The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Zoupa]

No no, please tell us more 

[Eddie Teach]

People should be judged by the standards of their time.

[Sheilbh]

We don't have statues of everyone in history. We don't have statues of Nazis, Ukrainians tore down statues of Lenin a few years ago, nations also tend not to have statues of their enemies - there's no statue of Napoleon in London. I am sure there were statues of Cromwell in Ireland, there aren't anymore. Others become controversial - I know there's a campaign against the statues of Roca over his role in the Conquest of the Desert which is now widely seen as a genocide. Statues are people who we are choosing to honour - they are not necessary to history.

In terms of cultural expression you could be right - but there's a link here. In the same way as most of those statues of Confederates were put up after the civil war, so was Colston. The statues of Confederates were largely erected in the early 20th century at the peak of Jim Crow and were arguably the sort of reconciliation measure between North and South - by and for white Americans. It's interesting to think in other post-conflict societies how we reconcile sides in a way that may leave others out - in this case African-Americans.

With Colston that statue went up in the 1890s so about 200 years after his death. By that time the British people were very anti-slavery but could separate that part of his legacy from the "good" (I'd also just note there is a class element here too - the working class were always more anti-slavery and I think there's something in allowing a legacy for a slaver), I think that's questionable because his good legacy was philanthropy and building up the city both of which were built on the profits from slavery. But it was also a moment of extreme anxiety, pessimism and fear about British imperial power, which is arguably why they reach back two hundred years to honour this man. There's something appropriate about the fact the statue went up and was pulled down becahse of the end of Empire. So maybe he was hardly exceptional, but he was who Bristol chose to commemorate a couple of hundred years after his death which makes him more exceptionally.

Now personally I would like this to be more purposive. I would like us as a society to confront our past and decide how we represent it and learn about it - I think Germany is the model for us. My view is, as the Irish saying goes, the British never remember so personally I would prefer new plaques explaining people like Colston and Napier and Clive, other statues near them dedicated to their victims. Things to make you look around as you stand in Trafalgar Square or central Bristol and realise that the wealth that built this was very often extracted from colonies and built on slavery (when slavery was abolished our state paid slave owners £20million, which is, in today's money, £17billion).

But those ideas have been circulating for a long time and we've not made the change. The statue of Colston has been controversial for decades (as have all of the other things named for him in Bristol) but we haven't done any of them. Now this. I hope this will at least push us into making decisions that we actually choose in who and how we honour and how we live with our past.

And I don't think this is just a British thing - I think it's utterly shameful that there are still statues of Leopold II in Europe's capital for example.

Incidentally in terms of who we should honour I find it extraordinary that we don't have any statues of Frederick Douglass whose freedom was purchased partly by a subscription of the working men of Newcastle, who toured the UK and Ireland extensively to give speeches and who gave 16 alone in Newcastle - there are a few plaques. I think that's part of a choice by Victorian Britain to valorise and honour elite abolitionists like Wilberforce and the slave-traders who made money and built empire not the working class proto-unions in the 18th and early 19th century who always campaigned for abolition from the very beginning (and who were opposed by Wilberforce etc).

Edit: A very good piece on Colston and Bristol from the FT a couple of years back - again some of the stories here just strike me as slightly impossible in Glasgow or Liverpool:
https://www.ft.com/content/032fe4a0-9a96-11e8-ab77-f854c65a4465

[11B4V]

So in short, the mob took it upon themselves to destroy property of the state.

[Sheilbh]

So in short, the mob took it upon themselves to destroy property of the state.

Yeah. Alternately the public took it upon themselves to destroy a statue in the public's space. Our streets are ours, not the "state's".

[11B4V]

So in short, the mob took it upon themselves to destroy property of the state.

Yeah. Alternately the public took it upon themselves to destroy a statue in the public's space. Our streets are ours, not the "state's".

Mob mentality

[Tamas]

Yeah sounds like this statue should had been removed already, but if the measure of acceptable vandalism is to have enough people disagree with a structure/piece of art to make them physically able to destroy it, we won't have many things left standing.

[Eddie Teach]

So in short, the mob took it upon themselves to destroy property of the state.

Yeah. Alternately the public took it upon themselves to destroy a statue in the public's space. Our streets are ours, not the "state's".

