A figure of Edward Colston has been dropped into Bristol Harbour but the figure of Edward Colston had already been plunged into murky depths by his involvement and profiting from the slave trade.
“But what of his philanthropy?” comes the query and it is a valid question. What of it? How much money must be donated so that the metallic stench of blood is instead surpassed by the metallic clink of coins? In the interests of fairness there should be some kind of clear rubric. A precise monetary donation per human life expended. If that seems somewhat cold and even monstrous then boy are you going to have a hard time getting to grips with slavery…
I have heard the phrase “Where do we draw the line?” It’s an important debate and I am sure there are some ostensibly worthy people who would find their fashioning in bronze come tumbling down when details of their lives or livelihoods are highlighted. So be it. In answer to “Where do we draw the line?” literal slavers may be a good place to start.
It is also of note that there have been calls for Colston’s statue to come down for years. It would seem that the proper channels were insufficient and as others have observed he’s in the proper channel now.
This blog is of course the (self-declared) home of Neo-Bevanism and I have campaigned many times beneath the statue of Nye in Cardiff. I was asked what would be my response if people sought to tear that statue down and pop it in Cardiff Bay. On reflection if such an even occurred I’d seek to hear the reasoning and gauge how much support such an action had. If there was a genuine grievance the onus would be on myself to hear it. To my knowledge there has not been a concerted effort over a series of years to remove the statue of Nye on the grounds of his being a slave trader or similar so for the moment I feel confident in asserting that Bevan’s statue should remain.
The ostensible lawlessness of the act has met with consternation by some of my Liberal contacts. Which has put me in mind of Stewart Lee giving a delicious riff on how people love the dead comedians rattling off comedic luminaries including the late Bill Hicks:
“You love dead comedians don’t you? […] The Middle Class people: Oh Dead Bill Hicks. Oh Bill Hicks. Dead Bill Hicks oh he was brilliant. I wish I was dead Bill Hicks. I wish I could be judged on two hours of material.”
I have come to the conclusion that for many Liberals the same holds true for civil rights activists who engaged in direct action. They love dead civil rights activists. Dead sanitised civil rights activists. The Dr Martin Luther King of a single quote. The Rosa Parks who just happened to get a bus. The Suffragists who won the right to vote purely through stirring speeches in Hyde Park Corner. Not those who advocated the ‘moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws’ from an Alabama jail cell, the active participant in the civil rights movement, or those who engaged in property damage for a cause respectively.
Do I have concerns about the demo? I come from a background of Trade Union Health & Safety and I remain concerned for the well being of those who attended and the potential for the spreading of Covid19. That aside I have no qualms about the act itself. I’d like to see more social distancing when protesting, and make sure the weight is in your legs and not your back when tearing down slaver statues. My risk assessment of statues commemorating slavers and their ilk? They pose a real and tangible hazard to the body politic and should be removed from our collective public space.
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