Edward Colston toppled in Bristol. Credit: Giulia Spadafora/NurPhoto via Getty
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Whenever people ask, I say I’m from Bristol. No one’s heard of where I’m really from (Burnham on Sea – just down the road). Besides, Bristol has always felt so much cooler. My tired old, windswept, provincial coastal town is rather embarrassing by comparison.
Until now. While the tearing down of the Colston statue may have superficially burnished the city’s hip, progressive credentials, it also illuminated the city’s dark side: a history of brutal imperial exploitation, worker rebellion and rampant inequality that never went away.
The city, in 1889, just before the statue was erected, had been described as “a seething centre of revolt”. Britain was in its imperial pomp, but the servants’ quarters were in revolt. The subversive creed of socialism was gaining ground among the West Country’s working class. Respectable Victorian society sought to counter that spirit of rebellion by promoting philanthropists and the paternalistic values of ‘great men’ – men like Edward Colston, who now finds himself sitting in the bottom of the marina while a new generation of rebels cheer.
Today, Bristol is a ‘cultural hub’ in that rather hackneyed term. The artist Banksy, another Bristolian, is a representative figure when it comes to the pseudo-revolutionary aesthetic that seems to emanate from the city’s pores. It is beloved by a stratum of the upper middle class – which is smug, complacent, and not quite as revolutionary as it would like to think.
Because the poor are still very often airbrushed from the city’s public image. Behind the street art, cobbled lanes, ludicrously expensive housing and overpriced drinking dens is a city where many residents struggle to make ends meet.
This is an image carefully curated by the city’s last mayor, George Ferguson. Known for his bright red trousers, Ferguson’s agenda was notoriously light on substance. He created a buzz around the city, while increasing inequality and gentrification — as well as the hole in the city’s finances. Pedestrianisation, tree-planting and the promotion of high-profile festivals were all celebrated achievements – and largely preoccupations of an outer-suburban middle class who made up Ferguson’s voter base.
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SubscribeBristol. Another place to avoid like the plague in a country that by all appearances is being decimated culturally and socially by an institutional infiltration by Marxist/Leninists. Pull down the statues, suppress free speech, do whatever you want. Eventually there’ll be a reckoning – but not led by a Conservative government. The mugs In this country believe that allowing these protesters to do what they want will turn us into a better, more tolerant society rather than Stalin’s Russia. No chance. Not when the politically neutral police (ha!), and politicians, are kneeling in the street to support people whose aim is not equality but usurpation, supported by a government that is Conservative in name only, brought to its own knees by cowardice and do-gooderish, PC nonsense. The people who voted for that shower of invertebrates want something done to reassure us that democracy is intact.
‘Eventually there’ll be a reckoning’
I’m not so sure. The young are happy with the way it’s going. The media people are either happy, or they keep their mouths shut. Conservative voters have nowhere else to give their vote. Old people are inherently compliant and non-violent.
How do you see anything changing?
To reassure you there are very few Marxist Leninists in this country and indeed many Marxists views are not the old state socialist variety – see Chris Dillow’s Stumbling and Mumbling blog. Most of the one’s who believe the extreme stuff are not infiltrating anything.
My best friend is one of em FWIW.
This reverse/false flag astroturfing where people claim [genuinely???] there is a massive Marxist army out there is incoherent to anyone close or even loosely associated with actual Marxists who read Lenin.
This isn’t 1917 Jonathan. They call themselves postmodernists now if they call themselves anything. Look how easily they mobilised people to go beating up the police, torching the Cenotaph and trying to erase Winston Churchill? The puppet masters click their fingers and the mob arrives.
I assume you want all the statues of Stalin and Lenin which were destroyed in Poland, Hungary and all the other former Warsaw Pact to be restored immediately.
What do you imagine was the difference there Francis?
Totally beside the point…..none of those guys who took the plunge ruled Britain to start with, except Churchill…..yes…..I would want hundreds of his statues….he was a racist ? I don’t know……did he put Britain on the winning side…..bloody oath…..he did and saved my country in the process….France…..I don’t recall Chamberlain or Daladier doing it !!
Did you read the article? Your comments are so loaded with emotion and anger that you’re losing the plot.
Bristol is anything but the place your excited imagination describes.
The author describes the city fairly well. Expensive housing with plenty of poor areas in the city. Plenty of inequality.
I’m not quite sure where you have got this idea of a Marxist hotspot. I think I saw a few people wearing Che sweaters a few years back but since then I’ve not seen much else but I’ll keep my ear to the ground on your behalf.
“Get on your bike” springs to mind. Alternatively just stay there, don’t study or work hard, expect government hand outs and blame people who were born 384 years ago for your troubles. Classic post modernist behaviour and manipulation. You may not meet many puppeteers but there are many puppets.
