London's statues from 'bygone' imperial past to be reviewed, mayor says

[snoop1130]

London's statues from 'bygone' imperial past to be reviewed, mayor says

 

A police officer stands next to the statue of Winston Churchill at Parliament Square which was damaged by protesters with graffiti, in the aftermath of protests against the death of George Floyd who died in police custody in Minneapolis, London, Britain, June 8, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley

 

LONDON (Reuters) - London mayor Sadiq Khan has ordered a review of the capital’s statues and street names after the toppling of the statue of an English slave trader by anti-racism protesters triggered a debate about the demons of Britain’s imperial past.

 

A statue of Edward Colston, who made a fortune in the 17th century from trading West African slaves, was torn down and thrown into Bristol harbour on Sunday by a group of demonstrators taking part in a wave of protests following the death of George Floyd in the United States.

 

Khan said a commission would review statues, plaques and street names which largely reflect the rapid expansion of London’s wealth and power at the height of Britain’s empire in the reign of Queen Victoria.

 

“Our capital’s diversity is our greatest strength, yet our statues, road names and public spaces reflect a bygone era,” Khan said. He said some statues would be removed.

 

“It is an uncomfortable truth that our nation and city owes a large part of its wealth to its role in the slave trade and while this is reflected in our public realm, the contribution of many of our communities to life in our capital has been wilfully ignored.”

 

In the biggest deportation in known history, weapons and gunpowder from Europe were swapped for millions of African slaves who were then shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas. Ships returned to Europe with sugar, cotton and tobacco.

 

As many as 17 million African men, women and children were torn from their homes and shackled into one of the world’s most brutal globalized trades between the 15th and 19th centuries. Many died in merciless conditions.

 

Those who survived endured a life of subjugation on sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. Britain abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807 although the full abolition of slavery did not follow for another generation.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-06-09

 

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[Calach]

If you start combing history and national memory out of all figures whose behaviours and ideas would be unacceptable today you set yourself for quite an endeavour. Even if we think it's justified for this Edward Colston, you'll see it's never going to be enough. 

 

Even Churchill statues will be toppled, for reasons as good as this one. 

 

For all the (sometimes infuriating) conservatism and immobility in my country, I'm glad that kind of silly historic cleansing hasn't caught up with us yet. 

[stouricks]

Queen Victoria knew all about the slave trade. Should her statue come down?

[vogie]

The police have set a precidence now, it is open season to all and everything the rioters don't like. Eric Morecambe could be next, didn't he once do a sketch with a grapefruit pretending to be Al Johnson.

[baansgr]

And yet Mandela whose wife was a murderer is OK....this <deleted> is getting out of hand and needs stopping now...the <deleted> that don't like it can p off somewhere else

[billd766]

quote from the OP.

 

"“Our capital’s diversity is our greatest strength, yet our statues, road names and public spaces reflect a bygone era,” Khan said. He said some statues would be removed."

 

Yet without the bygone era people like Sadiq Khan would not be alive today to protest.

 

As for slavery it went on for hundreds of years and most of the negro slaves for sale in Africa were enslaved by their own people, captured from other tribes and bought from Arab slave traders.

 

Something that many people would have a hard time accepting, though it is an inconvenient truth for many people to accept.

[PJPom]

Eight of the first ten Presidents of the United States was a Slave owner, are the progressives going to remove all trace of them.

This is getting out of hand, how can a normal ,sensible, educated person at University be triggered by a Statue of Rhodes who’s bequest funds the Rhodes Scholarships, possibly the most prestigious educational award.

Pulling down a statue of a slave trader in Bristol, painting Churchill’s statue, this is just vandalism, we can learn from the past but we shouldn’t attempt to rewrite it.

[Chomper Higgot]

I’m sure the UK can find better people to celebrate than slave traders.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 minute ago, PJPom said:

Eight of the first ten Presidents of the United States was a Slave owner, are the progressives going to remove all trace of them.

This is getting out of hand, how can a normal ,sensible, educated person at University be triggered by a Statue of Rhodes who’s bequest funds the Rhodes Scholarships, possibly the most prestigious educational award.

Pulling down a statue of a slave trader in Bristol, painting Churchill’s statue, this is just vandalism, we can learn from the past but we shouldn’t attempt to rewrite it.

Start by learning about the past.

 

The teaching of British history, and particularly the history of the empire is abysmal, hardly if ever addressing the abuses the British perpetrated on those they had subjugated.

[cyril sneer]

so once the statues are removed they'll start renaming streets

 

imagine having your address changed to '10 Diane Abbott Lane'

[Justgrazing]

1 hour ago, snoop1130 said:

A police officer stands next to the statue of Winston Churchill at Parliament Square which was damaged by protesters with graffiti, in the aftermath of protests against the death of George Floyd who died in police custody in Minneapolis, London, Britain, June

Utter mindless idiots .. Churchill for his faults was the one who stood up to the architect of the greatest mass extermination in history of those considered racially inferior and instigator of the most savage war man has ever waged on itself .. 

Had Churchill not stood up to Nazism with all of Western Europe under its yoke it would have been a very different world for those not fitting the Nazi template .. I'd guess some of the moron's involved in desecrating his statute were/are too stupid to consider that .. 

