Revere or Remove? The Battle Over Statues, Heritage and History

thank you thank you all very much for that very warm welcome we are indeed here to discuss a topic which has been in the public mind both here and in the United States really for most all for a good chunk of the last year or so it is as the title puts it Revere or remove the Battle of a statues heritage and history and really our subject in a way is memory and how we grapple with that publicly it's one thing how we grapple with it in our own personal lives but the larger question here is how do we deal with memory in the public sphere part of that is going to be about statues but we're going to also I hope explore other areas in which we have to reckon with our past and with me our four people who do that professionally and are really extraordinary extraordinarily well placed to wrestle in public if you like with these ideas not with each other not going that crushingly down market just yet but instead with these ideas because they wrestle with them all the time just to say a word or two about the the background to it I think when the idea first took root it was partly because here in this country we'd seen the roads must fall campaign abroad and here hitting the headlines partly when it demanded the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oxford's Oxford's Oriel College where which of course of which he'd been a major benefactor because of his record as an imperialist but also in the United States last summer August it reached an island pitch in Charlottesville where there had been an argument raging for months and in some ways for years about the statue in that city to Robert Elia General of the Confederacy and therefore of course a defender of slavery those were two of the sort of pitched battles but behind those have been a whole lot of others where people have been debating you know whether they keeping these statues in some ways endorses those historical figures and yet on the other hand does the act of removing them seek to erase airbrush distort the historical record the arguments are strongly felt on both sides as anybody who will have followed our Twitter feeds over the last few weeks will have seen this is an issue that stirs up strong feelings so we're going to discuss them all the plan is really to use our first chunk of time having a discussion a conversation up here and then of course in intelligent squared fashion I will open it up for contributions and thoughts from all of you which of course are then bring back for responses here so without further ado let me introduce to you our four speakers and I'll move from my left to my right no political reading there at all first up is the historian and author of the best-selling world history the silk road's he is a senior research fellow at Worcester College Oxford and professor of global history at Oxford which sounds like a very big job he is Peter Franco pan next up is the author of the critically acclaimed keeping their marbles how museums acquired their artifacts and why they should keep them she is a consultant on cultural policy and an honorary fellow in the Department of art history at the University of Edinburgh a warm welcome for Tiffany Jenkins on my immediate right writer and broadcaster who's worked long on things as a barrister West Africa correspondent of legal affairs correspondent for the Guardian was also a correspondent for Sky News but came to even greater prominence would be more recently with her book British or British on race identity and belonging which recently won the juror would prize for nonfiction a for Hirsch and completing our panel the award-winning historian and broadcaster whose latest book black and British a forgotten history was accompanied by a BBC two series of that name and of course known to many here as one of the presenters of the BBC's new landmark series civilizations he is of course David on a sugar so so a stellar lineup as I said all people concerned with these questions of history I just thought we would do an opening thought from each of you and we'll keep it quite short just to sort of set out a bit of a stool are there any statues monuments memorials even just one that's currently in this country the UK that you would rather was not here and we will start with you David this tattoo that I would remove that I don't think she'd be on public display is one I went past in Bristol in a taxi about three hours ago which is the statue to Edward Costin to me it's a very simple case many of the figures that were going to debate tonight they have two sides to their story they did great things but they did terrible things Costin doesn't have another side to the ledger here and the world African company the most infamous the most prolific slave trading company in British history he's responsible we estimate for the deaths of around 30,000 people who died in slave raids died in the holds of slave ships and he has statues built after it built in honor of him buildings named after him because he gave lots of money to the city he was born in Bristol that's all he decided that he wanted to whitewash his legacy and make sure that he was well remembered the statue in the centre of Bristol was built in 1895 he died in 1721 we have no idea what he looks like never mind whether the statue was an accurate representation of his likeness this is somebody for whom there is no mitigating argument because statues aren't about remembering history they're about memorialization they're about saying this was somebody who we should revere the statue says he's a wise and virtuous he's not wise he's not virtuous he's a killer and his statue shouldn't be on public display on the streets of Bristol but it should be in a museum because when we talk about toppling statues very few people are talking about their destruction we're talking about taking them off public display taking them out of the arena where they're celebrated and there were thousands of statues in museums across this city and of course Britain I think the statue of Edward cause near Bristol should join them Thank You Tiffany Jenkins there's there are lots of statues people like Coulson who committed a number of evil acts there are also very ugly statues there are lots of forgotten statues I see no reason to tear any of them down certainly I wouldn't have a problem with benign neglect or even defacing them because this is a public space I say no I see no reason I don't think it's a radical act putting them in a museum I think just relocates the debate from the public sphere to an institution and I think there would be a danger that you know museums are not the most neutral spaces either I think there's almost like a danger of policing people's responses to them and relocating the culture wars to museums which i think would be a problem just let them let them go I don't think I kind of the politics of symbolism is not really a very progressive course there are far more important things that we could be doing okay will benign neglect that one and we'll let that we won't clean and polish that one um I have I'm not most of them I don't think there's any that I'd actively kind of put flowers at the right I don't I just think in a way that there is they're in a public space I think David made quite an important point that they're in the public space so I kind of think is up to the public to respond to them as they see fit I mean I live in Scotland and in Glasgow there's the statue of the Earl of Wellington and he's had a cone on his head for decades the council tried to elongate him so they couldn't put any more small cones upon them I think that's entirely fine I don't think we should revere or be reverential about these things I think the past is a complicated and messy place and it's quite good that it's under our feet that we pass it I think it's quite interesting actually the Carlsen is quite interesting I think in I grew up in Oxford and I think the Cecil Rhodes statue is quite important for telling us how it was built who went there you know it's that kind of complicated aspect of showing us our past is quite useful good we're definitely going to come back to all of these efforts esle roads because that's a great starting place for me I would have no issue with the removal of sessile roads and the reason is not only that he was an imperious he was actually more like a Buccaneer he was regarded by his contemporaries in an era of empire and imperial expansion as an embarrassment to Empire because his behavior was so out of control his racism was so unpalatable so I think that he's an interesting character that goes to the heart of this question of whether somebody like me is imposing modern standards onto a different era where there was a different morality at play by the standards of his time Rhodes was regarded as a problem let alone by the standards of 21st century multicultural Britain and the thing about Rhodes a statue in Oxford and his presence in Oxford is that this is still an institution that excludes people of color that excludes the descendants of the kind of racist white supremacist system that Rhodes did so much to help build that hasn't addressed the inherited intergenerational injustice and inequality of that system and so it's it's it's it's a double whammy it compounds and already painful injustice for students struggling with an institution that hasn't repaired that wrong so then have a figure like Rhodes in a position of reverence and I think what Tiffany says about benign neglect is interesting but for me the reality is when somebody is on a plinth in a public space when you crane your neck to look up at them that is an act of reverence whether you like it or not I don't believe we have a sophisticated debate around the statues that are in public places we simply walk past them and look up at them I would be much more interested in putting them in a place where there is an educational process there is a genuine conversation and there is a context thank you Peter what would you nominate for not being there removal is such a loaded word if you could may waive a magic wand and there was one there was a statue on Memorial you'd rather not have around what would it be well I don't want to either trivialize tonight's debate all these are very important questions and in fact it's about it's about history so I mean if we were shutting on this then run but you know it's just too statue you know hands up who's been to Paris in this room or Rome can you name any 19th or 20th century statue you saw in those two magical cities you know we don't look at statues particularly I mean it's it's exactly right when of when a figure becomes important because it's a matter of discussion like roads then that's prominence becomes an important topic to talk about which is what we wanted what I want to talk about this evening but by-and-large London is filled with 19th and 20th century statues almost all of them are men almost all of them are soldiers almost all of them make no difference to our daily lives so if there is a question about editing the past but my view as a historian is that a job of a statue is eventually to form right that's what