P.S. when I say ‘study’, I don’t mean ‘gender studies’, I mean engineering or brick laying.
I’ve lived in Bristol for 15 years, and I agree with Paul.
As a Bristolian, Born and bred, I can assure you that the vast majority of people at the BLM demo. in Bristol, including some of my family, were neither Marxist Leninists or any other ‘ist. They were ordinary people many in unsafe and 0 hours employment completely pissed off with attitudes like yours. Andy Bennett did a great job to ensure Public and Police safety, for which I applaud him. Intolerance is one thing but your downright lying assertions are not needed.Leave it to locals to sort out.
So you advocate social unrest across the country simply because of ideology and class difference. Vive La France! If everyone across the county took the ‘law’ into their own hands how would that pan out? So what about the downtrodden Irish (or the Scots for that matter), should they push for the removal of all symbols associated with Irish partition and the Scots all symbols of Edward I? Anyone who thinks equality is achievable needs to re read Animal Farm. Society either changes from revolution or evolution; what did we see over the weekend?
In the USA it is perfectly possible to give up on any particular city once it becomes ungovernable, prone to riot and the mob and generally unsafe. This is almost certain going to happen to quite a few of them. Look at current Detroit. Space makes it possible. The trouble here is a lack of space and that means we are stuck with places like Bristol and London and Birmingham.
Some way of living with the cities has to be found. Blessed of I know what that will be but they are not the sort of places i intend to spend any time in .
I think it is normal and right for such visceral acts of public damage to be met with a vitriolic response from people, perhaps like you sir, of the politically opposite persuasion, broadly speaking. I take some exception to your conclusion that we, as Tory voters want reassurance of our country’s democratic systems intact-edness. I fear for that even less than I do, say, our rule of law. I just want these idiots brought to some semblance of justice, lest the mob take hold of something in the greater public spirit that may fester in time. We want to keep the frogs in the pond, just like we wanted Covid-19 in the bat.
I find one part of your article very troubling. Viz:
“Indeed, much has been made, since the toppling, of the importance of removing offensive monuments consensually. But that approach had already been tried in Bristol ” over and again.
In other words, if democracy does not give me the results I require, bring in the mob.
Not a very good way for any society to proceed.
I thought the Merchant Venturers seemed to have the ability to over-rule both the council. there are questions quite often to be had about the power of old Trusts, particularly in halting debate on where the money comes from
In Poole the council have just removed the statue of Baden-Powell from the quayside.
He was homophobic and racist.
We have had no democratic debate over these actions, and there is no mandate. We’ve just sleepwalked into a new society where PC values trump old-fashioned democracy.
Who’s making the rules now?
I thought locals had come to block removal.
The government by giving in to one mob has encouraged another mob who are more likely to be violent as they feel more threatened.
Looking at various threads the majority support the latter although more in words than deeds.
Neil Oliver was right I think to talk about this mob rule being the first baby step that leads to the guillotine and also to quote Solzhenitsyn when the latter wrote the Gulag Archipelago.
Never subtract from history but only add.
On those grounds, it’s certain that Churchill should do. He was both those things as well as mysogynist.
When that statue went up was there a widespread democratic debate over it?
It was erected only a few years ago. Planning consent will have been obtained. That’s how it works in a democracy.
Doubt it – but then again, Colston was being honoured for his philanthropy to the people and the city of Bristol. Very unlikely anyone would have opposed it then, and the local poor benefitted from the man’s generosity. The issue now is where his money came from; at the time this would have been perfectly ‘normal’. We really do have to contextualise this stuff.
Lots of people were homophobic and racist at that time. Probably great-grandparents of many of us had similar views. Judging them now is intolerant in itself. We have moved on and their statues remind us of a different era. There was so much more to these people hence the public sculptures.
Just watch the série the Forsyte on YouTube. Great tv work of 1968 …..and you lol see how people were talking in Victorian times and how prejudiced they were.
My grand father as much as I loved him would never have understood the concept of homosexuality……just prejudices of a time…..to throw statues into the water is just plain stupid…..and a pathetic and fruitless attempt to erase history
“The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones”. As ever it’s shades of grey not all black and white (am I still allowed to say that?).
It was only ten years a go that a Ch4 documentary was hinting that BP was homosexual!! He also is known to have stated openly his admiration for the Matabeleland warriors he fought. it is because he was an Englishman in Africa that he has been classed as racist.
Observation: From the photograph it seems to be mostly white people involved and it is perplexing. There is a lot to be said about what is going on here, and around the Western world (Not much about it here in Africa) and since I’m not about to wright and entire thesis on it, perhaps 1 or 2 points.