In a democracy, the mob doesn't represent the people, the elected government does.

[Oexmelin]

How else can I learn about Bristol's role in the slave trade now?!?

[Sheilbh]

In a democracy, the mob doesn't represent the people, the elected government does.

Sure - I would like this to have happened in a different way but I'm glad it's been done.

But as I say there's been a campaign around this for decades in Bristol. The council did decide to have a new plaque erected. As part of this they consulted with the stakeholders, which was mainly the Merchant Venturers (the Mayor at the time was a Merchant Venturer) and came up with this:

Edward Colston (1636–1721), MP for Bristol (1710–1713), was one of this city's greatest benefactors. He supported and endowed schools, almshouses, hospitals and churches in Bristol, London and elsewhere. Many of his charitable foundations continue. This statue was erected in 1895 to commemorate his philanthropy. A significant proportion of Colston's wealth came from investments in slave trading, sugar and other slave-produced goods. As an official of the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, he was also involved in the transportation of approximately 84,000 enslaved African men, women and young children, of whom 19,000 died on voyages from West Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas.

Which is a little weak in my opinion.

And the Merchant Venturers was a livery company that lobbied for more liberalised rules around the slave trade in Colston's lifetime (ie they wanted to break his monopoly through the Royal African Company). They still exist and are an invite-only group of the City's prominent businessmen. In the last two years they've invited their first ethnic minority member. They until the last few years organised trips to Merchant's Hall for school children where kids would be shown some of Colston's hair and fingernails. Similarly in recent years they were still organising an annual commemorative service for Colston in the Cathedral (under the stained glass window depicting him) where, again, school kids would carry chrysanthamums (his favourite flower) and hear a sermon on his life - in 2016 it was on the theme of his family motto "Go, and do thou likewise". He's seen by them as the sort-of father of the city.

I'd prefer this to have been done in a civic way and maybe that would have happened if a wider group of stakeholders were consulted.

Edit: For example there has long been a campaign in Bristol to remove the statue and put it in a museum - which never got anywhere. And Bristol, unlike Glasgow or Liverpool, doesn't to my knowledge have a museum or even part of a museum dedicated to slavery.

[Sheilbh]

How else can I learn about Bristol's role in the slave trade now?!?

Not at Bristol University. This is one of the reasons I think Bristol is in a worse place than Glasgow or Liverpool - both of those universities have incredible research centres into slavery (from what I understand). Bristol has appointed its first professor of slavery in 2019.

If you want to learn about Bristol's role you'd be better off going to the University of the West of England (in Bristol), the old polytechnic with all the snobbishness that invites.

[The Brain]

Ukrainians tore down statues of Lenin a few years ago,

Ah, but not all of them (even in unoccupied Ukraine). One town got to keep theirs.

[Oexmelin]

If you want to learn about Bristol's role you'd be better off going to the University of the West of England (in Bristol), the old polytechnic with all the snobbishness that invites.

I know - it's just my snarky retort to the whole non-argument that statues is primarily how we learn about history.

The Bristol slave trade is actually quite well-documented. About half a million slaves were carried on about 2,500 individual voyages departing from Bristol during the length of the slave trade. That's about 23% of all British slaving expeditions (and about 17% of all enslaved people traded by British ships).

By contrast, Glasgow's place in the actual slave trade was minuscule: a dozen of expedition or thereabouts. Glasgow's role was much more linked to plantation slavery in general - i.e., by its importance as a center for the Chesapeake tobacco trade.

[Sheilbh]

Ah, but not all of them (even in unoccupied Ukraine). One town got to keep theirs.

And, which I only found out today, weirdly, Manchester took one of the Ukrainian statues of Engels (you can see the yellow and blue paint):

I know - it's just my snarky retort to the whole non-argument that statues is primarily how we learn about history.

Yeah - I understand and agree - just want to flag again the unique failure of Bristol's elite institutions to do anything to begin to comprehend its past.

[merithyn]

So in short, the mob took it upon themselves to destroy property of the state.

Yeah. Alternately the public took it upon themselves to destroy a statue in the public's space. Our streets are ours, not the "state's".

Mob mentality

Is there no situation in which you'd find "mob mentality" appropriate? Honest question.