OLD CONTENT:
The recently ongoing movement to remove colonialist statues started with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Must_Fall
Rhodes Must Fall (#RhodesMustFall) was a protest movement that began on 9 March 2015, originally directed against a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that commemorates Cecil Rhodes. The campaign for the statue's removal received global attention[2][3] and led to a wider movement to "decolonise" education across South Africa.[3][4] On 9 April2015, following a UCT Council vote the previous night, the statue was removed.
Rhodes Must Fall captured national headlines throughout 2015 and sharply divided public opinion in South Africa. It also inspired the emergence of allied student movements at other universities, both within South Africa and elsewhere in the world.
then in the US acquired an understandable emphasis on removing Confederate monuments:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Confederate_monuments_and_memorials
In the wake of the Charleston church shooting in June 2015, several municipalities in the United States removed monuments and memorials on public property dedicated to the Confederate States of America. The momentum accelerated in August 2017 after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[1][2][3] The removals were driven by the belief that the monuments glorify white supremacy and memorialize a government whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery.[4][5][6][7][8] Many of those who object to the removals, like President Trump, claim that the artifacts are part of the cultural heritage of the United States.[9]
though also including some other statues:
hyperallergic.com/430694/san-francisco-racist-statute/
but elsewhere retains its primarily anti-colonialist focus:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/22/toppling-statues-nelsons-column-should-be-next-slaverywww.ft.com/content/7ae28cf4-8e09-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825dwww.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/06/canada-halifax-statue-edward-cornwalliswww.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/02/captain-cook-statue-removed-new-zealand-mountain-maori-protests/The most common rightist criticism of this movement is to accuse it of being an attempt to somehow "erase history", which is of course nonsense. Far from wanting to erase history, we are positively generating public interest in history by revisiting who built the statues, what the statues mean to their builders, why they deserve to beremoved, and indeed why it took so long for calls for their removal to begin. We are certainly not trying to make people forget the existence of the historical figures portrayed by the statues. If we were, we wouldalso be trying to ban teaching of colonial history, which not even rightists accuse us of (in fact they tend to accuse us of the opposite: of excessively promoting the teaching of colonial history!). No, a statue of a historical figure represents celebration or veneration of that figure. That is what we are opposed to: a colonialist statue still standing in a supposedly post-colonial country implies that the country has not yet really been decolonized, at least not in spirit. The truth is that rightists to this day remain proud of the colonial era, which iswhy they are defending their statues. Some are honest enough to admit this, others are not, but these two groups stand together in defending their statues.
What makes the rightist position all the more absurd is that many of these rightists claim to be "nationalists". By defending colonialist statues, they prove they are anything but. Nationalism is anti-colonialism. We who call for the removal of colonialist statues are the true nationalists, and we should be proudly taking back this label (among others):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Must_Fall#Supporting_student_who_made_Pro-Hitler_and_anti-Semitic_remarks
On 25 April 2015, Mcebo Dlamini, then president of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of Wits University (a South African public research university), stated in a Facebook post that he “loves Adolf Hitler” … Dlamini later declared during a radio interview on PowerFM that “Jews are devils,” a remark which led the South African Jewish Board of Deputies to lay criminal charges of hate speech against him.
Nevertheless, I suggest that in order to sidestep the rightist invective as efficiently as possible, we could consider (as an alternative to removing entire statues) just decapitating each statue and displaying the disembodied head hanging adjacent to the rest of the statue. This would visually prove beyond any doubt that we are not trying to make people think that the colonialists (and, by inference, the colonial era)never existed, but merely declaring what we think of colonialists.
As for the issue of legality, the basic line of reasoning is adequately covered as follows:
www.dailytarheel.com/article/2018/10/maya-little-trial-1021Holmes tried to build a case that Little’s actions — dousing the statue and its pedestal in red paint and her blood — were justified under the necessity defense, which asserts that citizens can violate laws that contradict the big-picture wishes of the Constitution.
“In our history, people have had to commit crimes in order to raise the issues,” Holmes said. “Because the laws and the government’s complicity in racism has required them to break the law.”
Holmes linked Little’s case to that of the Friendship Nine, a group of black men who were arrested for staging a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in South Carolina in 1961.
“It sometimes becomes necessary to breaksome sort of technical minor law in order to vindicate the broader values of the Constitution,” Holmes said.
In 2015, the FriendshipNine's convictions were ceremoniously overturned. At court, the judge — the nephew of the judge who originally sentenced the group — said, "We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history.”
Holmes said henoted comparisons in the cases to argue that Little’s charges were the same sort of situation, civil disobedience that would be considered favorably in the eyes of history, like the illegal assistance northerners gave to slaves on the Underground Railroad, a violation of the Fugitive Slave Act.