[PJPom]

My major for my A levels was European economic history, would you care to hear about the French, Dutch, Belgian and of course the Spanish. Britain was far from lily white but all things considered we were mostly beneficial.

9 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Start by learning about the past.

 

The teaching of British history, and particularly the history of the empire is abysmal, hardly if ever addressing the abuses the British perpetrated on those they had subjugated.

 

[RickBradford]

Cutting people off from their history, traditions and culture is a standard Leftist strategy of control. Destroy the past and you can better control the present.

 

No doubt Alfred the Great's statue in Winchester is on the list as well. After all, he was very mean to the Vikings in the 9th century, going so far as to force Christianity (the horror!) on one poor Viking king.

 

This is simply an expression of the Leftist desire for achieving, maintaining, and abusing power.

[Phuketshrew]

24 minutes ago, cyril sneer said:

imagine having your address changed to '10 Diane Abbott Lane'

Having "Diane Abbott Close" could be worse ....

[Bluespunk]

2 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

London mayor Sadiq Khan has ordered a review of the capital’s statues and street names after the toppling of the statue of an English slave trader by anti-racism protesters triggered a debate about the demons of Britain’s imperial past.

 

A statue of Edward Colston, who made a fortune in the 17th century from trading West African slaves, was torn down and thrown into Bristol harbour on Sunday by a group of demonstrators taking part in a wave of protests following the death of George Floyd in the United States.

 

Khan said a commission would review statues, plaques and street names which largely reflect the rapid expansion of London’s wealth and power at the height of Britain’s empire in the reign of Queen Victoria.

 

“Our capital’s diversity is our greatest strength, yet our statues, road names and public spaces reflect a bygone era,” Khan said. He said some statues would be removed.

 

“It is an uncomfortable truth that our nation and city owes a large part of its wealth to its role in the slave trade and while this is reflected in our public realm, the contribution of many of our communities to life in our capital has been wilfully ignored.”

Good Man, I look forward to the changes you bring about.

[baansgr]

53 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Start by learning about the past.

 

The teaching of British history, and particularly the history of the empire is abysmal, hardly if ever addressing the abuses the British perpetrated on those they had subjugated.i. 

In true lefty fashion a deflected reply..

[AlexRich]

We are all on this Earth as a result of a complex chain of events and circumstances over many thousands of years ... ironically without the slave traders many of the protesters would never have existed. They are part of our history, and should never be erased. We don’t have to approve of them, but we should acknowledge them.

[baansgr]

58 minutes ago, cyril sneer said:

so once the statues are removed they'll start renaming streets

 

imagine having your address changed to '10 Diane Abbott Lane'

She's one of the biggest racists going...

[Chomper Higgot]

3 minutes ago, AlexRich said:

We are all on this Earth as a result of a complex chain of events and circumstances over many thousands of years ... ironically without the slave traders many of the protesters would never have existed. They are part of our history, and should never be erased. We don’t have to approve of them, but we should acknowledge them.

Acknowledging slave traders does not have to include putting up statues of them in public spaces.

[Rimmer]

Baiting post and a reply removed

[kingdong]

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Start by learning about the past.

 

The teaching of British history, and particularly the history of the empire is abysmal, hardly if ever addressing the abuses the British perpetrated on those they had subjugated.

It wasn,t just britain,all Europe was busy colonizing throughout the 19th centuary,and if you look back in history Britain was one of the fairer colonialists.

[AlexRich]

9 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Acknowledging slave traders does not have to include putting up statues of them in public spaces.

Fine by me. Where does it end? Roman Emperors, Alexander the Great ... we won’t have a statue left. Pointless virtue signalling.

[Justgrazing]

2 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

He said some statues would be removed.

Sounds like he's made his mind up on some already .. A consultation with the public would surely be the way forward as Khan is in the territory of pandering to the baying mob rule witnessed in London and Bristol with his choice of words in this .. And if any are to be removed then put them in a museum with a proper historical context alongside for folk to understand the subject a bit more rather than the mindless violence we seen enacted against them .. 

Khan needs to tread carefully here as there is a real danger of trying to unweave history .. And what will he do with the statute of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell a controversial character within English history if ever there was one .. 

[kingdong]

2 minutes ago, AlexRich said:

Fine by me. Where does it end? Roman Emperors, Alexander the Great ... we won’t have a statue left. Pointless virtue signalling.

 

32 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:

Good Man, I look forward to the changes you bring about.

He,d better get his skates on,next election he,'ll be history,he would be now if they hadn,t postponed the election due to corona,think he realises that and in the meantime is doing more damage to London than the Luftwaffe.

[champers]

The mayor should be embarrased that he has this new policy born of illegal acts of vandalism. He is electioneering, pure and simple.

[sanuk711]

The female community officer put her arm gently around our brave victim. ............

 

"Now Shaniqua, when you're ready, do you want to point to the statue that offended you"......................

 

[kingdong]

5 minutes ago, Justgrazing said:

 

Khan needs to tread carefully here as there is a real danger of trying to unweave history .. 

That's what happens when pol pots your role model.

 

[3NUMBAS]

strange that the labour party stand for anti sematism and are quite happy for the situation to still exist .starmer has done nothing to rectify the situation.

 

 

[mr mr]

DEMANDS have been made for the removal of 60 statues now. first they came for the trade unionists.....

[metisdead]

Some more baiting posts and the replies have been removed.