that's why you put a statue up you put a statue up to commemorate someone and then time it could be years it could be decades it could be hundreds of years you know that doesn't exist anymore that's that's that that's the process of the winds of history so there are specific cases to talk about slavery exclusion I don't want to let my university be shot out on its own almost every single Center of Education of excellence in this country has the same institutional problems about exclusion that deserve to be talked about so it's unfair to just pick out Oxford it's unfair to just pick out or real college but Rhodes has a particular lightning-rod but I can show you statues in Oxford within 50 50 miles of here hundreds of them that could generate the same sort of discussion about people who did power things and I think it's therefore it becomes a question of who who do we try to prioritize in those kinds of discussions and until you do that it's just a piece of lead or a piece of copper or piece of bronze that somebody paid for and no bothers looking at do you want to come back on this point of whether or not it matters you know Peters essentially sort of saying you know there could be lots of little cousins everywhere and unless you make a rather an argument about it no one really is that bothered yes we can I first come up on the idea of benign neglect because of course most of these statues are listed and our friends in historic England would be on your back if you did allow them to to rot away so the sponsors of this debate wouldn't allow that statues for the most part don't matter we'd walk up as we walk past them every day they're gray they're boring almost all of them are terrible works of art the one thing you almost never hear when you talk about removing status is oh please don't it's a wonderful work of art imagine if we were talking about removing paintings from the National Gallery the art defence would be the absolute forefront of our thinking most of them are really now he is entirely right most of them are benign but they're benign to me but I can accept that some of them are benign to other people now my accent my background is not West Indian or African American and African my ancestors weren't enslaved but I know people who are West Africa West Indian heritage who live in Bristol who talk about the genuine emotions that they feel when they walk under the statute of the man who was the governor of the Royal African company the company that transported author ancestors into slavery than any company in British history did though it did so with royal patronage burning the letters RAC on to the chests of men women and children of the age of nine I believed them when they say it hurts that they feel humiliated by Colston on his pillow I don't personally I go about my life cycle around Bristol I'm a TV producer so I obviously spend more time having focaccia oh and goats cheese and I have a perfectly nice life I don't have a chip in my shoulder I'm not oppressed by these turkeys but I'd know people who are and I believe them that's all I'm asking that we believe people when they say these things are oppressive and of course everybody believes that certain snatch you should not be allowed to stand uncritically in public without some sort of context realization Germany is full of the wonderful and I think artistically very valuable statues abraca Hitler's great sculptor far better sculptor than most of the statues we see in London nobody believes that those data should be taken out of the storage facilities that they were in hidden away most people don't know where they are outside Berlin and put on public display we wouldn't dream of it because those studies are embodiments something which we understand is morally reprehensible yet we struggle to make the same connection with slavery that's the problem I believed in too I believe although that this may be a debate that seems to be advanced by a vocal minority people feel very strongly about it and do feel oppressed by those statues no no I believe them I believe them however I don't think we should organize public space around their feelings I think to do so would to be kind of weaponized this debate and emotion and that would be that'd be the wrong thing to do I think you have to ask is this the best way to deal with inequality today I would say no it's certainly not the problems that Peter talked about after we talked about it certainly isn't is it a dangerous distraction I think so because what we're effectively doing is enslaving ourselves by the past we are not moving on from it you know it isn't no you do have to ask why is this debate happened now those statues have been around for a very long time and I think it has come in a context where the past has become almost like the solution to contemporary problems when they were put up it is not true that this is suddenly a manifestation of liberal political correctness that's just not true these studies were contested there at the time let's remember that the first roads must fall campaign was in the 1950s and it was white boy Stewart students who wanted road to move because of the Second World War it's just not true it's historically untrue to say that this is a modern contemporary frivolous debate it's as old as statues that's why they topple that's why they fall and it's part of the process Peters talking about that statues inevitably fall they fall out of favor or they fall apart this debate is part of that process it's not some sort of anomaly or some sort of you know artificial situation created by a bunch of Guardian journalists that's this is this is history you say that like as if it would be a bad thing for the young I just wondered were there one factual thing which I didn't ask you about the time but I wanted to why did it take till 1895 for them to commemorate Colston because the reason constants were memorator has nothing to do with the Bristol in the 18th century when it was the biggest slave port in the North Atlantic trade it had to do with a balance of power within the merchants ventures who ran Bristol in the 1890s and it was taking Halston and his philanthropy and taking claim of it that statue has nothing to do yeah with Carson and his memory it was a way of using him to to win a battle of power and to just just to inform this bit of the conversation why don't you cuz I know you've written about this say something about the context in the United States about these Confederate generals on horseback often which people assume were built in the Civil War and therefore we mustn't take them down because the Civil War is a big part of American history the history of their construction is slightly different this is another myth we presume these statues are much older than there were we almost always presume because they meant to look old and they where though and they look gray and very quickly we presume they're old most of the statues in the Civil War which was 61 to 65 were not put up in 1866 when people were the wounded and and the the the veterans were still alive there's a great burst of statues being put up around the time of 1919 at the end of the First World War around the same time 21 African American soldiers were lynched for wearing their uniforms in public having got back from the Western Front these statues were put up then because there was a moment when there was hope for black rights for black voting rights and these statues were imposed on the south on majority black towns as a way of saying you stay in your place these statues have a function the function is not to remember the Civil War it is to intimidate southern black Americans and the second burst is in the 1960s when civil rights began so some of these strategies are actually younger than the people defending them in rallying around with Confederate flags around they're plain saying this is my history they younger than you are and not your history your your history Peter and NF yes I think that that's right I mean you know it sort of surprised you I gotta say that the certain solution ifs in suppose you could have one it's about education and luckily now today things like slavery are taught to school children which they weren't when I when I was a boy and you know that think that's a very important part of our chapter it is important I think to connect these kind of signal events of the American Civil War and the Confederates with the fact that almost all of the founding fathers who led American to dependents were slave owners and took America to independence in order to protect slavery right so that's not to say that the the Confederate General said have their own Hall of Hell to live in you know as a historian I don't have any problem about like you say of condemning act and views for what they were at the time as well as what they are today but you know where does that leave Washington where does that leave Jefferson to great slave owners who have capital said he's named off the massive memorials but because they they managed to take America to a different kind of pathway their role in slavery their role in what it meant to be black in America or African African in America gets washed over by the fact that they get they gather sainthood so it's how one Cal calibrates those two so it's not not to bring everybody up not to bring the Confederates opportunity to justify them but you've got then got a call a spade a spade and you know I personally have worked on medieval slavery you know don't go to Venice you know one of the world's great slaving sensors those palazzi that look great on the canals the way which we call people the Slavs today that is where we get our word slave from you know we don't think about that because we don't get taught that I those kids are disconnected in the idea that slavery is something that's important to understand in a whole range of situations and circumstances so as a history you know again it's a very boring thing to say as a historian and I'm not trying to not take sides but it's that if you're going to do it then do it properly and explain that it's not just about bad men in the 1860s happened to lose a war it's about the history of America from its foundation was all built on all of this and that all the people are involved including the founding fathers who appear on the banknotes who appear in their monuments have cities named after them who don't get vilified they don't have to pay the price and probably if but by the logic of you argument they should well no because the very first thing I said is there were many historical figures that have two sides to their ledger now Washington when the British are in New York sends spies in to try to capture the human beings he owns but Washington's also want to thank most remarkable figures of the general and we love generals we love the America today's story was exactly that they provide from Bedford for a Confederate General he murders the african-american soldiers who fall into his hands who's one of the founders of the KKK I don't think there's two sides to that story but I think the key thing is here's the these statues they weren't built to remember to memorialize Nathan