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Rhodes Must Fall - Oxford protesters target statue of colonialist


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4 hours ago, sukhumvitneon said:

"truly inspirational people" is incredibly subjective.  How about not erasing history, especially ugly history, if it makes you feel uncomfortable?  These monuments need to stay up to remind ourselves of history, both good and bad.  Putting them in a museum is stupid because you usually need to pay a fee to get into a museum and most people don't bother going anyway.

I disagree. People want to feel good about the cities they live in. Having what a lot of people see as unsavoury statues of questionable characters from the past dotted about doesn't define what many people believe in.

Put them in a museum with a description of who they are and how and why the statue was removed.

 

Personally i'd like to see a statue of George Floyd erected somewhere, perhaps in Bristol to replace the one toppled there. After all,  He lost his life to inspire this movement...

Edited by BillStrangeOgre
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1 minute ago, BillStrangeOgre said:

I disagree. People want to feel good about the cities they live in. Having what a lot of people see as unsavoury statues of questionable characters from the past dotted about doesn't define what many people believe in.

Put them in a museum with a description of who they are and how and why the state was removed.

 

Personally i'd like to see a statue of George Floyd erected somewhere, perhaps in Bristol to replace the one toppled there. After all,  He lost his life to inspire this movement...

How about one of our own ?

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4 minutes ago, baansgr said:

No...probably by some unknown black guy that was the first bus driver in Oxford, or someone as irrelevant, as long as they are black, that's what counts

In my view the first black immigrants that came to the UK in the 50's (en mass) deserve a statue. They had to go through a lot..????

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5 minutes ago, CorpusChristie said:

Any evidence of that ?

A very famous book "Inglorious Empire" has come out, written by an Indian which has galvanized anti-British feeling in India towards the exploitation, famine and suffering the British caused in India, it's an enlightening read:

 

"Everything the British did in India, Tharoor asserts, was for their own benefit and never for that of the Indians. They also had, Tharoor tells us, perfected a policy of divide and rule, breaking treaties at will and making war and looting with impunity. Tharoor is right, of course. There are few Indians who would not have heard of the treachery that enabled Clive to triumph at Plassey or of the incredible amounts of ill-begotten wealth the East India Company officials hauled back with them to England. ”.

 

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/books/the-bald-truth-is-the-raj-ruined-us/article9391768.ece

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Blacks in USA, ? all sprung from slavery,now why do they not all clear off back to Africa,  a fair and consistent answer to their never ending criminality ,and I must say their never ending requests for food stamps

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2 minutes ago, Logosone said:

A very famous book "Inglorious Empire" has come out, written by an Indian which has galvanized anti-British feeling in India towards the exploitation, famine and suffering the British caused in India, it's an enlightening read:

 

"Everything the British did in India, Tharoor asserts, was for their own benefit and never for that of the Indians. They also had, Tharoor tells us, perfected a policy of divide and rule, breaking treaties at will and making war and looting with impunity. Tharoor is right, of course. There are few Indians who would not have heard of the treachery that enabled Clive to triumph at Plassey or of the incredible amounts of ill-begotten wealth the East India Company officials hauled back with them to England. ”.

 

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/books/the-bald-truth-is-the-raj-ruined-us/article9391768.ece

Never mind,the Chinese are going to put India into a black hole sooner than later

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1 minute ago, izod10 said:

Never mind,the Chinese are going to put India into a black hole sooner than later

Of course, China! I almost forgot China, how could I be so careless. There were the Opium trade, the British basically acted as drug dealers. I am sure that should be added to the left's wish list of reparations.

 

Good point.

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9 minutes ago, BillStrangeOgre said:

One of our own?? Another little Englander?

The DNA of Brits contains 60% European ancestry. Ruled by the Romans, raped by pillaging Scandinavians, conquered by the Normans.

There's not so much Brit in the average little Englander.

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8 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Of course, China! I almost forgot China, how could I be so careless. There were the Opium trade, the British basically acted as drug dealers. I am sure that should be added to the left's wish list of reparations.

 

Good point.

They want you to forget about them, until they rule the World.  

Edited by Pilotman
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4 hours ago, Pilotman said:

how about replacing them with some truly inspirational people, who have not only done good, but have inspired others to do good: Leonard Cheshire, Douglas Bader, Charles 11, William Wilberforce of course, William Williams, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Hunt, Edmund Hillary, Tensing Norgay, Cook, Adams, Etc.  Of course, if it was up to me I would replace them all with statues of Margaret Thatcher, hundreds, no thousands of them, in every nook and cranny of the UK.  

Good idea.

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14 minutes ago, BKKBike09 said:

Why stop at statues? Let's knock down castles since they're no more than appalling monuments which speak to a time when a privileged few lived lives of relative comfort and plenty while the majority of the population eked out a pitiful feudal existence in downtrodden squalor.

 

We should cleanse all public spaces of any trace of the past - whitewashing history (although I'm sure there are people who object to the term 'whitewashing' on tortuous grounds of perceived ethnic connotations in the word) in order that no-one can be offended.

 

How far back do we need to go? How about Richard I outside the Palace of Westminster, who happily prosecuted the Third Crusade to the detriment of many Muslims. 

 

And while we're in Parliament Square, let's have a crack at the bigot Gandhi .. oh, actually, someone already has.

 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/35-cops-injured-in-further-london-violence-as-gandhi-statue-defaced/articleshow/76269593.cms

 

The most illiberal these days seem to be the purported liberals championing 'diversity and inclusion', except when it's inconvenient for it to apply.

 

894682581_ScreenShot2020-06-10at14_18_06.jpg.c0522bc3483a2d0d848f682899ac111e.jpg

 

...of course, always a rallying cry of those that cannot find solid argument in the subject matter is to claim 'it's just the thin edge of the wedge' and then cite some ridiculous extremes of where all this will lead as an argument to stop...

Let the protesters have their moment and topple a few dubious statutes, they do have a point. And at the end of the day, it's better than looting, violence and wanton destruction of stuff that matters ????

In a few weeks all of this will pass...

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23 minutes ago, bannork said:

The DNA of Brits contains 60% European ancestry. Ruled by the Romans, raped by pillaging Scandinavians, conquered by the Normans.

There's not so much Brit in the average little Englander.

They can't see that in their quest for an identity as a pure race ????

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14 minutes ago, TEFLKrabi said:

I see some countries are suggesting reparations. How about the billions of $$$ sent in aid every year that the greedy dictators siphon off to their Swiss bank accounts. Sort your own house out first before telling me about mine.

Well, if you take India for example development aid is a tiny percentage of the UK GDP, however, the amount the UK looted from India is staggering by comparison. One does not weigh up the damage done by centuries of exploitation, famine, wars etc.

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3 hours ago, phetphet said:

I wonder if any of them are studying under a Rhodes scholarship, or indeed at Rhodes College. Will they want to change the name of that? Or turn in their scholarships?

Glad you mentioned that, here are a few notable Rhodes scholars (notable only in that they are well known and not necessarily upstanding citizens).

William Clinton, Tony Abbott (Aus) , Malcolm Turnbull (Aus), Susan Rice (USA), Corey Booker (USA), Chrystia Freeland (Can), Rachel Maddow (MSNBC), Pete Buttigieg (USA)

To name but a few. If they take Rhodes' statue down, cease giving Rhodes scholarships (financed by the blood , sweat and tears of South Africans, Rhodesians and others involved in the diamond industry in Kimberley South Africa (De Beers).

Taking down the statue of a gay scholar and dreamer. Good move?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rhodes_Scholars

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