In 2015, Britain's taxpayers finally paid the debt that was the compensation given to slave traders after abolition. Awarded with billions by today's inflation rates, they must have done alright for themselves. In fact, they did so well for themselves that some were even given statues to commemorate their contributions to society. And the slaves? You already know the answer - there was no compensation for them.
Britain can owe much of it's wealth to the slave trade. Should we ignore this history and instead celebrate it's achievements instead? Image Source
Edward Colston was one of them. The plaque on his statue in Bristol described him as 'virtuous' and 'wise'. He is described as a 'merchant' and 'philanthropist', disguising the fact he was a slave trader, who, as an offical for the Royal African Company, was involved in the enslavement of 84,000 Africans. Nearly 20,000 of these died as they were trafficked across the Atlantic. But you can erase a history like that if you donate money for schools and paternalistically give money to the poor. It suits a history that people want to remember, a vision of Bristol that Bristolians of the time wanted to see rather than the facts. It's a political action that must be understood as having a place in a long line of political actions that mirrors how the city - and how any city - wants to see itself.
This history is speaking quite loudly that the upholding of any symbols which hint at narratives of oppression can no longer be tolerated.
Sure, we can read about them and we can see evidence of them in museums. We should not sweep these dark moments under our dirty carpets, and no one is suggesting we do.
But the act of pulling down the statue, leaning on it's neck and dragging it to the channel to be sunk was not 'disgusting' and 'vandalism' as Britain's home secretary, Priva Pratel, would have us believe. Boris Johnston called it 'thuggery'. If this was thuggery, what was slave trading?
Such 'thuggery' is a reminder that nations have violently and brutally dominated with one body - white, male - at the expense of other bodies - black, female, poor, Jewish, LGBTQI. It is a reminder that white privilege cannot hold, and that it too must be dismantled and dissembled, kicked and drowned, beaten and hung, so that it no longer stand in the centre of the town squares of our nation states.
One of my yoga teachers has been very vocally arguing that acts of violence such as this - rioting, the tearing down of statues - is justified, even if it seems that 'ahimsa' (very basically, cause no harm or non violence) is the morally better path to take.
Where has non violence got 'us' she asks, as a person of colour? Where has petitioning, public speaking, letter writing, debate, or peaceable protest got the people who have been subject to the brutality of the past? Those that begged for the statue to be removed were not listened to. Sometimes acting in 'unlawful' ways is the only choice people have to change history. Sometimes it's necessary to set fire to cities to have better things emerge from the ashes.
"The Reunion" is by Caliban Isrisen
Sometimes 'ahimsa' can be read as the act which creates the least harm.
Acts like these can be justified, especially as it raises dialogue about how we heal from the past.
We heal by tearing down all the walls of the institutions that have committed acts of violence against the other. We heal by talking about the dismantling as it begins, not waiting for 'legal channels' or 'proper paths' to restorative justice. We heal by taking a stand, by showing courage, by calling out the names of those who have died so that another history takes the place where the statues of the people responsible once stood.
What remains can be a far more beautiful monument. Image Source