Bedford Forrest they were built to intimidate African Americans who were beginning to just beginning to grasp so then you know I've got a question for this somebody like me who has questioned many of our statues is weaponizing public spaces to me these statues have been as David's just explaining a means by which public spaces have long been weaponized and there's almost this kind of tyranny of the majority that the majority people don't see this perspective of people who walk around feeling tyrannize and intimidated and oppressed by these figures and this isn't just a straightforward race issues you take a figure like Cromwell I didn't know for almost all of my life that he was regarded by so many Irish people as the first modern genocide or figure and the idea of having his statue in front of the palaces where of Westminster is the kind of father of parliamentary democracy was seen as a painful and an offensive thing by so many people I think that the reality can be taken away then I think that this is healthy that we have this discussion and but there is I mean it's good that you raise education that is part of this I think if we were all honest and educated and we were learning about the full historical record of these figures as British people it would matter less that these statues on their plinth the fact is that we have no context we have no education and we live in a place that Revere's them now the reality is that there is a location in general be take it should chrome will be taken down I personally don't feel oppressed by Colin Rowe because it's not my history but I have a lot of sympathy for people who do so I think you know I would like to hear from them on this issue and I think they should be more debate about it my personal history is a black British person growing up in this country was that I felt that my the the the role and contribution that people of my heritage had played this country is completely invisible in public spaces military men many of whom were Imperial conquerors are venerated and displayed and put on prints all over the place in their subliminal messaging of that is that the people who have contributed who deserve respect in this country as a child growing up who had no political agenda whatsoever the messaging that I received was that the people who are people of Worth who are worthy of historical notes who we should venerate are these white militaristic men and I think that it goes to the very heart of what kind of nation are we who do we value who do we venerate at the moment it is white men who led imperial military conquests and who I think are totally out sync with the idea of who we are as a country so just on that point would the remedy for that be to add lots more statues of people of color more women people who've made that contribution or will that remedying not be complete until some of those white militaristic men as you put it come down yeah I think it's an interesting question what to do whether we should just kind of have in have more people of color I have more women public spaces would get very crowded if all of the people I would like since hatch well suddenly pop up I was in Germany recently just outside Berlin at the ship and our Citadel yeah and it's a fascinating place the second rice statues that commemorate Imperial figures actually many of whom have similar backgrounds to the kind of people that we have on Flint's in London were taken down after the Second World War and put in a museum there they be taken off their plinth cleaned up you can get up close to them you can touch them and I found it a really powerful experience because the reality is and others have said it we don't really pay that much attention to our statues we don't necessarily take good care of them there they're a bad combination it's the worst case scenario where they're visible but they're invisible so it's kind of recognition with without education in Spandau you actually learn about them you talk about them you think about the historical legacy and I think that's a far healthier way of engaging them you actually learn thing and you put it into a contract it says let me get you on this Tiffany on the nail or something else you want to say but I just want you to respond anchors earlier on when David initially said you wouldn't have Colston destroyed he would haven't put in a museum you didn't take up that suggestion because you said that's just to relocate the argument but then later a Lewis said the trouble is with them being statues they're in positions of reverence because we're craning our necks looking at them and if you have them in the museum you're looking at them in a different way if I've summarized what you said so what just on that point about not destroying them but putting them in a museum where you can be almost I to I with them rather than looking upward wouldn't that be a good solution I think it relocates the debate from the public space to the institution and museums are very good at putting things on pedestals so I don't think he would anyway be more critical and I there's a kind of self flattering element to this kind of place because we know better because we're educated unlike the kind of mash you know unwashed masses who couldn't possibly look at Coulson and think in any way that he was a vile human being or question their their their past or their relationship to him so I think there's a kind of there's like slightly paternalistic attitude towards it but I just want to take up this point as to whether this is a new thing or not I mean David's right that these statues have always been the focus of contestation as have objects and indeed in museums but they haven't it's this debate has not dominated the political sphere quite so much in the way that it has done in the last suit of 20 or 30 years and I think we have to see it in its political broader context my mind is that the past has become the place for politics both for left and right they fight over which version of history they prefer so the right used to venerate nice white old men and talk about imperial conquest and grandeur and the left now come in and talk about the wrongs of history I think that more Eliza's history and it has taken a step away from envisioning a future society you know we used to have the saying Joe Hill used to talk about do not mourn organize I there is suffering there is hardship but we have to do something about it and now we have this kind of flipside almost of that which is that we must organize to mourn and I think it benefit nobody been a certainly does not benefit the victims because in a way that they are kind of fatal fatalistic about their past dominating their present they can't even walk down the street without feeling vulnerable that's no sense of agency there and I'm not walking down the street having a hard time oppressed by these statues maybe you did say other people were and you were cell mindful of them this idea that this is a current debate that you keep coming back to that this is just now we've gone up quite a few decades unusually in this country without someone dynamiting a statue we blew up started our statues were burned up in Ireland statues are blown up after the First World War statues are having a really easy time at the moment again it's not historically grounded it's not based on historical analysis that haven't been blown up the statutes aren't at risk they have too much of a history look at the Gordon riots look at what's pulled down it's just not true the point I'm making isn't just about statue so it's the growth of reparations politics you had a flurry of apologies in around 2000 is Blair cetera so it's not statues isn't just about statues it's about the pace of the park Tiffany the fear that somebody like me is moralizing history history has been moralized just in favor of the people who killed enslave and colonized and the evidence I have of this is is that I have raised the question of whether we should look again at the legacy of Nelson whether we should look again at the legacy of Churchill if you raise basic points of historical record against these figures you are met with a torrent I mean hundreds of thousands of trolling comments that that demonize you for introducing facts into the bait and the reason is that people have so been moralized into unconditionally revering figures like Churchill which is a hugely regressive move because actually at his peers at the time were fully aware of his deep flaws of his very problematic racist attitudes so racist that they clouded his judgment about important strategic matters at the time we've gone back and you give us an example just invade Nelson Germany so for example we are a Marine he was Nelson who was Churchill's colleague in the cabinet that he tonight of the same generation a Tory on the right wrote in his diaries that he feared that Churchill's racism towards Indians was so rabid an out-of-control dit was clouding his judgment about shipping in India in the second world war it was also said by other contemporaries that when Churchill began warning about Hitler in the 1930s nobody took him seriously because he'd used the same language about Gandhi and you know this idea that he was so he'd so lost perspective because he was bound up in these ideas which were already by then deeply outdated Nelson was using his position in the House of Lords to campaign against the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade at the time when Britain was only a few years away from achieving abolition so even at a time when Britain was divided there was this huge groundswell among working-class people among parliamentary elites favouring the abolition the transatlantic slave trade Nelson was pandering to the interest of his friends and and in-laws in the Caribbean so this is a person as well who at his own time by the standards of his era was out of sync now all I'm suggesting is that we introduce those facts into the narrative around our relationship with these figures and when you do that people react with extreme hostility and the reason is that they have been moralized and beside this idea that these figures are untouchable they have an almost iconic deified status so history is has been moralized as being weaponized against the oppressed who have been forgotten who are not commemorated and who and even though Peter G said we do learn about history in school most people in this country know a far greater amount about abolition than they do about the four hundred years of slavery that preceded it and how can it be logical to celebrate having abolished something that you fail to really acknowledge you played a role you just broke before we get we're going to hear Peter respond we can happy to respond in a minute you said there something I don't anyone could disagree with which is more facts and more knowledge and more context but because we're in the realm of the concrete and the marble and the bronze here just tell us how that contextualization and information say in the example in the case of Nelson what practical form would that take because I'm just picturing Nelson's column and how we look up how would you make that a more