Decline and fall

I feel an unexpected sense of distress as well as anger when I see footage of those controversial statues falling. Yet the victims so far have been pretty obscure. Who exactly was Colston? And what about Robert Milligan? I studied English History but I had to struggle to remember who they were. My fault no doubt, and not my tutors’. I am willing to bet that most readers of this piece have the same problem.

Moreover I abhor Britain’s sorry role, both in the trade and in profitting from the colonial slave estates, as much as the next person. So perhaps I should be celebrating. After all, I was raised in a Marxist household in the 1940s and 1950s. My parents had no time for the declining Empire and not much for the emerging Commonwealth which at the time they saw as colonial exploitation repackaged.

Even so, I find the Bristol mob, bravely (ie irresponsibly) defying the danger of Coronavirus, to kick the statue they had dragged down — while the police stood by — at least as distasteful as the posturing councillors of Tower Hamlets. They rushed to get in on the act, sending a crane to deal with another “slaver”, the aforementioned Mr Milligan.

The truth is that, for me, tearing down statues is something that should happen only in broken countries emerging from truly appalling regimes. Britain is not such a country. Those British citizens who pretend that it is, are doing themselves and their country no service. Of course we still have serious problems of prejudice and discrimination to deal with. But this is one of the most diverse and racially tolerant nations in the world. Why else would thousands of refugees and economic migrants risk their lives in tiny boats to escape from France and seek succour here?

Consider: When American troops tore down the giant image of that sadistic dictator Saddam Hussein, local people danced with joy. Americans had arrived as liberators. (That they blew it later is another story.) As the totalitarian Soviet Union and its empire collapsed from within, statues of Stalin and of hated secret police chiefs were torn down, or officially removed and dumped in obscure parks. One of the first things Allied troops did in conquered Nazi Germany was to blow up or pull down the statues and monuments of Hitler’s regime. Symbols matter.

But Britain citizens, black, brown or white, are not suffering under some foul racist regime. To allow this sort of vandalism to gain momentum is legitimising the notion that we are. And that is inviting more trouble. In London last week the Union Flag on the Cenotaph was burned and the statue of Churchill in Parliament Square was defaced with the word “racist”. It was, thank goodness, too solid and stocky for the mob to tear down, had they tried. OK, he opposed independence for India and was scathing about Gandhi. But Churchill also saved this country from Nazi occupation and is one of the most iconic figures in our nation’s history. As for Gandhi, who spent many years in South Africa, he was crudely contemptuous of Africans. Will his statues in Fitzrovia be spared by BAME activists? It would be illuminating to sit in on the debate about that.

The list of potential victims now circulating grows longer and more ridiculous. Leave aside Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College Oxford. Nelson should be toppled from his column. Sir Francis Drake is a candidate for the chop. So is William Gladstone, the great Liberal Prime Minister, just given the boot by Liverpool University. His family apparently made money out of investments in the West Indian sugar trade. The founder of the Boy Scouts, Baden Powell is in danger. So too is Nancy Astor. She was rude about Jews. (Problem for the remains of the Corbynista army there! )

No wonder London’s opportunist mayor, Sadiq Khan, is setting up a supposedly diverse commission of  “experts” to decide which statues to tear down. Labour authorities around the country are rushing to follow his example. I wonder whether Khan’s commission will be diverse enough to include say Trevor Phillips, the black former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, or perhaps the historian, Andrew Roberts.

So what is to be done? Here, in a spirit of compromise, is a suggestion. For every “slaver” statue torn down, every building re-named, we should erect a statue to William Wilberforce who campaigned so effectively to put an end to slavery, or to one of the many public figures who helped him. Or to the British naval commanders who subsequently policed the 19th century seas to suppress the global trade in human beings.

Somehow I doubt that many of last weekend’s demonstrators would endorse my plan. They alas have a very different, uncompromising, agenda. They don’t want to right wrongs. They want to re-write history. And that is not how democratic states work.