London's statues from 'bygone' imperial past to be reviewed, mayor says

[rvaviator]

3 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

The fact he made huge amounts of money from slavery is not disputed by anyone. Why do you want to keep a statue which glorifies someone like that?

Keeping a statue is not glorification - Glorification would be if every year on his birthday people would come from near and far. Lay down flowers and give praise to what he did.

 

For me .. keeping the statue is a reminder of what happened in the past ... and should serve as a reminder to do better in the future ...

 

But that is just how I see it ...

[rvaviator]

3 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

OK so you are saying it should stay simply because it was already there?

What about the statues of Saddam Hussain? Hitler? Stalin? Do they need put back up to preserve the town or cities history where they were?

Last time I looked no statue of any of them in UK ... What other people do in there countries are up to them ... Or do you want to be 'world police' ?

[tribalfusion001]

11 minutes ago, rvaviator said:

Keeping a statue is not glorification - Glorification would be if every year on his birthday people would come from near and far. Lay down flowers and give praise to what he did.

 

For me .. keeping the statue is a reminder of what happened in the past ... and should serve as a reminder to do better in the future ...

 

But that is just how I see it ...

It's a poor argument, just take them down and replace them with plaques. The plaques can detail what the person did, good and bad, no need for the statues to be there any longer it's the 21st century.

[jayboy]

22 minutes ago, Baerboxer said:

 

A small post - but one of the most insightful and intelligent posts I've read in several years. Thank you!

 

I hope it helps open some eyes.

Well thank you and I'm delighted you appreciated it.But it is George Orwell to whom you are indebted, not me.

 

It is strange how this rather strange Englishman, dead now for seventy years speaks so powerfully and relevantly to us in our current times. Other figures from that era have dated but not Orwell.

 

Gaunt thin, smoker, an Old Etonian who disliked the upper classes, a strong socialist in fact,  -  a genuine patriot despairing of his country sometimes yet devoted to it and its simple pleasures (pubs, tobacco, detective novels,its countryside).Anti-fascist who risked his life for the cause in Spain.Not deceived, unlike most of the Left, by Stalin's brutality.

 

The late Christopher Hitchens wrote of Orwell:

 

"By declining to lie, even as far as possible to himself, and by his determination to seek elusive but verifiable truth, he showed how much can be accomplished by an individual who unites the qualities of intellectual honesty and moral courage. And, permanently tempted though he was by cynicism and despair, Orwell also believed in the latent possession of these faculties by those we sometimes have the nerve to call “ordinary people.”

[jayboy]

1 hour ago, possum1931 said:

I get what you are saying, and yes he did what you are saying, but he took ex soldiers and ex prisoners and sent them to Ireland where the burned men, women, and children out of their homes, that was the Black and Tans, look at the genocide he was responsible for in India and other countries under the British Empire.

Why do you think he lost the first general election after the war?

He lost the general election (actually before the war ended) because the British people believed that Clem Attlee was more likely to give them a better society after the harsh war years.They were right to do so.It had nothing to do with the Black and Tans or the Bengal Famine.Churchill also fought a complacent and flawed campaign suggesting that Labour's plans had elements of the Gestapo.Churchill was a great war leader but not a great peace PM.

[jayboy]

40 minutes ago, Justgrazing said:

Oh for sure .. He was not averse to making himself a despised figure in pursuit of what he felt was required and still isn't held in high regard in some parts of the S Wales former coal mining valleys for despatching armed troops there to quell rioting with some extremely violent tactics in 1910 .. Nor did the Channel Islanders who felt he abandoned them to the Nazi invasion hold him close .. 

And the French bitterly resented him for sinking their fleet at Mers-El-Kébir with the loss of hundreds of sailors 2 months after taking office in 1940 ..

And yes within weeks of the end of WW2 he was voted out which in itself is the ultimate irony as had we not won then likely as not the very concept of freedom and democracy would have been removed by Herr Hitler .. 

W C was not without many warts that he himself would not deny and there are many who do not share the view of his greatness because of his treatment or view of them .. I get that but at a time when there was no one else to turn to and the very real threat of freedom and everything that entails being snuffed out within weeks he was the one who ensured we did not give up and ultimately prevail .. 

 

 

Both the abandonment of the Channel Islands and the destruction of the French fleet were without any doubt the correct decisions by WSC

[NoshowJones]

1 minute ago, jayboy said:

He lost the general election (actually before the war ended) because the British people believed that Clem Attlee was more likely to give them a better society after the harsh war years.They were right to do so.It had nothing to do with the Black and Tans or the Bengal Famine.Churchill also fought a complacent and flawed campaign suggesting that Labour's plans had elements of the Gestapo.Churchill was a great war leader but not a great peace PM.

You may be right, I wasn't born then, but he was responsible for a lot of genocide, that is the point I am making.

