Is destroying statues a rightful way of correcting historical wrongs?
- By Earl Bousquet
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 25, 2017
Slavery was the greatest crime against humanity, and racism remains its most damning legacy. The growing outrage across America against the resurgence of racist ebullience in states built on the blood and sweat of slaves must therefore be applauded.
However, this does raise the question as to how far tearing down statues of pro-slavery villains presented as saints really goes in changing the living effects of their racist legacy?
The removal across America of statues honoring men like confederate General Robert F. Lee is akin to a similar action against statues of Cecil Rhodes, the original architect of apartheid laws in South Africa and creator of the old racist Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
Following student protests, a Rhodes statue was pulled down at South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT) in April 2015; and Rhodes University in Grahamstown was forced to consider a renaming exercise.
However, at Britain’s Oxford University students who voted for a similar removal were overruled in January 2016 by the university's administration after the Rhodes’ estate threatened to withdraw annual support worth over £300 million.
The role of slavery in the history of major American universities has been unfolding lately. Having been found guilty by the jury of public opinion of being on the wrong side of history, the related institutions are now hurrying to establish political correctness.
However, this raises a question of how best can the increasing numbers of U.S. universities mired in slavery best repair that sordid history today? By merely giving token scholarships to selected descendants of African American or Caribbean slaves in affected communities, states or nations, for instance?
And what of today’s Rhodes scholars around the world? Should each be ashamed for their academic achievements being financed by funds from a noted racist?
Extremists of various persuasions take pride in displaying destruction of everything from giant religious statues to UNESCO-recognized World Heritage Sites, to museum collections of objects thousands of years old. Should the world ever even begin to consider accepting that such precious historical works of art can be destroyed based on rival religious or cultural grounds?
Monuments to racism and apartheid are coming down quickly today in the U.S. and such calls are also growing in popularity elsewhere
It’s yet to be seen how destruction or removal of statues will contribute to equal access for black students to attend mainly white “Ivy League” universities funded by or named after those historical architects of racism, whether in the U.S. or Southern Africa.
How far and fast nations or advocates go about correcting historical wrongs or rewriting fake history depends on several factors. Some critics see destruction of statues as “editing history,” others as mere symbolism that does not actually change reality. Fact is, though, not everything considered bad must be destroyed and/or consigned to the scrapheap of history.
Slavery was the worst crime against humanity, but it cannot be simply wished or washed away because it was so atrocious.
American supporters of racism and defenders of slavery idolize confederate leaders’ statues because they believe in what they represented. They, too, will fight on, to not only preserve those statues in areas where they are still protected by law, but also to replace them when historical timing next permits.
Some critics suggest that instead of destroying works of art for political reasons, they can be relocated to a place where the age-old lies associated with them can be exposed with facts. Indeed, instances abound where symbols of a sordid past have been preserved and maintained to show and teach lessons from the experiences they represent.
For example, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington recently unveiled the Museum of African American History, where all Americans can see and learn some aspects of slavery in the U.S. Pieces of art destroyed in China during the Cultural Revolution are being painstakingly restored.
Dungeons on African coasts where captured men, women and children were held for shipping into slavery remain open today as popular tourism exhibits.
Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned and South African freedom fighters were tortured, was not shut down after the end of Apartheid as a disgraceful location of national shame, but is instead today a popular tourist attraction.
Americans can best decide how to demonstrate their contempt for and rejection of racism’s living legacy and what to do about monuments dedicated to defenders of slavery.
I didn't enjoy watching Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down in Baghdad by invading American troops, Muammar Gadaffi’s busts being destroyed across Libya after his fall, Lenin’s monuments being torn down in the Ukraine, or of Cuba’s Jose Marti’s bust being vandalized in Venezuela recently.
Each (destroyed statue) represents a permanent figure in the history of each country – and tearing down or defacing it, cannot erase that history.
I will not go to war with anyone who feels an unfair weight of history has been lifted off their backs by the destruction of offensive statues. However, I would risk a battle trying to find out to what extent that psychological weight-loss becomes a qualitative, real-life game-changer today.
Earl Bousquet is a contributor to china.org.cn, editor-at-large of The Diplomatic Courier and author of an online regional newspaper column entitled Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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