No. 1: Being from Africa I always wonder just what is meant by poverty in this 1st world context. To me, poverty is living on about , or having to live on, about a Dollar a day, or 79p per day. Is that how poor and hard done by these people are? I also think that a lot of this type of behaviour has to do with the need to have a purpose or a cause, and perhaps it is even, just plain boredom? I mean, what is being produced or what value is being added by these individuals in order to actually make the things they say are so bad, better? Where is the work?
No. 2: I note that the Mayor, one Marvin Rees,is of mixed race I believe ( Colored ,where I’m from). Now I cannot fathom a semi white, let alone white person, holding a major office in any African Country ( Maybe here & there like Namibia & South Africa) and probably not in Jamaica either, where his father is from. If you want to see racism and tribalism, come visit me in Africa. These people have no idea. SO I find the talk of systemic racism and all these buzz words, bazaar.
No.3 : Last point. Why is it that the people who are the ringleaders in such mobs & ” Protests” ( SJW’s etc) who also, quite often are ( Or become) politicians on some level, almost always people who study or have studied, things like Political “Science” , Political Theory, Gender Studies, Woman studies, Humanities, Social sciences and the like. Very seldom I see them being scholars in the STEM directions, Likewise I seldom to never in the past ( Granted, my experience), observed such demonstrations at places where people learn trades. For example like at technical training centres. I mean I seldom see apprentices to become plumbers, carpenters, electricians, mechanics , pilots, etc behave in this manner. Again , my observation. As I said, there is a lot more to say about these riots and, as far as I’m concerned, bad behaviour. Lets leave it there for now.
There used to be a lot of apprentice riots in the late Middle Ages, but you’re right, they weren’t generally about confected woke outrage.
Let us not forget the Apprentice Boys of Derry, who defended their city against the enemies of William III, the king who granted the Bristol Merchant Venturers a royal charter to engage in the slave trade. But don’t expect his statues to come tumbling down any time soon.
There’s actually a statue of William III in Queen Square in Bristol, so we probably had better start counting our chickens!
“White people” is not a real descriptor of those people unless you are a soft headed racist. They are people who appear to be white skinned. That’s all. Says nothing.
You nailed it……and you bring African nails it even more.
Well done
It shouldn’t be that hard to find the perpetrators – there’s a perfectly good photo at the top of this page for starters. I expect the police have been around and made some arrests already… or possibly not. I can just about accept the argument that the police did not want to aggravate matters on the day by trying to stop the protesters removing the statue, but there is really no excuse for not following this up in subsequent days. Please tell me if I have missed something and the police have said they have made multiple arrests.
I can just about accept the argument that the police did not want to aggravate matters on the day by trying to stop the protesters removing the statue,
I’m sorry but i can’t-the police either enforce the law or they don’t-they are not paid to moralise or emphathise.There should have been a fast and effective shutdown of this -I mean-look at the “revolutionaries”in the picture-they’d probably run a mile if you whacked one of them.
You’ll have a long wait I fear
They are street action heroes not “perpetrators.”
They’re a lawless, anti-democratic mob.
They are Communists.
“It shouldn’t be that hard to find the perpetrators – there’s a perfectly good photo at the top of this page for starters.”
I’ve lived in Bristol for 15 years, and am pretty sure I recognise the gentleman in the blue t shirt and the gentleman next to him in the dark top and beanie hat – almost certainly from Stokes Croft.
Africa in the 1680’s was an even more problematic continent than it is today. Autocratic, tribal rulers held sway over life and death and quite commonly traded the commodities under their remit and control which generally then embraced either or both of ivory and humans, their vassals that were little more than personal chattels of their tribal leader.
Most were chained and marched to the eastern seaboard and traded into and by the arab traders, based in Muscat and Oman. This trade had been in existence for thousands of years.
Tribal leaders realised they could earn more from selling their vassals by trading westward – and so began what came to be known as the Atlantic slave trade wherein the slaves brought to the coast, to Badagere and Goree mainly, by the Chiefs were parlayed to ship’s captains who delivered them to their new owners (they had always just been vassals in their tribal homeland, existing on the whim of a Chief).
This trade existed for about a hundred years after public indignation, most from within Britain brought such an outcry that slavery, at least on the Atlantic route gradually ceased as British men ‘o war patrolled the Atlantic Ocean to bring the practice, in this part of the World to an end.
It of course still continues in other parts of the World to this day, and tribalism, feudalism and “big man” politics still largely shapes and controls the destiny of Africa and Africans.
I’d like the book refs from which you seem to have invented the notion that Africans were more oppressed than for instance Europeans or Chinese of any era. I don’t believe you have them, but I’d be happy to stand corrected. That a European peasant in 1600 was more free than an African could be demonstrated, but you do not do that, you just state it, and it’s weight stands as that of prejudice not fact.
