June 15, 2020 - 6:14pm
Writing for The Telegraph, the Prime Minister had a few things to say about the statues controversy. For instance:
Some of our leading academics didn’t like it very much. Here’s a tweet from Robert Saunders of Oxford University:
If the Prime Minister had been attacking the Black Lives Matter campaign, Saunders might have had a point. But where in the piece does Johnson do that? As for “[writing] back in histories that have been erased” — that is precisely what Johnson goes on to argue for:
…Rather than tear down the past, why not add some of the men and women – most often BAME – who helped to make our modern Commonwealth and our modern world?
Another academic, Tim Bale of Queen Mary University London, responded to Saunders’ tweet with this observation:
However, “what historians do” is clearly not what the Prime Minister was referring to in his article. He was attacking political campaigns of cultural cleansing, which isn’t the same thing at all. Historians quite properly draw upon new evidence, sources and perspectives to challenge older accounts of the past. What they don’t do, however, unless they work for some totalitarian regime, is burn the books of previous historians. They don’t gather up the collected works of Herodotus, Bede and Gibbon and throw them into the sea.
Aside from the judgements required for translation, abridgement etc, modern scholarship is scrupulous in not even editing older texts — despite what we know to be error or suspect to be invention. In this respect, historians do indeed leave the past alone to speak for itself — finding ways to comment upon it without altering it.
As I say, Boris Johnson was mainly talking about historical monuments, not history books. But the same principle should apply: arguing with, but not rewriting the past — and certainly not erasing it.
By all means agree or disagree with his ideas on how best to do that — but at least engage with what he actually said.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeIt’s not the past that needs to be purged, it’s the Marxist academics and most of the media class. I read one report today which suggested that Farage might indeed launch his Reform Party. If he does so, I suspect he will storm to power within a few years. At which point, perhaps, the poisoning of young minds, from the moment they enter kindergarten to the moment they leave a so-called university with a so-called degree will come to an end.
An excellent idea, but very sadly, far too late.
The Die is cast, ,”if you wish for peace…………….”
You know the rest.
Fraser Bailey, I share your dream, but I’m afraid it’s hopeless.
I’d love to know the mechanism by which that will happen, given that he’s never even been able to win a Westminster seat for himself.
This is not about left/right politics this is about ignorance on one hand and the inability to recognise bad things in the past ARE our history…but we no longer believe in those ideas. If we pull down and rename everything we are likely to drift into that space where we forget our past and thus are doomed to repeat the mistakes. The various celebrity politicians of both the left and right do not spout forth their opinions because they are trying to be morally correct they are trying to gain votes and shame on all those who fail to see this. For example Farage on the right and Kahn on the left are both electioneering!
A few facts :
George Washington was a slave owner…oops
Slavery existed in Africa BEFORE white Europeans came along (granted Europeans “industrialised” the abhorrent trade)
Slavery still exists in Africa and exercised by non whites.
Slavery exists today in the UK and many of those slaves are white and the slave owners are white.
Until people, left , right, black, white etc are willing to face up to the true extent of slavery both now and in the past and who is behind it we will never progress.
Slavery was fundamental to the economy of the ancient world. One of the more prized sources of slaves was the Germanic tribe, the Anglii, as Bede mentions in passing. I hope their descendants are suitably proud of their enslaved past.
My ancestors in Britain were subjugated and enslaved by Romans. I expect my monthly cheques from Italy to begin arriving any time now.
George Washington was the only president who was a slaveholder who freed his slaves. They were all freed by the terms of his will upon his death. He also, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out in his Cooper Union Speech, Washington was president when slavery was banned from the Northwestern Territory, a measure he approved of and signed into law. If all slaveholders had followed Washington’s example, the institution would have vanished from America not far into the 19th century and there never would have been a Civil War. Oops, indeed.
I don’t admire Macron for much. But his declaration to the French nation that nothing of their history will be removed or air brushed out is proper leadership.
I think Liberal Establishment acedemics are more interested in intellectual and educated shaming than they are about history, education or intelligence.
A statue to Ranganathan outside the British library would be nice. Gaekwar III also.
West Africa Squadron.
Rodney.
Hawke.
Anson.
Cunningham.
Lewis Bayly.
Sidney Smith.
Any notable VC winners from the Indian 4th army and the King’s African Rifles.
Cobden.
The list is endless.
People see what they want to see ; facts don’t matter anymore
‘What they don’t do, however, unless they work for some totalitarian regime, is burn the books of previous historians. They don’t gather up the collected works of Herodotus, Bede and Gibbon and throw them into the sea.’
Yes, but even this is a false comparison. This is about the destruction of primary evidence as well: the evidence which shows the reality of slavery (invented by Muslims, stopped by the British), among many other instances, in a concerted effort to cast the bad as good and the good as bad. Society will not survive that.
Slavery predates Islam by many centuries
We need to accept the past to move to a better future.
True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting the past – Nelson Mandela
The language is emotive, “political campaigns of cultural cleansing” and “burn the books of previous historians”, but these are your words not those of the protesters. If some statues are put in museums, how is that “cleansing culture”; and who is talking about burning books? What is wrong with having a discussion about the purpose of statues? To what extent were people consulted in the past about the erection of public statues? Have people’s opinions changed about those statues? Let’s not forget that statues are a popular tool of dictators and empires. Was the West worried about “cultural cleansing” when it watched Iraqis “tear down the past”? Statues are purely symbolic of the fixed ideas captured at a particular point in time. Times change and we should change with the times.
To quote Marcus Rashford, the footballer, as he forced poor Boris to make a U turn today” THIS is England in 2020″. Get real people this is not a fairytale where history can be nicely explained away and whitewashed by one exclusive group at the expense of all others. Boris wants just his particular version of history to stand, that’s just not acceptable this 2020 not 1820.
There is no “his” history or “your” history or “my” history. There is only what actually happened.
Well said. The truth is what BLM and their useful idiots like this Virk character are desperate to suppress.
“What actually happened” is open to interpretation, that is why historians have different takes on ‘the facts’.
Rashford has already been shown to be a liar about water provision. BLM lie and lie and lie again about history, and will continue to do so until they are stopped forcibly.
Not ‘acceptable’ to whom? The only ‘honest’ means of solving this present ‘attack’ on UK history is to ‘go’ Swiss and hold a referendum. A ‘voice’ for the majority, as opposed to those youths (ignorant of our past) but ‘indoctrinated’ by the Globist agends of Blair’s Common Purpose ‘invasion’ in all Training Institutions, e.g. Education, Police, Social Services, Civil Service etc. There is (still) a majority of indigenous Brits and integrated, successful, hard-working, immigrants. In plain language; the taxpayers. That is: those presently (by law) required to support financially, the growth of ‘alien’ ideologies and seditious minorities..