informative thing and then we're happy well I actually had great fun making a documentary for David's production company which is going to be on channel 4 in a couple of weeks in which we and I don't want to give too much away but we did something to Nelson's column that I think really helped contextualize his legacy so watch this space to find out more we don't have a museum of empire in this country isn't that remarkable arguably the most important aspect of modern British history that has made us for multicultural global power that we are 400 years of Empire there is not a single museum to it that is the level and extent of our major if we were to have such museum it would be a very appropriate place to put a statue of someone like this thank you Peter well you know it's this by the way is why you need to fund historians at universities I'm serious you know we have a government of whom 21 of the 23 in the cabinet rated humanities and they're all voting only to invest into STEM subjects these this is what my caucus what our colleagues do in universities day in day out almost all of them unsung most of them not invited to intelligence squared debate most the much more eloquently than I am not sure about the other the others on the panel but you know these things they are it's not just that they're important they're also incredibly interesting you know it is important to be challenging using new pieces of information new tools new resources and so on and so forth I absolutely completely welcome it and only an idiot would discard someone's opinion without evaluating everybody when I was talking about Churchill will sit there thinking well okay oh no no Tommy nursin may be Boris wouldn't be so busy comparing us of the church all the time or maybe he weren't you know who knows the comparison God you know and so I think I think it's terrific that we have these kind of discussions in a in it and they're they're important topics for my two cents and it's it's a very boring thing to say you know the world in the 21st century is on the move you know I think despite the importance of slavery despite importance of evaluating Nelson there are more important regions there are more important people's to be understanding their history rather than the incessant navel-gazing that we want to do here and I can tell you if you write about Henry the eighth if you write about the first world war there are these top a church he'll it'll sell by the bucketload because people love that stuff you write about China you heard about Russia it's not the revolution right about Iran no one in this room can tell me the name of a Chinese emperor can they please shout it out put your hand up okay or a Persian ruler that's not the last char nothing we are totally ignorant add subs are enough not just sub-saharan Africa add almost any other place in the world outside Western Europe in the US with North America and we know absolutely nothing so this question of refining and drilling down how do we Iranian it feels to me a bit like shuffle in the chair that the deck chairs on the Titanic you know Britain has to understand other people so I absolutely welcome these kinds of questions about Churchill and Nelson and Saul and many others and slavery and it's important that work gets done and it's important gets done by the best scholars of the day and they need an audience but there it seems to me that there are other interesting topics that lose all that oxygen and if we're going to talk about diversity if we're going to talk about dignity of other people's cultures the fact that no one here can tell me the name of a contemporary Russian artist Chinese novelist you know these are a Middle East in a musician artist composer from the Middle East poet you know we are absolutely and I throw it that is a Meyer is a special ism that throw in throw in other cultures throw in Africa throw in Egypt from West Africa thrown whatever you like that level of self-indulgence where we are only worried about war on past looks like and how do we feel a bit better a bit worse about it yeah means like we're not keeping up with what's going on although it is an OK well I think it is it is natural thing for any society to be interested in its own history and to be more engine in its own history well we excessively interested we are made a point of being absolutely narcissistic and that means but of course Leonel shut up the impact of being narcissistic is that there are half or whatever it is who love their own reflection Churchill they're Saints and then half who feel that they're excluded because we keep her in the same stories again and again and again who are the we is the question that comes out you know whoever it is I think it's I'm like like the same way we're it's it's this is about public debate but I can't see into anybody else's soul or mind Tiffani raised before two other areas that are in the non concrete area where history is important and we're going to get onto those in the minutes before we open up more broadly but just before we leave the business statues we've talked about the ones that are already there and whether they should be or not and and I'm not ignoring what Peter said because I think there's a way of coming back to this but especially that didn't get built in this era in Westminster there was a proposal for a statue of Margaret Thatcher the Westminster Council said no in January of this year because they feared it would be in exactly you're saying has always happened the target of protests and V&O vandalism and so it wasn't built there is a statue to Margaret Thatcher inside the Palace of Westminster so MPs and visitors can see it but actually on the street in the public sphere there is not one and I'll start with you I thought because you were saying you would like there to be some more women around so should there be a statue for Margaret Thatcher it's not my politics that any women is necessarily representative of progress for women and she would be a great example of why that is not the case where's mr. Smith the council by the way are excellent at saying no to statues they resisted the Mary Seacole statue which is one of the very few statues of black women in Britain and they also resisted the homeless Jesus statue in which I it was took even me by surprise so they've got hard hearts at Westminster Council love to hear from anyone from the council if they're in the room in the quite in the QA I know I don't think we should shy away from divisive figures because I want us to talk about them but given that we have a problem where people who have right-wing imperialists and oppressive histories are over represented in statues I'm not sure how erecting a statue of Margot Thatcher would rectify the situation isn't the problem not just that David come on it isn't them the problem it becomes quite a partisan thing where you know the left will always say we only one deaf people left will be able to deny Bevin that the right would want Margot said I mean in in a society how do you make sure that there are figures that we can come to some kind of agreement on people in many spheres of life you have to deal with this as a day to day as part of their job it's immensely difficult there is a real problem that if we are going to try to repopulate the streets with a counter statue for every statue then we better give up on cars I'm trying to get to work and building any new houses I think this gets to the heart that's it problem see I don't think it's that important to debate I think the debate about status is actually debate about history and I think that they are what we're doing is we're a country that's changed enormously trying to find a new grasp of it history and statues are just a lightning rod that were using to do it and I think that's what's really going on but the thing about statues is that they're pretty nerve it's a pretty dead form of memorialization look at the fourth plan it's not joyful doesn't that fitting isn't that appropriate for us that it changes and it's inventive and it's clever that's really in keeping with what were our societies like that but monumental memorials that up that are heroic memorials yeah they really were just what were too cynical were too kind of we poke fun too much for that same thing they look silly I mean we mentioned traffic cones in Edinburgh I wrote in The Guardian I spent my entire teens and 20s in Newcastle making sure there's a traffic cone on George Stevenson's head every Saturday night and we prided ourselves that we didn't go home after the nightclub until he had a traffic cone on his head biggest biggest we just instanc 17 we knew they were there silly yeah so heated the debate is about history not static you say Oh Tiffany I know you wonder approach that I want you to because you were the one who mentioned it about the apology because this is now a non statue way the Society's remember their history and you know but you mentioned Ireland but it was interesting that in I think it was around 2000 Tony Blair did give this apology maybe it was a bit later for the British culpability for the famine in Ireland and there was one there were two kinds of hostile responses one was you know kind of Union this position we said there's nothing to apologize for but there was another one that said even if there is something to apologize for what meaning does it have a man who was born you know a century and a half after it happened to stand up and apologize for something he had no involvement in and there are other cases on a sliding scale of proximity to the event from David Cameron apologizing for Bloody Sunday through no breaks it though but not breaks it to to Pope John Paul the second apologizing for you know two millennia of Catholic persecution of Jews so what meaning does apology have when when we do that um I think it's really novel actually that political leaders apologize in the way they have done since around there since about 1990 onwards Tony Blair also expressed regret for the slave trade he didn't formally apologize and they're obviously people like John Howard who wouldn't apologize for the way straighter treated the Aboriginal people I think you have to ask why and who benefits and what are the implications I think they try and gain some sort of moral legitimacy out of it it makes it's a grand icing for Tony Blair and it makes him look good because he can say we are not like those people in the past we know slavery is wrong and there's a kind of real moral flattery to it I think it's insidious and that it divorces responsibility from action I think that's the most important thing in politics is to take responsibility for one's own actions and I think it lets political leaders off the hook for inequalities today because a they're making themselves look good and B they can say well it's really because this thing happened 200 years ago it's really nothing to do with us although we are awfully sorry about it so I think it is inhibiting politically I don't think it's progressive well I think I don't have any problem with modern figures apologizing for past wrongs for one simple reason everybody in this room will have heard somebody say we won