I do know that at various times in England there were hundreds of offenses for which a citizen could be executed, including at one point “insulting the King’s gardens.” Add to that the onerous power of the institutional religious authorities and the ugly and mean processes of early capitalism and one must set aside common sense in favor bigotry to accept your view. This of course says nothing of how oppressed one might have been as a Jew or other minority. As I say I am open to some references in serious works that demonstrate otherwise.
“That a European peasant in 1600 was more free than an African could be demonstrated, but you do not do that”
He didn’t say that. You did.
“you seem to have invented the notion that Africans were more oppressed than for instance Europeans or Chinese of any era”
He didn’t say that either, but I would point out that there wasn’t wholesale slavery going on in Europe, apart from the raids by north Africans and the Middle East of towns and villages all along the Mediterranean coast, the English and Irish coasts, to the point that at least one whole English village was taken.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…
Middle class SJW confected outrage and virtue signalling. Most people had never heard of Colsten before this week and I can’t imagine them being particularly bothered. I doubt any statues we have up are of people without sin. Tear them all down?
We have equality of opportunity in this country enshrined in law. What some people can’t accept is that this is not the same as equality of outcome; and never will be unless we reach the Venezuela model. Perhaps that is where the rioting crowd would like to take us.
Tripod. For what its worth. I’m 100% with you. Interesting though. I hear an eco of words spoken by Jesus as per John 8:7. “let him who is without sin cast the first stone”
You think there is equality of outcome in Venezuela? Equality for the 90 per cent who are hungry – perhaps. But what about the senior politicians and the military? The old communist countries had a similar wealth and income distribution. No society has ever achieved equality of outcome (even if it were a worthwhile objective). The natural order is inequality and western economies have shown that one can make things more equal without destroying incentives.
I was very disturbed by the photo. I expected to see a group of young idealists, but instead realized that some of the people in the picture are even older than me. I wonder how empty and mediocre their lives must be that they need to go into town and demolish a cultural artifact?
The photo is strangely bereft of cultural diversity – what is really going on? looks remarkably like a Momentum team meeting which given BLM published aims and objectives would be easy to understand. Small activist groups are hijacking other people genuine grievances for ulterior motives
Africa in the 1680’s was an even more problematic continent than it is today. Autocratic, tribal rulers held sway over life and death and quite commonly traded the commodities under their remit and control which generally then embraced either or both of ivory and humans, their vassals that were little more than personal chattels of their tribal leader.
Most were chained and marched to the eastern seaboard and traded into and by the arab traders, based in Muscat and Oman. This trade had been in existence for thousands of years.
Tribal leaders realised they could earn more from selling their vassals by trading westward – and so began what came to be known as the Atlantic slave trade wherein the slaves brought to the coast, to Badagere and Goree mainly, by the Chiefs were parlayed to ship’s captains who delivered them to their new owners (they had always just been vassals in their tribal homeland, existing on the whim of a Chief).
This trade existed for about a hundred years after public indignation, most from within Britain brought such an outcry that slavery, at least on the Atlantic route gradually ceased as British men ‘o war patrolled the Atlantic Ocean to bring the practice, in this part of the World to an end.
It of course still continues in other parts of the World to this day, and tribalism, feudalism and “big man” politics still largely shapes and controls the destiny of Africa and Africans.
Blue Lines Matter. (That’s a reference to Massive Attack, not the police.)
Sleepwalking to utter disaster with no signs of rude awakening by our effete, ineffectual political masters. They are transfixed in the headlights of Political Correctness and judgement by Twitter. Say nothing, do nothing and hope that it will all calm down and resolve itself.
Resolve itself it will, but not in any shape the right on, middle class clowns wearing BLM tee-shirts or chucking statues into harbours will ultimately appreciate. When the snarling wolves of radical extremists arrive at their doors it will not be to check their privileges, it will be to extinguish them.
During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution a mob in Budapest smashed a perfectly lovely 10 m statue of Stalin which was a present from the USSR.
After the fall of communism another lovely statue — this time of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret pllice — was destroyed in Warsaw.
This woke plague has been around for some time it would seem.
WARNING —
THIS POST CONTAINS TRACE OF SARCASM
What you should have said is WARNING. THIS POST IS WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A 382 YEAR OLD WHO AFFECTS NO ONE ALIVE TODAY AND WAS NOT A MASS MURDERER, AND THE MASS MURDERERS OF THE STALINIST ERA AND SUBSEQUENT DECADES.
Spot the postmodernist.
It does not seem as if the new mayor has achieved anything at all (your evidence, not mine).In fact, I don’t know what you are trying to say. Inequalties? Yes. Causes? Racism (a handy catch-all meaningless word). Solutions? None. Rather a waste of time reading it.
Are you saying the Left are hypocritical? Well I am shocked. Not.
