and attitudes are a product of our surroundings education and life experiences it was no different for Ghandi who like us all was on a journey that included time as a lawyer, editor of a newspaper, questioning of his faith, and his life of vegetarianism, having read several of his books my first thought was that some of his actions while in South Africa could be misconstrued as racist but instead I felt he was probably more elitist, his time in South Africa he was either taking on the causes of the Asians against landowners or editor of an Indian newspaper and he made some mistakes from which he learned eventually over time that life is a journey he was a complex man a great thinker and influencer up there with Nelson Mandela and in my opinion one of the great individuals of history.

While Colston was a slaver who made a fortune which he left to the City of Bristol, it is estimated up to 20,000 died due to the journey of being traded but in his defence he was a man of his time and in leaving his weath to others possibly offered some atonement but what is really unforgivable is that Bristol City Council have continued to honour his memory in naming schools, roads, parks, housing after him who ever is was at the council thought that was a good idea was at the least insensitive and at worst a racist

If we were fair, we would recognise that it was not just Colston and white Europeans that made their fortunes from the slave trade, so did Africans. Part of the problem for the west now is those that made money have left a legacy of that wealth behind. Where did the wealth go that was derived by the powerful African slave traders?

This is complex, however one problem the Africans in charge had was their monetary system, which included cowry shells. These shells are not so ubiquitous in Africa and therefore had a tradable value locally. In other parts of the world (colonised by white Europeans) in places like Java cowry shells are 2 a penny, actually not even that.

This meant white Europeans traders (especially the Dutch) would sail to Java, full the ballast of their ships with cowry shells (harvested by locals for tradable goods the savvy capitalists they were over there) before sailing back to Africa to exchange said shells for slaves.

Had the Africans been using a proper currency it’s possible the whole slave trade enterprise could have been more expensive than its worth, and that’s not Colston’s fault.

Unfortunately when all is said and done many of the Africans’ that benefited from slavery was worthless baubles, hence the African equivalent of Colston didn’t have anything of actual value to fund a university, hospitals and schools.

He just had a shit load of shells to show for his part in the whole circus of human misery that was the slave trade. And that’s why there’s no statues of those people in Africa and why they are not being tipped in the harbour in Benin’s equivalent of Bristol.

 

[Is it PotG?]

He looks a little like that person setting light to the flag on The Cenotaph to me.

 

[dsr-burnley]

I wonder if it occurs to anyone to say that all countries founded their wealth on slavery to some extent, because until the 1800's it was the norm throughout the world.

But in the UK slavery has not been formally legal since the Romans left, and it has not been de facto enforceable since the Black Death, and it was the UK that took the lead in abolishing slavery throughout the Empire and then, unilaterally and high handedly and possibly illegally, abolishing the slave trade on the high seas. Therefore while the UK regrets our part in the slave trade, we are proud of our role in being one of the leading nations in putting a stop to it.

And then chuck Michelangelo's statue of David into the river Po, perhaps. The ancient Israelis were not opposed to a bit of slavery now and then.

 

[Paddington Gal]

Steve Ovett he was a racist. More often than not he came first. Should his statue be thrown in the sea?

 

[WilburySeagull]

I get that this thread is somewhat tongue in cheek (at least I hope it is) but there are some serious points of debate. It is easy to say x was of his time and only doing or saying what others did. But thats like the "I was only obeying orders" nazi defence. It ignores the fact that some stood against great evil sometimes at risk of their lives.

Conversly it is dispproportionate to rubbish those lile Ghandhi or Churchill who did great good whilst also having some abhorrent views on race. I guess you have to look at each individual and balance actions and views.

 

[Baker lite]

He looks a little like that person setting light to the flag on The Cenotaph to me.

View attachment 124669

It is not this piece of shite, it is another piece of shite.

 

[SIMMO SAYS]

Steve Ovett he was a racist. More often than not he came first. Should his statue be thrown in the sea?

Not sure you can get away with that on this board