the war or we won the World Cup in 1966 regardless of whether they were alive in 1945 or 1966 there is a tendency to be very comfortable celebrating one's own part in things that we had no involvement in but when it comes to things that were bad it's a total nothing to do me I wasn't alive then you know move on so you know there's a huge it's one of the many inconsistencies and the many hypocrisy is in the way that we remember these aspects of the past the reality is there is a very good reason why no senior British politician has ever apologized for the transatlantic slave trade biggest atrocity against humanity in human history the reason is because it would open up the way to a very a very legitimate case for reparations and no politician is willing to lay the ground that would help a reparations case because it would have legs legally there is a strong case there were 14 Caribbean nations currently litigating for reparations because of Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and so the specter of reparations is borrowing politicians from admitting something which had long ago being admitted which was that Britain was one of the inventors and major benefactors of a trade that trafficked in people that has an intergenerational legacy that affects people's lives today and if we just look at the spectrum wind rushes brings me right back to statues one of the things that I really took away from the recent stories about the wind regeneration is how many of them were enduring the this refusal to have NHS treatment eviction by landlords without going to their MP or without speaking to journalists without raising the flag and the reason is that they lived although they should have been British although they had been here so long they lived in a state of insecurity there are so many people who are entitled to be in this country who are British who do not feel able to claim their full place in this state and the way that statues commemorate their oppressors is one of many complex ways in which we still deal Ajit's mize the Britishness of people of color in Britain and it's something we cannot afford to keep ignoring Peter you you in our initial go around were quite skeptical of the importance of the statues issue and said you know there are other things would if people on this side of the argument were more campaigning about reparations and saying you know put aside the statues we would rather see reparations for the descendants of slaves with that in a way strike pass your test of whether something matters or not more now I think that's it that's it just a question of law isn't it it's about how does one how does one settle things that have been done that are wrong and I think that it's a it's a question but above my competence to work out how one how one addresses that and you know like most people in the world I would like the most relevant and most competent court to be able to listen to the arguments to make a ruling and that's a political judgment isn't it well I think yeah it has a society do we want to compensate yes I mean I'm not going to waste anybody's time say well where do where you draw a line and here we have a reparation for the Norman invasion of 1066 this is obviously it's a fundamentally important question that are frustrating and it's one that is meaningful right it's not one about that's a joke it's one that it's absolutely serious personally in the in the in the scheme of things the statues are much less useful than education and by not just explaining what the past meant or what about how what we can do about it and that education means being politically informed of being understanding what levels of exclusion there are in society for people from the wrong backgrounds the wrong skin color wrong gender or sexuality and so on because all of us on balance I'd have thought in the in this hopefully in this room would agree agree that we should be a country that is based on equality and based on merit right and how one achieves that is a slightly different story that it doesn't seem to me that pulling a few statues down would make a big difference to those kinds of debate I'd like to see something that's much more substantive right but having said that you know I work on places like Russia for example where no one had any question at all in 1990-91 that Lenin statue should be pulled down for all over the world i'ma fall over the xov Union and no one in their right mind I thought today would think that there would be a good idea for them to go back up although there was a real revisionism in some of these countries towards redirecting a Soviet past of recalibrating what the Soviet Union meant and you know I find it difficult as someone who has long connections to this part of the world see people wearing hammers and sickles right walking around as though selling Socialist Worker or or talking about hard let's say well the seventeen you've got it wrong but actually it's a fundamentally good set of ideas you know that is the same kind of process under thought that David was talking about people in Bristol being being horrified that people could take this kind of position so there is a kind of deep cleanse I think we need to go as far as there follows the question reparations I think it's out of thought it's how does one make a sensible reparation to people seven six seven eight generations down there is fair and equitable because it's you know we were almost out of business anywhere in this country but if we pay people who are the descendants of the people who were who are enslaved and sold with it I mean that's the they desert it's worth billions hundreds of billions do you want to go in very brief on this and then I've got one last thing for all of you before we go to him on statues that have come down and if you go to Budapest you can go to memento Park and all the communist statues were put there and likewise in India but they came down as the social order was changed they they accompanied social change rather than this which I think is in place of it right that's very interesting the and he said before he is the last we want to put all four of you man called David reef a journalist who recovered the Bosnian Balkan Wars me in the 90s wrote a book recently called in praise of forgetting in which he said that we've got too much history not just statues but museums and commemorations and he said having seen these conflicts particularly that kind of civil strife they are entirely rooted he said in an excess of history where people say much as you would just think about we were the victims of you over there and therefore we must get our revenge and you see it played out generation after generation and he says we actually just need a less of it much less of it and he quotes the Northern Irish writer who said you know we need to build a monument to amnesia and then forget where we put it that's a much more radical idea than anything we've we've done and I'm just curious all for you are all four of you are historians of one form or other what do you think of that idea that it's not just about statues museums the whole shooting match is actually a mistake I the volkens is a really great place to feel crap about chose choosen to be a historian it's a place you really question your life choices when you sit in the cafe in the Balkans and everyone you talked to has some burning I say that's right so the Balkans in this country is synonymous with tribal blood-shedding historically from them for the last thousand years there's been one war between the Serbs of the crow whither peoples of that region right one how we contextualize that in a 20th century or the 19th century of slavery men dying in Flanders the Holocaust these are the unwashed I found the hope of things of things recovering really difficult to grasp and really could see how history was weaponized other places I don't want to get into the discussion specifically about the Balkans because we wake as large as many but it's a world where you can see that Northern Ireland is one of them where people are inculcated in the world a world view in a certain history which away which is closes avenues I think that's that's all that that's all true in it so it's really worrying I don't think we have too much history in this country because I think what Peter was saying about our version of history is we only tell partial stories so to talk about you mentioned China I've never met a Chinese person who doesn't know that in 1860 the British destroyed the Summer Palace I rarely meet a British person who understands that one of the greatest treasures in Chinese history one of the great architectural and and and its contents were destroyed and looted by the by a British and French force under the younger Lord Elgin in the 1860s the idea that we have a right that we can decide what we remember and what we forget when it comes to Empire doesn't work because there's also then there's also India hasn't forgot the repression after the mutiny of 1857 India hasn't forgotten Amritsar India hasn't forgotten the Bengal famine and the famines of the 19th century so there are a lot of people for whom the we remember it on the bits they remembering every spunk was there even if people in India remembering emerita all this remembering means people cannot get on with living people remembering different things - that I understand he's just he's making a point about human beings in a way that we just wait down with these memories but it's a really good book and it's short and very nice short essays but I think he makes a really important point which is that it can be incredibly divisive and set people against each other and kind of the conflict of the past just kind of is is spread everywhere I think that's what the kind of reparations campaign could create and I think it also creates some people a kind of a victim identity they're encouraged really to show their wounds because how are you going to get reparations if you haven't suffered so I think it encourages people to feel frail and and unable to shape their own destiny when the whole point of something like decolonization was to throw us throw off the kind of shackles of history and shape histories which is warmer 20d corners universities and curriculums part of the same process I've taken control not victims tyfa and i really seem to you these retiring cowering victims why don't you come back and then Peter and then we're gonna really great summer palace in Beijing because sometimes people say to me if you you know if you really want to move down there take down Nelson imagine if British people went around the world destroying their statues and culture how would they feel to which I reply that's called the British Empire you know so many people in this country have no idea that Britain went around the world wreaking cultural havoc and destruction and destroying the heritage of my own family who lived in Kumasi the center of the Ashanti Kingdom the artefacts that the history the literature they're lost forever because of the British raised from the Anglo shanty was some of them ended up in private collections summer in the British Museum but the majority are lost