An interesting article and a timely reminder that there is a risk that the current wave of statue removals could become a tokenistic fad which evaporates as we return to some form of “normality”. I sincerely hope not. Many of us remember the riots of Toxteth, Handsworth, St Pauls, Chapeltown etc and wonder if they brought about any lasting changes. I fear that local government and civic leadership, however good or bad, has been so eviscerated by austerity and this Brexit-focussed central government that it lacks the capacity to tackle the most important elements of equality…housing, health, jobs.
In the USA all the cities in trouble are run by Democrats. Police chiefs, mayors etc. Same here.
“Many of us remember the riots of Toxteth, Handsworth, St Pauls, Chapeltown etc and wonder if they brought about any lasting changes.”
To be honest, and I speak as a fairly mainstream tory to whom BLM seems increasingly sinister, I reckon that the riots you mention did bring about a noticeable improvement in the police’s treatment of ethnic minorities.
“Democracy has failed” is emerging as some sort of catch phrase. It seems to mean that a self-satisfied minority has failed to impose its will on the majority, to which I say good! That is democracy succeeding! The definition of a minority riding roughshod over the majority is not democracy, but tyranny.
On the matter of statues, they are pointless celebrations of vanity (or sycophancy) for the most part and I wouldn’t lift a finger to save any of them. On the other hand, they hardly merit the time and effort needed to discus their merit individually, then selectively dispose of the ones that happen to offend some shrinking violets’ sensitivities. Maybe mother Theresa had bad personal hygiene, or Nelson Mandela beat his wife. Perhaps Florence Nightingale was a cold and arrogant sociopath with a mono-mania. It doesn’t matter who the statue represents, there is bound to be some facet (or alleged facet) of their character that somebody dislikes.
We could better spend that resource on improving the worst of our schools for instance. I forget – that takes sustained time and effort, and gets no headlines.
what a mess ‘we’ are in-
why are almost all of these replies from men?
Why does someone have the sweeping arrogance to say the old are compliant and don’t care? Age prejudice ???
Where is there any mention of the white poor working class boy & girls without jobs hopes housing etc?
Does anyone seriously think that any of this shallow self righteous and unthinking media driven behaviour- (largely by males from what i can see?) will and can bring about serious structural change- and the changing of minds and hearts.
How far back in history do you want to go?
Every generation looks back on the last and sees the morality and ethics and behaviour of the previous as in many ways wrong- sometimes, as now, deeply and profoundly wrong- no generation will ever have the moral perspective (even the shallow minded emotionally paranoid identity politics of now) to make decisions that will last for ever.
Ninteen faces in the photo. Three of them coloured. 16 very much white. It does lead me to question.
The Office for National Statistics and the Home Office estimate that there are more than 10,000 slaves in the United Kingdom today.I suspect that the statue-topplers are never going to address contemporary British slavery because of the identity of the slavers.
I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back.
A lot of the vacuous virtue signalling of the university educated classes puts me in mind of Tolstoys powerful phrase. Talk is cheap. Real societal fairness is much harder.
Not sure people pulling down a statue on a march had much choice in making deeper points indeed in terms of focus it may be a misstep but what else gets publicity and makes a statement.
I do know was quite shocked when Dad drove me down hill from genteel Dundry to get a Racing Post getting served through perspex in an offie [Bishopworth].
Why are none of the comments here about the substance of the article? There are plenty of other places for you post your twopennyworth about mobs and ‘PC nonsense’.
FWIW, I think that the author makes his case very well; we do focus on the obvious and headline grabbing stuff, because it’s easier than getting to grips with the real injustices.
Probably because elsewhere such sentiment is heavily censored.
Instead of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Bristolians are trying to keep up with the Bathonians when most of us study and work as to be as happy as the Royale family.
Equality of outcome, as a right, does nothing more than create resentment, victimhood, consumerism and unhappiness.
Other than changing date/location isn’t this really just a ‘copy and paste’ rework of the standard ‘failing inner city’ narrative?
No jobs. No Hope. No Future etc etc.
The usual suspects: opportunistic wealthy kleptocrats and a selfish white middle-class in willful denial of the ‘Truth’.
A few new wrinkles added over the years.
All of the legal and legislative racism was removed years ago so now racism is ‘systemic’.
Turning a decaying neighbourhood around with shops, living spaces and jobs – so that people actually want to live there – is actually a bad thing called ‘gentrification’.
But mostly the narrative is age-old and un-changing.
All the socioeconomic stats and metrics are at the bad end of the scale.
In most cases, especially in the US, the ‘good guys’ are in charge: the Democrats.
Bristol apparently has had the correct leadership for five years.
Yet the problems persist as they have for decades.
