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America
Jun 11, 2020 16:54:29 GMT
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Post by Andrewlang on Jun 11, 2020 16:54:29 GMT
"Shall we close down The Guardian, seeing as its predecessor The Manchester Guardian declared it an evil day when Lincoln was elected President and that his time in office was abhorrent?"
No, clearly not. That's a false equivalence.
The equivalent of what you're saying suggests we demand the descendents of Cecil Rhodes or Edward Colston are jailed for the crimes of their racist ancestors - nobody is suggesting that at all.
These people are not being airbrushed or removed from history, they're just not being venerated in public spaces anymore. I think that seems fair.
Andrew
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Wingco's Boy
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Post by Wingco's Boy on Jun 11, 2020 18:37:14 GMT
"Honestly, get a grip." That suggests you disagree with me on something. Which but was it...that Britain has a violent past? That statues of slave owners and traders should come down? What makes you say I need to get a grip? Andrew Where do you stop the iconoclasm? Who decides what gets destroyed? If some monuments are destroyed, how about destroying ALL monuments that are associated with slavery? That would include anything associated with Islam. Are you advocating that? Or do you draw a historical line somewhere? Or are only white men capable of slavery? Are you aware of the brutal abduction of European slaves by the Barbary pirates? Or is their slavery less awful? Much better if the destruction stops, no?
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Post by Russ Greaves on Jun 11, 2020 19:14:46 GMT
There is an interesting point here about the passage of time changing the way in which a historic event or period is perceived. However, it’s fairly apparent we are not yet sufficiently distanced from the transatlantic slave trade to reduce it to the status of a historic relic. That’s likely because it is all too apparent that the themes of racism, oppression and subjugation remain to this day, and the separation from then to now is not as clear-cut as it ought to be. America in particular has a far more recent record of state-enforced racial discrimination. One form of oppression has replaced another.
There will come a time when future generations can think about the transatlantic slave trade in purely academic and philosophical terms. That time isn’t now. We’ll actually expedite the process of reaching that point by facing up to the absurdity of having statues, military bases and public buildings named in honour of people who perpetuated the slave trade.
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Wingco's Boy
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Post by Wingco's Boy on Jun 11, 2020 21:43:39 GMT
And now the statue of Churchill is being boarded up, as is the Cenotaph. Some on this forum are probably bursting with woke pride. Not me, I am ashamed to be British tonight.
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animal
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Post by animal on Jun 12, 2020 5:21:36 GMT
What this country needs right now is an international football tournament. We've been cooped up too long.
Statue removing! On your own soil!
We need to head out to the colonies, plot up in an Irish bar & remind these fuggers that if wasn't for the English they'd be Krauts!
White plastic chairs have had it too easy too long.
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America
Jun 12, 2020 7:04:55 GMT
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Post by Russ Greaves on Jun 12, 2020 7:04:55 GMT
And now the statue of Churchill is being boarded up, as is the Cenotaph. Some on this forum are probably bursting with woke pride. Not me, I am ashamed to be British tonight. It’s interesting that some people see Churchill as a figure of reverence and pride, yet are ashamed by things which - on the face of it - seem far less egregious than his overt racism and social Darwinism.
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Mark of Carnage
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Post by Mark of Carnage on Jun 12, 2020 9:00:10 GMT
And now the statue of Churchill is being boarded up, as is the Cenotaph. Some on this forum are probably bursting with woke pride. Not me, I am ashamed to be British tonight. It’s interesting that some people see Churchill as a figure of reverence and pride, yet are ashamed by things which - on the face of it - seem far less egregious than his overt racism and social Darwinism. Churchill was a national war hero and that's all he has going for him. That carries myth status that the right like to play on as it feeds into their yearning for palingenesis. I don't like that at all. The right don't own our nation. As proved by the voters in 1945 Churchill wasn't considered to have much to offer post war that anyone wanted. He epitomised the prejudice and bigotry that was rife in the Conservative party in the 1930s and their flirtation with the same ideals the Nazis had. He only won the 1951 election by bigging up his war hero status due to the Korean war. I can see why some would want to deface his statues. I'm not one of his fans but I think his statue is up there solely for his huge personal contribution to defeating the Nazis and that is something we as a people should be immensily proud of and it saddens me to see that boarded up.
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Mark of Carnage
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Post by Mark of Carnage on Jun 12, 2020 10:27:32 GMT
Trump appears to be deliberately trolling by scheduling his first rally since early March on 19/6/20 in Tulsa of all places.
What can possibly go wrong when tens of thousands of Trump enthusiasts gather and get whipped into a frenzy by his nibs. He just carries on regardless of the coronavirus or race sensitivities. A deliberate strategy of increasing polarisation to win the election.
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Wingco's Boy
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Post by Wingco's Boy on Jun 12, 2020 12:24:24 GMT
And now the statue of Churchill is being boarded up, as is the Cenotaph. Some on this forum are probably bursting with woke pride. Not me, I am ashamed to be British tonight. It’s interesting that some people see Churchill as a figure of reverence and pride, yet are ashamed by things which - on the face of it - seem far less egregious than his overt racism and social Darwinism. Russ, are you proud of Churchill or ashamed of him?
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Post by Russ Greaves on Jun 12, 2020 12:31:01 GMT
I don't think I can comfortably reconcile his best and worst facets into one consolidated position of 'pride' or 'shame'.
He did things to be proud of and things to be ashamed of. My view of him is therefore necessarily ambivalent.