and won't be recovered I care about history this isn't about in raising history but this is about amnesia and you know I feel like there's a theme in my responses to Tiffany Tiffany says this is weaponizing the debate this is weaponizing identity this is creating victims the reality is this weaponization has been going on only it's been going on against a minority who are not heard the problem with that but the problem with remembering less history is who gets to decide at the moment we remember only very a very small number of things I heard a statistic that there are 50 TV series every year in Britain about the Second World War 50 every year which rang true and there's a reason why we're obsessed a second law well we want it it's it makes us feel good you know there is a good narrative we're on the right side of history we are the moral victors we are not interested in the historical narratives that make us feel uncomfortable about our legacy as British people so I would be interested I'm not so worried about less of that history I want more of the history that we choose to forget and a greater understanding of the reasons why we've chosen to pick okay very close briefing you Kangas I want to give you yeah you know I think that's that's a little bit cynical you know people's aren't in the second world war because it's humanity at its most disgusting and most depraved and there is an educational process in explaining that what look like decent normal people are capable of the right circumstances of committing horrendous acts against each other you know we're capable yeah absolutely right and that's not just a British thing that's a French thing that's a West African then that's an East African thing slavery is something since the dawn of time and if anybody think slavery today doesn't exist it was a human trafficking particularly of young women you know this is a proper society and global problem always has been so I'm not trying to downgrade any of those experiences but that does always need to be put a context in in the case of the second world war some of us because of the horrors and the reminder to our children and their children that this can happen you know that Aleppo is not because the Syrians are bad people or because Assad is a particular bad with power it's not about the Balkans being a bloody region and so on compared against Flanders and the Holocaust and so on people in the wrong terms are capable of inflicting profound pain and murdering their neighbors right and that is something which is important to teach to children and in that sense slavery statutes are part of what how do we understand history what should we be teaching and you know I do go back it's a wine civilizations this series are so important is to open up that world it's not just about Western European art it's not just about the story that we sort of know with a bit of tweaks there are billions of people on this planet and they are all excluded their histories and their good bits their bad bits their their equivalents and so on so you know I think that it's important that we put that in a context where we are looking constantly at the whole of the ecosphere around us thank you let's go for questions from all of you and or some of you more realistically so we'll go with question you're number two there on that microphone if you go you go now you know we live in age of images you know and also political symbolism you know just look at Trump he's a political performer so symbolism is is becoming more and more political so I do agree that statues might be neutral but removing the statues is is about symbols and it's money it could send a much stronger signal so it's not your question if you have this age would you think about the act of removing the statues as a powerful political message thank you okay and here yeah and the debate about Koston is happening in Bristol and there are things being renamed and that's happening constantly there's still an awful lot of things going on behind the scenes Colston day's cost and buns Colston relics that are still hanging around Bristol do you not think that it's easier to develop that to bait to spark more debate to have that Colson statue they're more important than Neptune statue and that it should be reinterpreted so you mean the act of having you there is good thing because it keeps this debate gay yes thank you very good then microphone number three yeah I just was interest because you said that one of the solutions would be to bring these statues in museum and talk about it because the starches show imperial past and help matic it is but museum as institutions can be very problematic because they are a part of the Empire of England actually so how would that solve the problem and when you say that you mean something like for example the British Museum with its treasures from all it yes that's sort of okay that's interesting and thank you and then we've got back for a number if you've got somebody else here you have okay yeah let's take a fall for me yep and equality that the black community who are taxpayers should be subsidizing the memorials and initiatives of others without a memorial of our own now I'd like to actually put this into context give me an example women yes well for example there are many government-funded memorials so for example in 2002 the barley memorial 2007 the Hyde Park Memorial okay 2015 the Holocaust and later this summer there's going to be a new Tavistock memorial and the chair of the Tavistock memorial said it's important that 13 innocent victims aren't forgotten that's correct and also the memorials I've cited it's correct that those victims shouldn't be forgotten but what about Africans 400 years of slavery and yet there is no memorial to remember them oh they're lives worth remembering thank you I understand and because we've got we've covered a big range here but when we'll take one more over there that might friend number four and then we're going to bring it back for responses here yes hi history is written by the winners education is massively important my big bugbear with history in the First World War is that very few people know about the Berlin to Baghdad railway where Germany was expanding its empire and this is not taught in our schools so I've liked reinforced you of what you're saying people about education and do the panel collectively think that things like the Berlin's Baghdad railway should be made more available in our school to have a balanced view on both sides thank you let's um thanks for all of those we will we'll see if we can get more in why don't we just put to you David this first point it's a Bristol point about Colson that you know you did nominate him for removal right at the beginning and the questioner says actually it's good it's got a whole debate going the perhaps otherwise might not have happened in Bristol he has another debate and the debates being gone being got going by a bunch of academics and activists who began this about thirty years ago and have faced huge resistance from the City Council from up until recently the newspapers at every step of the way it's largely down to match dresser and it's interesting that it took a visitor a newcomer to our city a Californian Jewish lady to actually help this look on fronted City I've lived in Liverpool I lived in London two cities at the center of the Atlantic slave trade Bristol is more in denial of its history of a jewelry store than any city I don't think the idea that the statue is waters brought this debate I think that debate has been enlivened by that huge efforts of people who I enormously admire for the work that they've done the nice that they're still doing we had a ceremony last week in Bristol where we gave sugared buns to children in honor of a man who sold bought and sold human beings and was responsible we estimate for thirty thousand deaths it's just this is the 21st century we have to decide if we want to be a society that wants to do this stuff does somebody and this is the same thing with roads does somebody who's made an awful lot of money doing terrible things have the right to buy moral absolution are we going to be complicit in them saying I've bought forgiveness I bought absolution and for 200 years are we gonna go along with this it's God that was advocate let's say we took him down to put David Beckham well I don't know who the most famous I mean no or someone we all agreed was a good thing with no bad side there are not many of them the academic world I can tell you notes let's say we took him down and did the saint of roads and all the contested spaces that I can't disagree with him word all of that but then then they get there do they don't get away with it that way because their names then you can take the point then there they get reduced from history because no one talks about that anymore in silence and you know all publicity is good publicity is one of the good things about the road must fall campaign that people have been talking about what roads meant what he did who he was and I don't want to do you know as well editing the historical record is always complicated but there are different solutions and so on but getting people angry getting people to know about hurry was education again that's the cornerstone pieces on Stinnett statues aren't a delivery system for history your work the books that you sell around the world of that television programs of the delivery system these are forms of memorialization they're not neutral they're not saying here's the past make up your view about it come to a decision they're saying this man was good or great but the state proves it plays a role were virtuous son duplicity well he wasn't a son of the city lived in London right he wasn't very wise cuz he they lost the monopoly under his would you think you mentioned the campaigners in Bristol and your you know supporters before thing who would those campaigners or you like to see on that space which is currently cause you wouldn't replace it with anyone I gave for David so we heard earlier this solution proposed solution was to move some of these difficult and controversial statues into museums or they can be contextualized and discuss and the questioner over there said much as you did actually that they are themselves problematic and the point was made there about the British Museum which is in some ways not in the way you intended a museum of empire because it records treasures that were taken around the world you've written very directly about that the book we refer to in when I introduced you so what about that the notion actually museums have there's a whole other can of worms with what's in a museum because we're there's a whole lot of plundered items there that don't actually send perhaps the but the message we want but they're also very busy they're busy and they're full and they've got a job to do I want to come back to a point that David made which is that they are there an argument of these statutes and in a way I think that's one of the functions because one of the hardest things when I teach students is getting them to imagine the past as a different place to the present you know