Is it not possible that the problems and solutions do not exist exclusively outside the aggrieved group?
so in a relatively short piece I counted: “Woke” (x2), “Hip”, “Progressive credentials” “hemp-shirted” “dreadlocks” “university student” “liberal identity politics”. (presumably 2 x woke means there is no need for “PC”). This is machine-writing of the worst sort. The issue of the Statue of Colston does now invite us to look critically at perhaps where the elegance of the Regency Period, the agricultural improvements the industrial developments got their investment from. George Orwell once described Britain as “a family ………with a deep conspiracy of silence as to where the money comes from”, I think he would have given the rope around Colston’s neck a good tug!
There is a persistent myth that this country was poor before say the 19th century. In fact we had probably the richest agricultural economy in Europe and as for sheep and cattle and pigs the numbers were astounding. The sheep sold at the quarterly fairs numbered in the 100thousands. We probably cultivated more land than we do today. Turnips were a major crop for animal feed By far.
The wealth of England in particular was based on this.
You could argue that we financed our overseas ventures from this abundance.
Interesting, thanks!
Sadly. then as now, that wealth was not manifested in the hands of the producers.
All I can say to these idiotic Marxist agitators is: ‘You’re going to be very sorry. Either you’ll get your wish and a Communist regime will come to power or an opposing force will take control. In either event you’re going to be incarcerated or subject to years of hard labour or shot against a wall’.
I’m largely in sympathy with the article – my wife has been and continues to be the object of institutional racism. But I would really like to see some statistical support for the author’s claim that Covid has been “disproportionately killing black people”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/…
Africa in the 1680’s was an even more problematic continent than it is today. Autocratic, tribal rulers held sway over life and death and quite commonly traded the commodities under their remit and control which generally then embraced either or both of ivory and humans, their vassals that were little more than personal chattels of their tribal leader.
Most were chained and marched to the eastern seaboard and traded into and by the arab traders, based in Muscat and Oman. This trade had been in existence for thousands of years.
Tribal leaders realised they could earn more from selling their vassals by trading westward – and so began what came to be known as the Atlantic slave trade wherein the slaves brought to the coast, to Badagere and Goree mainly, by the Chiefs were parlayed to ship’s captains who delivered them to their new owners (they had always just been vassals in their tribal homeland, existing on the whim of a Chief).
This trade existed for about a hundred years after public indignation, most from within Britain brought such an outcry that slavery, at least on the Atlantic route gradually ceased as British men ‘o war patrolled the Atlantic Ocean to bring the practice, in this part of the World to an end.
It of course still continues in other parts of the World to this day, and tribalism, feudalism and “big man” politics still largely shapes and controls the destiny of Africa and Africans.
The woke and PC brigade would have us believe that Africa was full of little angels . In New Zealand Maori did not treat each other badly before the Colonists arrived. How many millions did Shaka Zulu slaughter. Where were the international protests when the Tsutsis were slaughtered as ” cockroaches” by the Hutus.Now all Colonial Statues must come down, Cecil Rhodes, Francis Drake, Jan Smuts to name a few. Next the woke crowd will be calling for Italy’s Collecium to be bulldozed… Gladiators were mostly slaves! Can we not all treat each other as human beings and be more accepting of our differences. There is no justice on The Left or The Right or the Communists or Fascists. They all have their own agendas. We humans are sick and we have made our planet sickly as well.
This is al getting unhinged. Surely all this statue commemorated was the ideal of the philanthropic man – no one has ever celebrated where his wealth came from. Now we know better, a statue reminds us that the past was more complex and we can celebrate the good deeds and condemn the bad deeds.
Take away the statue and there is nuance. There is just a dark unknown past where our ancestors were all evil and we must start again in our perfect world.
Mr Colston and his statue are now more famous then at any other time in history. Those who morn his fall from grace and are upset by his underwater skirmishes would do well to remember that. Now resurrected from his watery grave, Mr Colston ,warts and all , will be displayed in some museum somewhere in Bristol.
No doubt this may attract more visitors to Bristol now than he ever did when stood up in his pedestal, unchallenged.
There can be discussions and debates about this many more years and maybe there will never be a settlement or truce , but no doubt the city of Bristol will profit from it.
This is not the end of history it is just another chapter in history. Its easy to call these people names but they have probably done us all service
Brilliantly cutting.
I chuckled most of my way through. Identifying with the ‘woke’ community I find myself living with.
I’m observing; to be truly woke, lots of money really does help.
I’ve never seen so many white people!
I am Bristol born and bred, from Clifton (when it was a slum in the 60`s and 70`s). I left because of the stifling wokeness and intolerance, you cannot have open debate. I last lived in Victoria Park and in the 15 years I lived there, I watched manual workers priced out into Knowle West and Hartcliffe, by the gentrification of the area by woke left wing liberals. My neighbours did not care about inequality unless it came with some diversity and a large dose of virtue signalling and they couldn`t catch the stench of their own hypocrisy. I have now moved to Somerset- a more honest, equal, and genuinely caring society.
