Up until yesterday I am pretty sure not many people had heard of Edward Colston. Then on Sunday afternoon, protestors in Bristol took part in non-violent direct action and removed his statue from its plinth and threw it in the river.
Some cheered, others complained.
Those that cheered, did so because the statue stood as a reminder of some of Britains rather ugly history and the oppression and injustice metered out on Black Africans by the company (The Royal Africa Company) this man ran for a number of years.
Some that complained did so because they believed that this isn’t how we should do things. That these things should be democratic processes that are agreed upon and carried out through the proper channels. Amen! I say. We should make decisions through these channels. It is good to work through these things and make good choices for the benefit of every single one of our citizens and the greater good. To face our past and to seek to address the failings of British society. The problem is we don’t and we haven’t.
Why? for a whole host of reasons but many of them are linked with a system that has racism built in, it is there in the system. From what others have said and from what I have researched people had tried to remove it by the official routes. They had campaigned to remove the statue for at least the last four years. Some people argued it had been going on for twenty. How long does to take to remove the statue of someone who took part in the enslavement of over 80,000 African men, women and children and the death of at least 20,000 people. Some of these would have been thrown overboard whilst still alive if the were sick to prevent disease spreading and so they could claim on the insurance. Petitions have been signed, meetings held and campaigns established and still the statue stood.
But these things take time, I hear you cry. But he gave so much to charity and helped make Bristol the city it is today! comes the shouts.
Let me tell you a story.
In 2013 a joint report between the NSPCC and the Metropolitan police force stated that 450 people had made complaints against Jimmy Savile. 214 criminal offences were recorded between 1955 and 2009, 34 for of them rape. Within a month nearly every mention of Savile was removed. A statue in Glasgow was taken down, A footpath in Scarborough was renamed, A conference centre renamed, and his family even removed his gravestone and had it ground down to rubble and sent to landfill. None of the television shows he appears on are played any more and his name only ever mentioned in connection to horrendous abuse and the failings of society to act upon it. They even looked to see if his knighthood could be removed.
Now I know Calston died 300 years ago and I have seen the arguments about him being a man of his time, it wasn’t illegal back then etc. I also know this is a council matter so there is a process to go through which takes time and in many of the Savile incidences it was private companies making the choice which can happen in a moment. They are all rubbish excuses, the statue should never have been built, but it was. It should have been removed as soon as people pointed out what it represented, but it wasn’t (there are many more statues, street names and buildings left we could remove tomorrow if we want it to happen the “proper” way, but we won’t). We could apologise properly for our part in the creation of the slave trade, we could build a lasting memorial to every man, woman and child forcibly removed from their home and sailed to a foreign land so Britain could become rich. We could seek to begin the process of undoing the systems we have built that cause physical, mental, emotional and spiritual harm each and every day to black lives, but we won’t.