that historical imagination is really hard and teaching slavery or talking to students about slavery is actually quite hard because they'll say well it's a terrible thing and people in the past were terrible people but it's really hard to trying and deliver a message and get them to understand that actually people thought very differently than the way that they do now and some of the artifacts from the past there's a the Museum of Docklands has got quite a interesting exhibition now with a lot of anti-slavery iconography little pots and things like that which showed the African is a supplicant waiting to be kind of saved and those artifacts from history dubious as we may feel them can actually open up a little so it's not I'm not saying every statue should be saved for that I think that'd be ridiculous but erasing things that we don't like doesn't necessarily serve the purposes of history or opening up the historical imagination but I just want to come on to the point about symbols because yeah it's a really important point and that's my problem this question just to remind you about the question this was the question who said that the act of removing them would itself be very symbolic that's correct oh yeah you go it's limited and that's why it's only because it's just politics by symbols and I think you know Millicent Fawcett is now in Parliament Square I mean who can argue with that she's the most vanilla female suffragette campaigner going and I just think about women's rights today what about equality does it just don't Millicent Fawcett because people have made that point that she was a suffragette and not somebody who thought you know any means necessary do you think it would have been there were edgier choices that could have been made and should they be made um there were idea traces but I just wouldn't go to statues I really wouldn't and I feel we David I'm yeah I'm actually on this one I'm reminded of the Iraq war when was a taking down of the statue of his Saddam Hussein with 2003 yeah who was who was involved well the Americans were so they wanted to be part of that symbolic removal and it was empty and they helped destroy the country but they helped take down the statue I mean that's where symbolism gets you it's a very limited political strategy it was extremely effective we only know about because of a footnote in an an appraisal of the operation that was accidentally left him when he was published it was American Cyclops he was extremely effective and it shows the symbolism of statues but I think they sort of messed up didn't they because they put the flag on and then quickly removed it there was an American flag on it they put on then they had put an Iraqi flag yeah to make it was all managed by a Marine colonel and accidentally the reporter just quickly or whatever it was you're gonna say because I wanted to say so Peter I won't to put to you the question it was made here which is there are statues only you were the very opening sort of saying you know we should have other things to do but the question you hear made the very good point that they're asked for morals to all kinds of things you know the barley attack and the 7/7 attack is about to get it anymore in that context wouldn't you think and I know your larger point about we're too interests elective anyway sure but given that we do have these memorials at 7-7 and other things a question are asked surely the victims of 400 years of slavery deserve some kind of memorial well you know why are moronic politicians can't see that do something about it rather than apologizing all the time is a mystery to me so you would favor that kind of absolutely I mean how could how can anybody argue it without you know as a scholar in more museums and more we curate are things the better so I think that of course that's right I mean it's it's it's it's it's incredible to me that we don't have this already but you need political will you need funding and you need to be fun in the humanities so that's all part of the same script you know I think with all these things my I was thinking about on on the way I've been to Oxford you know the most important collection of statues that answer though you know replacement is it political and so on of course in it's not just in London it's matter of two songs right that's where the most statues are in this and his missus visited by millions tens of millions people a year and at certain point you know you unscrew Paul Daniels his head he put make mega mark along top right Peter we know Megan mortal statue know her her statues just gone up in there and you the people who were the heroes alone when I was growing up brought holiday me he's gone melt it down you know pull Danielson the first outrageous thing I feel Kevin Keegan you know I think that there is there is there is you know you that your winds of history they blow through us all and you know we learned from our past we learned that what used to be appropriate you know I used to go to you know Saturday night watching Benny Hill I had no idea how utterly grotesque I couldn't but I mean I couldn't watch that room I couldn't even explain to my children what that is and yet at the time it was completely totally normal and you know the job of historians is to provide a context for what that was and how do we move on how do we learn so I'd much rather on balance have a museum to Empire or slavery and to Africans who you know who on whom this country's wealth was built then a museum to Benny Hill but you know you need to have the political goodwill and the energy and the resource to get that done and we have a highly fractious political establishment but you know Michael Gove when he was education secretary was asked there was a big consultation process done with academic historians about what should be taught in schools and Nick Clegg who's a friend of mine was at the was at the meeting where Michael Gove was handed this policy paper I asked it was it all right if I say this in the public domain he said trust me you say whatever you like my gogo pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket that said right here the kings of Queens in England so I like the idea that you should learn about been in and you know 10th century but actually this is what I think kids should learn and won't with a tick going Elizabeth first you know Henry the eighth that's all and so forth all those usual things and if you don't have the resources Alex in the gentleman's question there if you don't teach about the interconnected world if you don't show how Britain India the Caribbean North America was connected together then you've lost your children by the time they become you know by the time they're 11 or 12 for there was only one question left that we haven't yet address but I'm quite get some morning but this was the person who raised the thing about the Berlin to Baghdad railway and will want meaning even those things we can we do learn lots about there's always aspects that we don't issue about the reason that we are obsessed with second war is because it's a story of human pathos and what they're the atrocity that humanity is capable of I agree but same time even within that we don't learn the whole picture so my grandfather was Kindertransport from Berlin for as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany I didn't learn about that I didn't learn about the the hostility towards Jewish refugees in Britain in the early thirties newspaper headlines regarding us that the scum of Europe the narrative we've received is that we were very benevolent we opened up the borders to do a charity we only accept an unaccompanied children you know even at the time there are things that I think it's important as a context for understanding how people fleeing a threat like the Nazi presence in Germany 90s we still didn't understand and you know in Germany they've got two different words for monuments they've got monuments that make you think about the past and they've got monuments that warn you about not what not to repeat either of us it's not a coincidence we don't have a sophisticated language because we don't have a sophisticated relationship with statues and monuments I think that the reason it's important to remember these histories is to avoid repeating them and even within the histories we think we know a lot about we avoid aspects that do not fit a narrative as their as the moral victor as the nation was on the right side of history I just wanted to address the point about the you know the problem with museums you know museums the Academy the school and university curriculum they are all colonial institutions I agrees that museums are not a necessarily a safe space but this is a completely cyclical problem you know we have statues that are part of our tendency to revere a colonial past and we don't want to take them down because any of the places we could put them also Revere a colonial past and this is really and I totally agree with David about this this is not really about statues it's about cultural attitudes towards history it's about our relationship with our past it's about our contemporary identity and our imagined identity in the past and just to finish what Tiffany said of course the past was a different place but one of the things we downplay in my opinion is the history of resistance you know working-class protest against things like slavery the fact that in the mill towns of northern England people whose livelihood depended on the cotton trade from the slavery South went on strike in support of slaves these are white working-class people who had no reason other than their conscience and their morality to take a stance against the transatlantic slave trade we also don't remember them there are so many things we forget because it's not convenient and I would like to see them all back in the record for debate let's not talk about the Guardians editorial position would be another interesting conversation Garden sided with the concentrators are not the striking workers and sided with the south and the Civil War extraordinarily that's another identity now let's just take in a couple two or three more questions just in a these are gonna have to be so brief because we're really almost running out so if we can get a microphone over to hear if we're talking about political figures I mean there'll always be something negative about rulers or leaders like Churchill for example you know the fact remains that Churchill was the prime minister during the war and he did leave the country but there are also a lot of negative stories about Churchill but if his statue is up there I mean is it justified to remove it and can we only have statues of people like Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa just behind you thank you can we only have statues for people who are unambiguously good an angelic yeah so thanks so much for this debate I'm I'm in Bristol as well I'm part of the countering Coulston group that has been campaigning Bristol for these changes okay you asked what what campaigners would want so I can speak to that the next thing that we are campaigning for is to get a Memorial in Bristol a memorial