Nothing says that “black lives matter” more than a group of white guys attacking a statue, not even locals, where were the locals in all this?, in the US the killing of George Floyd was kidnapped by black lives matter, here in the UK the UKBLM organisation is a group of (in their own eyes) radicals, who cite the destruction of capitalism as one of their goals, no doubt they have attracted those other left wing professional demonstrators who normally show up at other events, it doesn’t seem genuine to me, the government will probably throw money and resources fruitlessly at deprived black areas in an effort to uplift those people living there, not much will change.
Great Article , well thought out , spent a few days in Bristol a few years ago a totally underwhelming experience , so much here reminds me of how I felt then. Obviously lots of good things but so much all faux fur coat and no knickers
It’s a good article made some valid points but I did feel like it skirted the real issues a bit? I don’t know, perhaps it’s just me.
Picture at the start tells you all you need to know about this act of virue signalling.Hence:
political activism is dominated by university students, more deep-rooted inequalities are sometimes passed over by campaigners in favour of headline-grabbing stunts.
Who says black people hated the statue? Didn’t the vast majority of them and everyone else not care a toss about it? And as in Bristol so elsewhere in Britain and the universe, as has been the case everywhere and always.
I read the the headline and expected a Spiked-type farrago of reactionary nonsense. Instead I got an informed and informative article expressing a certain caution. Those subs are not working in your favour James.
Another article/author who discusses inequity and inequality without distinguishing between whether he means equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. To call that an “important distinction” is more than a small understatement.
Personally I think improving employment opportunities and helping people get off of the welfare teat would be a more lasting legacy than creating yet more council housing – the ghettos of the next generation.
The whole point of a statue, one would like to explain to the angry ones, is that it outlasts its time.
Slavery? The racist in me says: get over it and I am no fan of BBC type knee-jerk PC unblacking, nevertheless I get that the inbuilt injustice between white folks and black folks means that history is vulnerable to a reaction: a tipping point.
The overturning of statues is an overtly revolutionary act. These people want to turn things on their head, to dislodge white folks default assumption of superiority. The white folks like the mob https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/black-lives-matter-hertfordshire-protests-racist-abuse-a9557721.html in Hertfordshire baying: go back to Africa
Overturning a statue – tipping it over – is a historical marker as valid as the erection of the statue in the first place. I saw no pompous waffling about the sanctity of history from right-wing commentators when American soldiers tugged down Saddam.
The young mixed-race zealots at work in the streets all round the world are only misguided if you deplore the iconoclasm, the breakages and pillages that went along with the English Reformation: seeking justice and liberty is painful all round: get over it.
Nice fluid article, very reasonable. I would note that smart street wise people like myself simply ignore the stunts. The press are lazy and on a timeline, they cannot set aside available mayhem, but smart watchers don’t judge actions of large swaths by the most glaring action they take. The salient of these demonstrations is two-fold: they are out there, and they are CONTINUALLY out there.
Obtuse stunts are just statistical aberration of large crowds. Back in the day during the US Civil Rights Movement there was non-violence training for people who intended to participate in disobedience and wanted to monkey wrench the system while remaining respectable to the huge dense lazy mass of Middle America and that worked. However the whole structure of Civil Disobedience has faded over the last 40 years as people were shut up with cheap stuff at WalMart instead of justice. The subtle tricks of appropriate street action have been lost to this generation. So it comes as ZERO surprise that the newbie disobedient are rather much disorganized, and thus act out.
As useful of course would have been a 24/7 watch guard of well informed speakers surrounding the statue, constantly speaking on the truth about the man in Brit history, taking the object and using it against it’s constructors original intentions – taking ownership of it. The demonstration class of today is not up to that sort of subtly, yet. They will be eventually.
As somebody who has lived in Bristol for over 30 years I have a couple of observations on your very thought-provoking article.
The lack of social mobility is connected to the poor quality of many of Bristol’s schools. Only 8 of the 25 secondary schools had a performance rating of above average, while 9 were either “Below Average” or “Well below average”. Not all of this can be laid at the feet of the socio-economic status of the students and their families. The local authority needs to take a good deal of the blame.
The second is Bristol City Council itself. Since it was formed in 1973 it has been run by Labour for 31 of those 47 years (66%), the Lib Dems for 2 years and with NOC for the remaining 14 years. The Labour Party has routinely failed the city, as indeed did the Lib Dems. Re-electing the same people, on the same failed platform, and expecting different results must be included in the definition of madness.