[transam]

1 hour ago, Kadilo said:

Brits living in Thailand are constantly bashing the country they are living in on TVF. 

Should everyone say nothing but praise?

No, just be honest...........????

[Kadilo]

2 minutes ago, transam said:

No, just be honest...........????

He is, you just don’t like what he says. ????

[CorpusChristie]

10 minutes ago, possum1931 said:

but he was responsible for a lot of genocide, that is the point I am making.

Can you list those "genocides " ?

[Sheryl]

Several bickering posts with no content other than insults removed. Please keep it civil.

[metisdead]

Off topic deflection posts, more bickering posts and the replies have been removed. 

 

 

 

Edit:  Some more off topic posts and replies have been removed.  This topic is related to the following from the OP:

 

As many as 17 million African men, women and children were torn from their homes and shackled into one of the world’s most brutal globalized trades between the 15th and 19th centuries. Many died in merciless conditions.

 

Those who survived endured a life of subjugation on sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. Britain abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807 although the full abolition of slavery did not follow for another generation.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by metisdead

[kingdong]

15 hours ago, transam said:

By whom...?

The pikeys,worth a fortune in scrap

[CorpusChristie]

Myself, having walking around docklands , the area where many of the statues are .

I did find them to be quite imposing and authoritarian with no real significance .

The area was all docklands and warehouses , these days its all housing and condos .

Time for those statues to go , the UK needs to move on 

[metisdead]

Some off topic posts and replies have been removed. 

[simple1]

13 hours ago, rvaviator said:

Keeping a statue is not glorification - Glorification would be if every year on his birthday people would come from near and far. Lay down flowers and give praise to what he did.

 

For me .. keeping the statue is a reminder of what happened in the past ... and should serve as a reminder to do better in the future ...

 

But that is just how I see it ...

Does the plinth make reference to his involvement with slavery or only talks to his civic contributions?

[baansgr]

Police in Hackney already attacked trying to detain a suspect ...small crowd gathers filming and taking selfies with another trying to attack the police....let's just say these guys were doing their job and are attacked by locals of Hackney....all this incited by the rhetoric spouted by BLM and Khan

[Rookiescot]

14 hours ago, vogie said:

Better not get rid of Robert the Bruce though, the Nationalists will have no-where to burn the Union flag.????????????

You will of course present evidence of independence supporters burning flags?

No?

OK.

[OneMoreFarang]

I just read this article, interesting!

 

Don't worry about 'rewriting history': it's literally what we historians do

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/10/rewriting-history-historians-statue-past

 

[vogie]

7 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

You will of course present evidence of independence supporters burning flags?

No?

OK.

OK, no probs.

 

[Rookiescot]

56 minutes ago, vogie said:

OK, no probs.

 

Absolutely shocking. I was unaware of this.

I suppose every walk of life has its fair share of buffoons.

[nausea]

Apart from a few notable exceptions, e.g. Nelson, no-one gave a sh#$t about most of these ubiquitous boring old statues before the spotlight was put upon them, apart from the pigeons that is.

[vogie]

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
George Orwell

 

 

"We have officially reached the stage where pretending to be a good person is more important than actually being a good person."

Zuby

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On 6/10/2020 at 2:07 PM, thaiflyer1 said:

Absolutely................lived in Rhodesia and Zambia for 5 years.....Rhodesia in 73 right when Ian Smith was being removed, look whats happened to the place now

 

South African white farmers being murdered everyday............the world doesnt give a flying <deleted>

 

 

Only counts to them when it's black people. They are hypocrites.

Edited June 11, 2020 by thaibeachlovers

[thaibeachlovers]

10 hours ago, CorpusChristie said:

Myself, having walking around docklands , the area where many of the statues are .

I did find them to be quite imposing and authoritarian with no real significance .

The area was all docklands and warehouses , these days its all housing and condos .

Time for those statues to go , the UK needs to move on 

Move on to what, exactly? A brave new world of newspeak, perhaps.

[3NUMBAS]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/11/black-lives-matter-protest-edward-colston-statue-retrieved-bristol/

 

Black Lives Matter protest: Statue of Scouts founder Lord Baden-Powell removed by Lib Dem council

 

[metisdead]

Some off topic posts have been removed. 

[tifino]

 Stonehenge must be really sweating by now...

[kingdong]

5 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Only counts to them when it's black people. They are hypocrites.

They,'re not even bothered about them over ,a million Hutu and Tutsi died in the Rwanda genocide,yet they still harp on about the sharpville " massacre" nearly 60 years ago,at least the colonialists stopped them massaging each other,but think a lot of the armchair activists who bought about this sorry state of affairs keep quite about it out of embarrassment,still whenever do,es a bigot hold his hands up and admit he or she was wrong?

[transam]

6 minutes ago, tifino said:

 Stonehenge must be really sweating by now...

Yes, do not mention "Sacrifices"......????.......????.............Some posters on here may go into meltdown...