and a museum to honor slavery resistance and abolition we don't have to wait for this to happen from up above everybody in this room can help to make this happen we'll start we're going to launch crowdfunder and anybody who wants to help make this happen we can you know we can do it now so is there a question or is it yes no that's fine thank you let's see the question over there yeah what is the criteria by which we remove statues I mean you mentioned one criteria which is it is offending to someone and as an example you mentioned T you know statues by the Nazi regime in Germany which of course are offending to Jews now I am from Germany and I can tell you we are not removing these statues because they will be offensive to Israel or to the Jews we are removing them because we are afraid of ourselves we removed them because we are afraid that they become an assembly point for Nazis and that the atrocities that we lived in our country are reoccurring we are still scared of that 70 years after the Second World War that's why we removed them not because they are offending their offending statues all over the world so the question is you know are you scared that slavery is coming back or why do you want to them to be removed fascinating thank you and your question goes to this point of how powerful these things can be and there's a very last one I think over here this would be the last one so following on nicely from that I would ask that when we talk about removing statues it seems that people are really afraid of history being erased histories in the first place aren't being taught in schools in anywhere near an adequate level to deal with Empire and the violence and pain of that so in Australia at the moment there's been a call after the statement from the heart last year for a process of truth-telling about our history and the word used means reconciliation after a struggle but people have been really afraid because that requires a recognition of the pain and the harm and that ongoing violence so what are you so afraid of if you don't want to take a statue down great thank you thanks for all of those sorry for people we couldn't get in let's David's big quick one for you you said at the beginning that if people are you know I'm ambiguously bad in a way there's not two sides of the ledger and you cited Coulson's example then you say there's not really a case for keeping the statue up put the other way the questioner says you know unless they're Florence Nightingale does that mean they can't be remembered and we're only going to end up with these very vanilla was your word about Millicent Fawcett statutes is that the risk no that's what I'm saying at all I also I have a huge problem both mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale and in a way there is no vanilla figure actually in a way this is why I think the debates not about about statues you know I've got no problem that being said to you to Churchill but I do have a problem the fact that we need to tell them more it's a much more complicated figure much more interesting figure than the the darkest hour figure I just want us to be honest about our history I'm not I don't care about the statues that much or the care about deserve being honest about the history one of the myths about people who debate these is that this is some form of that it's all about offense I've never mentioned defense I don't feel a fencer then you stat you and it's not about a sense of victimhood I really don't feel and I presume you don't feel I carry myself like a victim it's to do with I think we can become a better country I think we're good enough strong enough honest enough country to confront our history the good and the bad I think we're up for I think would where we can do it I just would be happier to live in a country that wasn't in denial of our parts of its past great because time is so short I'd like the three of you to take them that those last two questions both which had fear in them the German example and then the examples from Australia but both were saying what are you afraid of about either keeping these statues or removing them why don't we start with you Tiffany oh it's a really good point about your about Germany but you see I think there that there is a huge distrust of the public and I think there is here too and I that makes me feel very uncomfortable it's not that I think the public Arthur you know it's wonderful smart group of people but I think we have to treat them with a little bit of respect and not like their Pavlovian dogs who can't see a statue not turn into some sort of Nazi oh the woman was killed last year at the base of this chat you two generally the far-right the Nazi the KKK are rallying around these statues and people have died what Steve Bannon say he said as long as they're talking about statues we've got them ma I I think there's a kind of circle where the old right and the whatever you might want to call it are kind of reinforcing a battle over statues I think you just need to Deepa little sighs it entirely but they are dangerous because they I don't think they're dangerous I mean in the case of the war having a challenge feel that it was the removal that triggered thee it wasn't the history was no no it was about the statute in Charlotte it was yeah it was a lightning rod people have using they always have to use these attitudes yeah to rally around let me because where he needs to why we're already over time sorry I'm talking of you but I just know make sure we wrap it up so after the the question there was you know in Germany they have they felt a very good reason not to put these up because they were worried about the big rallying points here in a way what is the I'm just channeling what the questioner said what are you afraid of that might happen if these statues these revering objects remain in place and he put it sort of rhetorically are you afraid slavery will come back if you keep Nelson up there on a plinth on a pedestal so slavery was the manifestation of an ideology of white supremacy which has not gone away and it bares itself out in so many parts of contemporary life in the UK black afro-caribbeans schoolboys are 168 times more likely to be excluded in the white kids youth unemployment are over for young black men is is double what it is for young white people fifty percent of people of black African heritage live in poverty which is more than 2 times the rate for other people who live in poverty the reality is that we have not recovered from these traumatic histories they are part of our everyday life and we constantly live in a state of amnesia where we call this the the ancient history that people who raised it are told that their victims sort of the fact that we are simply introducing facts into the debate what the lady from Australia made such an Australia's going through a very interesting conversation right now I know exactly what we are afraid of Britishness is a fragile identity right now we cannot withstand questioning interrogating and talking honestly about historical record that is the real problem here and I agree with David the statues are a symptom and not a cause the real issue is our fragility our insecurity our hostility and having a very honest conversation about who we are and how we got here and that is why we need to have this debate thank you and a beter closing for me not sure that's much dad I mean I of course agree with with what Allah says and you know I I just think all of these things are not affected by lumps of rock these are they are highly symbolic I think we all agree with that I mean it's a it's a great apocryphal story about medieval Italy where a town attacked Seville city-states attacks a neighboring town and they're led to one of them well as in Tuscany has led to salvation by a particularly charismatic leader and the town they gather round to say well what should we do to commemorate this great victory of we all know - victory from the jaws of disaster and the town's folks say well we should we should make him our ruler and this in their City stayed with highly democratic and then the next one says we should make a statue to him and they said that's no good because a statue will stay up for a while and then it'll be torn down and then some of the back says kill him make him a saint and that gives you perpetuity so you know I think that these these are there I recognise the discussions and the importance about statues as symbols they do have lightning-rod moments you know roads and culture - particularly famous examples but you know half of the Oxford colleges were founded by people murdered their wife had to pay penance and it's how far back you go in all of this it sits at my vanilla ending is that you know that is why you have world-class academic institutions here where you and it doesn't work without you giving up your evenings and coming to hear us talk it doesn't go without you buying a David a Tiffany's hair for us terrific books very different in their scope but all trying to do something similar which is to ask questions about who we are right and the only way you can start to learn is to start by listening so thank you [Applause] we thank you very much we cannot leave without this Peters just said point out that all four of our speakers have books that they are happy to sign outside I leave you with two things first the words inscribed itched into the ceiling here you may not notice close with neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away so they are mindful of her history and how it does that past but I thought that I'd promised you for people who were going to grapple with these themes and I think they've done so extraordinarily substantively and engage idli and so your joy it remains for you to join me in thanking saving all Shaka for her Sh Tiffany Jenkins aunty - Frankie fan thank you all very much [Applause]

Channel: Intelligence Squared

Views: 83,361

Rating: 4.5969467 out of 5

Keywords: statues, memorials, memory, memorialisation, commemoration, afua hirsch, tiffany jenkins, peter frankopan, david olusoga, jonathan freedland, confederate statues, cecil rhodes, rhodes must fall, robert e lee, charlottesville, edward colston

Id: SoC2ioaQUQU

Length: 84min 49sec (5089 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 02 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/89XE10]

Keep the statues. Put up an information board if necessary. Judging historical figures with the morals of the current day isn't a sensible approach in my opinion. Nearly every historical figure that has added any value to the country probably has some sort of unsavoury past or held some sort of view that today would be considered abhorrent.

Funnily enough the few of us that will be remembered by history in a hundred years time might have our own statues torn down and moral character derided because we took pleasure in eating beef and pork.

[u/diddums100]

Just add a plaque explaining the unacceptable methods they made their money and move on. Don't white wash history, it's important to remember

[u/Quantum_Prophet]

I think renaming St Paul's should be a higher priority tbh. What a vile human being.