Finally I am rather disturbed by your attitude towards democracy. You appear to be justifying criminal action on the basis that those who wanted the statue removed couldn’t do it via democratic means. You know what? In a democracy you don’t always get your own way. When that happens you campaign a bit harder and keep making your case. The idea that it was being blocked by nefarious means is risible. Labour control the council and had no problem tearing up most of the area around the statue’s location. Are you really telling me that the Labour majority on BCC could not have removed that statue to a museum if they’d wanted to? My own favoured solution would have been to build a large and graphic memorial to the victims of the slave trade right next to Colston’s statue so that people could be educated by the presence of the two, but I was perfectly happy to accept the result of any democratic process.
“There are some good points made in this article but he ruins it with unsubstantiated straw-man arguments.
Firstly, the liberal middle-class in Bristol did not approve of the statue being torn down – it was something organised by black members of grassroots political movements, some of whom I know personally. There is a constant struggle between Labour/left-wing activists campaigning and pushing for genuine change to address the issues brought about by the gentrification of the city and this “pseudo-revolutionary, middle-class, woke identity politics” types the author refers to. Those people usually vote for the Libdems and Green Party and live in areas like Clifton, Montpellier, etc. So he is like “oh look at the hypocrisy of these statue topplers, they live in their expensive houses and drink expensive coffee and look at art” blah blah blah… “how dare they topple the statue..”… No! they aren’t the ones who toppled it! It was the struggling, poor, youth of Bristol who spends half their income on rent that toppled the Colston statue as an act of rebellion and a middle finger to precisely those middle-class boomers he is conflating them with! This was only after years, as he rightly points out, of petitions to have it removed being pushed back by the Merchant Venturers Society.
Secondly, nobody was ” complacent about the spread of a virus which, while perhaps not affecting them, has been disproportionately killing …black people.” nor was it “frowned upon.. to point this out” – It was actually deliberated upon quite a lot and the black protestors involved (of which I’d say were overly represented at the protest – at least 1/4 or 1/5)” – felt this was a risk people in the black community were willing to take for their right to protest.
And no – this isn’t just superficial “identity politics” – (although certain streams of the media have appropriated it for such purposes). It is precisely about highlighting the economic inequality in the city and across the world that persists to this day, whilst also trying to illustrate how inextricably connected it is to history. So far, I’d say it has done a pretty good job of bringing these discussions to the forefront of public discourse.
Other than that, I agree with his praise for Rees and the city council who have done a pretty good job with limited resources.”
Just so you know, I pasted the reply I had from an associate to whom I sent this article, which was then not posted on this forum. In that reply my associate stated that the statue was torn down by “poor young people,” and that the iconoclasty was performed by black activists of their acquaintance with intent beforehand rather than the middle-class weekend warriors that the author suggested. This action had been performed after repeated attempts to have the statue removed had been blocked by the Merchant Venturers. I say this to distance myself from the ealier post and also to state my opposition to the undemocratic removal of any structure by groups of political vigilantes.
The police said they have identified those involved in taking down the statue. Operationally they have decided to deal with this in a sensible way. One piece of property was damaged and those involved will be dealt with as they see fit after the event.
The alternative could have easily been a riot with far more damage. I’m sure the police could send in the riot squad but I don’t think that would be best. I’d rather see the statue go down then see a riot. Face reality. Like it or not riots happen. Really, they do.
This seems like a very sensible policing decision to me. To suggest that the law should be upheld at any and all cost is being optimistic at best. I would put the safety of officers above the protection of property.
You are now free to democratically reinstate the statue if you’re so confident that’s what Bristol wants.
“Safety of officers above protection of property” Really?
If that’s what you want, call the Girl Guides.
However when the mob smashes its way into your house, trashes your stuff, sodomises your wife and kills your children, will you not, with blatant hypocrisy call 999? Grow up!
However on a positive note, your news that the Constabulary has identified the culprits is excellent news.
To attempt to label them as marxists or anarchists is irrelevant. Just canaille will do nicely.
Never back down to a mob. Whatever the cost.
Odio profanum vulgus et arceo.
How apposite of you to bring in dear old Horace. I wonder what he would have made of all this nonsense?
By the way shouldn’t it be odi not odio?
In the ‘good old days’ that might have lead to the charming sound of malacca cane on unprotected buttocks.
Thanks for the correction. I relied without checking on my nearly 40 year old Latin a-level.
I was only beaten once at school, and that was for a minor act of wanton criminal damage. Got what I deserved for being a little twerp.
Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 film ‘If’,
caught the splendid beating era at its very demise. Whilst the ‘Romans go home’ scene from the1976, ‘Life of Brian’, brought home the joy of Latin prep. For some reason we no longer make such funny films now. It all so boringly woke/pc.
It’s precisely because of the woke stranglehold.