A new conversation has started in recent weeks. It is about Britain’s place in the world. It is a conversation about Colonial history.
There are some who support the British Empire and others who abhor it. There are some who see it as a savior and others as an oppressor.
This conversation started when the statues of Edward Colston and Winston Churchill were defaced.
To be immensely clear statues by their very nature are celebratory. The argument that we would be erasing history by removing them is absurd. Statues in themselves do not actually teach anyone about historical events. We have learned more about both Churchill and Colston since their statues were defaced than we ever did when their statues were up.
In history statues used to be used to show people what historical figures looked like. In Rome, the emperor’s statues were spread across the empire and the heads could be replaced after a new emperor came into power.
Statues used to be useful for historical reasons and it is my opinion that Colston’s should have been put in a museum but in modernity they are completely useless as we can just research anything we want whenever we want.
I am glad that Edward Colston’s statue lays in ruins under water. He was a slave trader who made his fortune from the suffering of millions.
He was not a glorious figure in any sense. To ignore the lives of thousands of black slaves is othering at its worst. It is to blatantly ignore the relevance of the lives of these victims. To have a statue of him is to trivialize the murders he committed and to defend the statue being put up is to totally ignore history.
To value a hunk of bronze over a person is the ultimate slap in the face to the people who died.
People politely asked to have the statue taken down for twenty years and the authorities ignored them.
When the government does not listen, we must make it hear us. When public outcry is treated as disorder, we must make them hear us.
We should not stop with Colston. We must tear down every statue that glorifies a bigot. Every criminal, every murderer must be torn down and thrown into the sea.
A statue of Leopold II of Belgium was taken down as well. Leopold was the king of Belgium and during the Berlin Conference the Congo region was given not to Belgium but to Leopold personally.
This was done because the other powers knew Leopold would exploit the natural resources and slave labour of the region to his and their benefit.
I do not think they could have ever predicted just how brutal and exploitative he was. The Congo free state was Leopold’s creation and he was its sole owner.
He used the Force Publique as his mercenary force to push the natives in line.
During his time in power he killed between 8 and 15 million native people and mutilated far more. He instituted rubber and ivory quotas. The natives had to produce certain amounts on pain of death.
Soldiers were not allowed to use more than one bullet per person they killed. They used severed hands to count the dead. It was believed that they would use the bullets for hunting if they were not forced to account for each bullet used.
When they inevitably wasted bullets, they decided to just cut the hands off of people who were alive.
Today the DRC and the RC are two of the poorest countries on the face of the earth.
This is despite their vast natural wealth.
This is the legacy of colonialism. This is the legacy of the ultimate system of exploitation. War, famine, mutilation, there is not a modicum of glory in this legacy.
Leopold’s statue is being moved into a museum. I am glad of this, I want people to see and recognise their past, I just do not want them to glorify it.
We need to hate Leopold II, but we must never forget him.
Winston Churchill was a great man, but he most certainly was not a good one. To ignore his crimes against humanity and his racism is the most hatefully ignorant thing I can imagine.
It is the implicit indication that the lives of Bengalis, Indians, Boers, and Turks are worth less than your jingoistic notions of the British Spirit.
The most British thing to do in the face of Churchill’s known bigotry and mass murder is to admit our wrongs and to make them right. The most British thing to do is to recognise oppression and to attack it.
I know that most people who like Churchill don’t like him for malevolent reasons. He represents a ray of hope. He represents democracy and morality. He represents resilience and optimism and I don’t want to take that away from them.
In this sense Churchill’s legacy is a good one. I know that it is hard to see. It is hard to overcome deeply rooted views. It is hard to look at the horrible truth behind a man who you admire but you must.
Defacing Churchill has caused a tremendous amount of good. Spray paint will come off but the conversation that it started never will. We have to have a broad perspective.
We were once an empire. Let the sun set on that dream and let it rise again above a small island nation which carved for itself fresh greatness. Greatness not taken from the suffering of others but from our capacity to think, dream, innovate, make, create, and liberate.
There is no room in a civilised nation for Imperialism. It will bring us nothing but the hatred of the whole world. It will only taint us further. It will corrupt our very essence if we do not quash it.
We need not feel personally guilty for crimes we did not personally commit but we need to acknowledge these crimes as to avoid committing them ever again.
A ‘great’ empire is pathetic if it was built upon the agonies of millions. Ours is no exception.
It is time to just move on. We must all accept what Britain did to the rest of the world and we must say that we are sorry.
I for one thing am sorry that my country is rich because it exploited millions of people. I am sorry that Winston Churchill let 4 million people die in Bengal. I am sorry not because I did these things myself but because I have indirectly gained from them. This is the only way we can ever grow up and move forward. By apologising.
Nationalism is not the answer, nor has it ever been. Pride for your country is not the same as nationalism. Nationalism is blind devotion to your country. Pride is being proud where it is due and critical where it is due.
To all the nationalists who will probably call me a ‘traitor’ I can only say that it is not me who has betrayed Britain it is them.
The greatness of this country is self-evident, but I am the only one defending it.
I am not so insecure about my national identity that I need to wave a flag around.
Blind nationalism is an embarrassment to this country.
Flouting your self-perceived greatness is an implication that you subconsciously believe that the greatness of your country is under threat.
Humility is the luxury of the great. Albert Einstein never waved flags of himself. We are great enough not to need ‘great’ in our name.
We are a bastion of freedom and democracy; we are a bastion of good ideas and good people. People come here for a better life and a beautiful experience.
People flock in to visit Buckingham Palace.
They flock in to see the London Eye.
We are great enough not to need zealots flying union jacks everywhere.
To defeat colonialism, we must change the narrative. We must start by educating ourselves and by taking the perspectives of all involved into account. We must stop looking at colonialism through a Eurocentric lens. Though we no longer control these lands we still control their voices. We still have hold of the narrative and that must change. We must teach the history of colonialism in schools.
We must humanise the people we pillaged, and we must create a new generation of people who despise the British empire. Or else we will never let go of the past.
We need to give historical figures a fair chance. But I find the three I have mentioned here guilty.
Though Leopold and Colston and Churchill did some good things this cannot and does not expunge the bad. What they represent to their supporters does not expunge their blood-stained deeds.
But it is not for me to judge them. That is up to you.
Written by Albert N - Instagram @rebellious_truth_blog
Read his fantastic blog - https://trtjournalism.blogspot.com/?m=1
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