The Equal Protection Clause has also beencited in lawsuits pertaining to courthouses’ display of the Confederateflag, but those cases were civil whereas Little’s was criminal. The combination of the necessity defense in conjunction with the Equal Protection violation is new, Holmes said.
Please use this topic not only to discuss the issue, but to post news updates on particular statue removal campaigns, and to point out currently untargeted statues that you would like to see removed. If we could eventually build up full lists of colonialist statues in every country, that would be awesome.
...
Here is a good one:
www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2018/10/18/The-Stone-Mountain-carving-plays-a-complicated-role-in-the-race-for-Georgia-governor/stories/201810180211Stacey Abrams, a Democrat and former State House minority leader, is the firstblack woman in the country to win a major party’s nomination for governor, and it was Ms. Abrams, 44, who injected Stone Mountain into the contest.
...
In a flurry of posts on Twitter, Ms. Abrams declared the Stone Mountain carving “a blight on our state,” and called for it to be removed.
...
her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, haschosen a different focus, winning his party’s primary with a series of provocative ads in which he brandished a shotgun and said he might use his own pickup truck to deport “criminal illegals.”
Mr. Kemp, who is white, has, like President Donald Trump, denounced the movement to take down Confederate monuments. In July, as the Atlanta NAACP planned aprotest calling for the removal of the Stone Mountain carving, Mr. Kempsaid on Facebook that he would protect it from “the radical left.”
...
The idea to carve the side of the mountain was hatched in 1914. The next year, the Klan, which had faded after first emerging during Reconstruction, was revived atop the mountain with a cross burning.
Proponents of the carving had strong Klan ties, with one early booster, Helen Plane, even suggesting that Klansmen be included in the carving. The group, she wrote, “saved us from Negro domination and carpetbag rule.”
The carving effort stalled during the Great Depression, but in 1954, MarvinGriffin, a candidate for governor, stumped on a promise to uphold segregation in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling — and to finish the carving.
After Mr. Griffin’s election, the state bought the land in 1958, writing into law that it was meant to be operated as a “perpetual memorial” to the Confederacy.
This is what the carving looks like:
Cananyone seriously deny that the mountainside would have looked infinitely better if left untouched? What, then, does this say about theaesthetic sense of those responsible for this overt vandalism? The Stone Mountain carving is a symbolic microcosm of Western civilization, whose very existence is a form of continuous rudeness and disrespect towards everything around it. Removing the carving now, of course, will not restore the mountainside to what it used to be before the carving was made, and so be it. Let the indelible scar on the stone stand as a brutally honest reminder of the blight upon the world that Western civilization has been. Nevertheless, erasing the carving itself will at least show that we have had enough of tolerating its hubris in thinking that its existence actually improved the world when it could not be moreaesthetically clear that nothing could be further from the truth.
(Offtopic, here is an example of how to make mountainsides look better:
agrifarmingtips.com/terrace-step-farming-inca-advantages-and-disadvantages/ )
---
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6462695/Mayor-removes-highly-valuable-Gainsborough-painting-office-links-slave-trade.htmlCleo Lake took down the 'dull and dated' portrait of Lord Nugent from the walls of City Hall in Bristol.
Paintedby the artist Thomas Gainsborough, the portrait shows Lord Nugent holding a copy of the 1750 Act for the Regulation of the Slave Trade, which he helped pass through parliament.
...
Earlier this year, the Mayor took down a portrait of the Bristol slave trader Edward Colston, whose ships transported nearly 100,000 Africans to the Americas.
And as always we get to learn a bit more about history in the process:
WHAT WERE LORD NUGENT'S LINKS TO THE SLAVE TRADE?
The politician Robert Craggs Nugent (1709-1788) represented Bristol in the House of Commons from 1754 until 1774.
By 1782, he had become the longest continually-serving member of the Commons, and so became the Father of the House.
He was involved in the 1750 Act of Parliament.
The1750 Act dissolved the Royal Africa Company and transferred its assets to the African Company of Merchants - the slave trading posts that existed in what is now Ghana.
This was an important step in turning the transatlantic slave trade from a lucrative one for Bristol merchants into a trade that took place on an industrial scale.
Edward Colston: Bristol's beloved son and wealthy slave trader
Edward Colston was born to a wealthy merchant family in Bristol, 1636.
After working as an apprentice at a livery company he began to explore the shipping industry and started up his own business.
He later joined the Royal African Company and rose up the ranks to Deputy Governor.
TheCompany had complete control of Britain's slave trade, as well as its gold and Ivory business, with Africa and the forts on the coast of west Africa.
During his tenure at the Company his ships transported around 80,000 slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and America.
Around 20,000 of them, including around 3,000 or more children, died during the journeys.
...
Aa statue commemorating Colston in Bristol, a plaque reads: 'Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city.'