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Post by cufctheparrot on Jun 12, 2020 12:52:12 GMT
It’s interesting that some people see Churchill as a figure of reverence and pride, yet are ashamed by things which - on the face of it - seem far less egregious than his overt racism and social Darwinism. Russ, are you proud of Churchill or ashamed of him? I don't know whether people would say they are necessarily proud of him, but you can be proud of what he stood up for at the time, when in the short term at least, it would have been easier to ignore what was happening in the rest of Europe, and say that's their problem let them sort it out (in the same way as other countries which did, remaining Neutral at the time, and benefiting financially out of doing so) and that is why Churchill is widely admired across Europe, if not a cause for pride. Then it becomes more difficult to put up a statue to a cause rather than a person who lead the country, without it seeming as if the nation is glorifying war, which is why Churchill's statues should not be removed, unless they are replaced with something suitably appropriate, and I don't count the cenotaph as being a suitable substitute and as we have seen that is also subject to some unjustifiable attacks.
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Post by Tom Shaw's Fist of Rage on Jun 12, 2020 14:11:38 GMT
Flawed heroes are the best heroes. Churchill turned his career around after his failures in WWI and as chancellor & risked his legacy coming back for a second spell. Some of his views are extremely questionable, even with the "it was a different time" excuse & his actions in the colonies were often barbaric. Yet he oversaw a great moment of pride for this country.
Should he have a statue? Almost certainly. Are people right to have anger towards him? Equally almost certainly. Is damaging his statue the anywhere near the big issue here? Almost certainly not.
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America
Jun 12, 2020 14:16:06 GMT
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Post by Andrewlang on Jun 12, 2020 14:16:06 GMT
"I don't think I can comfortably reconcile his best and worst facets into one consolidated position of 'pride' or 'shame'.
He did things to be proud of and things to be ashamed of. My view of him is therefore necessarily ambivalent"
Indeed.
What I do think is that it's a good thing that these protests have made more people realise that while he's regarded as one of the great Britains of all time, he was also a massive racist. History is a great judge and we can all decide what we think of him once we have all the facts.
Lots of people think removing statues is hiding our history or deleting it, for me it's quite the opposite and instead gives us a different, more complete, history.
It can definitely go too far though. I'm not sure there has been any movement to remove TV programmes from streaming services. An episode of Faulty Towers feels significantly different to a mass murdering slave owner to me.
Andrew
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moose
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Post by moose on Jun 12, 2020 15:03:46 GMT
To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht, "Happy is the nation that needs no heroes".
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utopia
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Post by utopia on Jun 12, 2020 18:03:55 GMT
"Honestly, get a grip." That suggests you disagree with me on something. Which but was it...that Britain has a violent past? That statues of slave owners and traders should come down? What makes you say I need to get a grip? Andrew We've actually been pretty good in a number of ways. Take slavery. It was common around the world. Up until 1816 many British people were captured from our coastline and sold as slaves in Algiers. Some were ransomed and freed the others don't have descendents because any were murdered. Women attracted a higher value in the markets. It is why rule Britannia mentions Britons never being slaves. We needed to rule the waves to prevent it happening. It was worse elsewhere in Europe and I'm sure you can guess how the Slavs got their name. The triangular slave trade involved the trading of British manufactured goods for African slaves. Some African tribes became very rich on selling other Africans as slaves. Something Anthony Joshua should be aware of as it is more likely that his ancestors, aristocracy of one of those doing the selling, made money from slaves than mine did, as they were working their short lives in woollen mills. Cotton workers in Manchester refused to work American cotton because it was produced by slaves. The abolition of slavery cost the UK treasury 40% of GDP in payments. Can you imagine that? British people electing politicians who would spend a fortune to free others. Truly a great gesture. Of course the money did go to the former owners but without it slavery would not have been abolished. Then we used our military might to enforce it outside our territories. Our political might to spread this measure around the world. Slavery had always existed around the world until we played a leading role in stopping it. This is something we can be proud of. I am. Unfortunately we still haven't been completely successful. There is still slavery in Africa. Particularly in Mauritania. There are slave markets in Libya operating now. In the Middle East people are indentured. Conquest and war are history. It has been the case everywhere. Humans are a ruthless species and we seek dominance. When a nation or group has a technological, tactical or numerical advantage they take land from others. It is only here in the West that we think we're beyond that. China is oppressing Uighurs now. They've got troops inside Indian territory now. They teach racial superiority in their schools now - no out of Africa theory for them, they're told they evolved separately. Most importantly people should look at things in context. Slavery was not a European specialty. It was Europe that ended it first. It was the way things were. What did the Romans do for us? Took us as slaves. Well it is true but it is not how I look at them. Very much like Britain they moved the world forward. Britain moved the world forward in many ways. I'm sure there are things we're doing now that future generations will think obscene. Using fossil fuels perhaps. The world changes and moves on. We're not going to pull down the pyramids because slaves built them. That would be stupid. What we have here is a well funded attempt to divide us. No coherent aim or strategy. It is just designed to anger people. The initial grievance is being dealt with by the criminal justice system and everyone agrees that it was a crime. There is a lot of money behind the US protests. Defund the police is just stupid from the perspective of anyone who doesn't want a totalitarian future. It is one of the first things the Nazis did in Germany and the Soviets in Russia. Next step is to replace them with Brown Shirts or a red guard. Then a gulag for thought crime. Record murder rate in Chicago last weekend. Similar in Los Angeles. Police are needed and they mostly do a good job. The whole thing has been hijacked. Statues is about angering people and demoralising them by destroying heritage and attacking nationhood.
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