There are at least 20 roads, schools, pubs, businesses and buildings named after Edward Colston, and the slave trader is still commemorated and celebrated in the city.
WE WILL REPLACE YOU!
---
www.independent.co.uk/voices/poll-shows-brits-are-proud-of-colonialism-clearly-they-havent-heard-of-these-colonial-crimes-a6823151.htmlWhen we are taught about Empire we are rarely given the gruesome details that counter the idea of Britain being a benevolent Imperial power. Thisis partly due to a whitewashing of history curriculums. This was only exacerbated by attempts from Michael Gove to turn the history syllabus into nationalist propaganda. To add to this views put forward by pop historians such as Andrew Roberts serve to glorify Empire.
...
David Cameron ruled out apologizing for the slave trade and the Amritsar massacre. This is in spite of the fact that Cameron and his wife have ancestral links to the slave trade.
The more statues pulled down, the more chances to raise awareness of history. It is happening, even if slowly:
www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/racist-gandhi-statue-removed-from-university-of-ghanaStudents at the university welcomed the decision to remove the statue. “It’s a massive win for all Ghanaians because it was constantly reminding us of how inferior we are,” Benjamin Mensah told Agence France-Presse.
The head of language, literature and drama at the Institute of African Studies, Obadele Kambon, said the removal was an issue of “self-respect”.
“If we show that we have no respect for ourselvesand look down on our own heroes and praise others who had no respect for us, then there is an issue,” he said.
“If we indeed don’t show any self-respect for our heroes, how can the world respect us? Thisis victory for black dignity and self-respect. The campaign has paid off.”
---
One McKinley statue down:
www.times-standard.com/2019/02/28/mckinley-statue-removed-from-arcata-plaza/Good job!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley#Peace_and_territorial_gain
McKinleyalso pursued the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii. The new republic, dominated by business interests, had overthrown the Queen in 1893 when she rejected a limited role for herself.[159] ... McKinley biographer H. Wayne Morgan notes, "McKinley was the guiding spirit behind the annexation of Hawaii, showing ... a firmness in pursuing it";[162] the President told Cortel, "We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny."[163]
---
As you may know, Portugal has a verylong history of colonialism, and a history of being very proud of it. In the 1940s, during the nationalist dictatorship of the Estado Novo, they erected a "Monument to the Discoveries" (Padrão dos Descobrimentos):
This disgusting 52-meter-high colossus celebrates the main figures associated with Portuguese colonialism. The square right in front of it has a similarly colossal compass rose and a world map, gifts of none other than
Apartheid South Africa.
In a country such as this, public talks of decolonization are almost non-existent. But there are things in the works, and I mentioned that monument for this recent exhibition about Africa being held in it:
www.padraodosdescobrimentos.pt/pt/evento/visita-conversada-com-2/The significance of such a thing being held in that specific monument should not be lost on us.
---
globalnews.ca/news/5081694/sir-john-a-macdonald-statue-vandalized-once-again-in-downtown-montreal/
Activists calling themselves #MacdonaldMustFall group claimed responsibility, saying the vandalism comes on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination promulgated by the United Nations and was done in solidarity with other worldwide actions against racism.
Keep the pressure on!
theconversation.com/john-a-macdonald-should-not-be-forgotten-nor-celebrated-101503
even by historical standards, a story by Rachel Décoste in the Huffington Post shows that Macdonald was “way more racist than his contemporaries.”
...
while Macdonald was prime minister, the Métis were attacked twice, the Canadian army led an unprovoked attack against Chief Poundmaker’s people, many First Nations and Métis leaders were jailed (with a number of them dying in jail or shortly after they were released), Louis Riel was hanged for treason even though he was an American citizen, the largest mass execution in Canadian history occurred with the hanging of eight Cree and Assiniboine men in North Battleford, Sask. The Indian Actwas amended and became much more oppressive and punitive and a starvation policy was implemented.
Further reading:
rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/jesse/2015/01/10-crimes-john-macdonald
www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/01/13/should_we_really_be_celebrating_sir_john_a_macdonalds_birthday.html---
www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-hostile-indians-sign-20190430-story.htmlA historical marker at Fort Garrison in Stevenson has been removed after officials received a complaint regarding its use of the term “hostile Indians.”
...
It is indicative of weighted language and bias that some Americans have toward Native American history, Harley said, and no trepresentative of the fact that the original colonists forcibly displaced the native population, mostly through violence and force.
...
the bishop brushed aside the idea of preserving the marker’s historical significance, even in the sense that it represents a period of time in which these sentiments were more widely accepted.
In response, he quoted a West African proverb that says, “The lion’s story will never be known as long as the hunter is the one to tell it.”
(Next, Israel will talk about "hostile Palestinians".....)