We have been talking about political correctness on other threads and this would appear to be a good topic to get into whether PC is good or bad. The POTUS says it is a shame to lose lovely parts of America’s culture and history. Maine’s Governor (a Republican) says that taking down Confederate statues is “just like” removing a monument to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Yes, seriously!
Wortha discussion, but can we at teh very least reclaim PC for the positive force it is intended to be? Its an indtentiaonal step to remove prejudices and redress balances and issue of fairness… as a result it ‘connot go mad’ because anything thing that is ridiculous through the disptorted PC lens of the Sun and Mail and Barry is nothing to do with PC, but is simply ridiculous… there are many things that were considered acceptable in the past but now are not… when the ITV first got rid of those old 70s comedians doing jokes about ‘Chalky’ and ‘nignogs’ - many thought it was PC gone mad… times chnage thank fuck
Removing the statue is important. Its is about removing symbols of previous oppression. It has nothing to do with being PC and nothing to do with ‘preserving culture’ - we want to learn from history, but not celebrate oppression and this is a symbol of it and should not be idolised if a society wants to move away from its unsavoury and dispicable past.
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This.
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I suspect if you look around England you will find many statutes of historical figures who did questionable things.
Should all Churchill statues be torn down because he authorised the bombing of Dresden which did for 25,000 people?
With the statute in Charlottesville, it is not because it is General Lee, but more about what it represents. It is a confederacy symbol and lots of southern American feel this is part of their cultural identity. Therefore an attack on that is an attack on their heritage.
Nelson Mandela got it right with the Springbok Jersey. Lots of people saw this as a symbol of the Affrikanner and wanted to bin it. Mandela recognised just how culturally important the Springboks were to the Afrikanners, that he kept it and used it as an olive branch.
I’ve been trying to think of some potentially dodgy statues here, given the role we played in the past in slavery, Empire etc. I guess Richard 1 is a bit dodgy, given his history with the Crusades. Thatcher of course is a given, any others?
Who ever commissioned Vikings is a fascist bastard supporting oppression of the Anglo Saxons and various peoples of this Nation, tear down Liverpool, parts of London and Bristol while you’re at it,…
There should be a whole lot of fucking Christopher Columbus statues coming down, why aren’t they?
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You wouldnt see a statue of Churchill in Germany. What was done was, sadly, a part of winning a conflict that we could afford to lose. There is a statue to Bomber Harris too. Boudica, Nelson, Wellington - all famous for killing people.
Deflection alert tactic by SOG, old game son, you’ve done this many times when you feel your liberal agenda slipping away.
I prefer to call in a human agenda Barry and I really dont think it is slipping away. Dont you think it is worth talking about these statues, especially given that the far right made a huge issue about this one and one poor soul lost her life?
Why wouldn’t you see a statue of Churchill in Germany? The Nazi’s also enslaved and murdered their own. Embarrassment probably but Churchill for all his ills help free the nation from tyranny.
Not many as the British play fair pretty much, others? Belgium still has a statue of Leopold, tyranny happens everywhere, as a side note how were West African slaves taken from their homes?
This isn’t going very well is it?
It is not a statue that has to go (of course it does but keep it there for now) it is what people are thinking, those thoughts are now reinforced and have given the right a further boost, there needs to be concession and the will of the majority, say for instance it will be removed in 2050 or in a 100 years time etc etc the extreme and fascist left are bellends as well.
There is a strong case to argue that at the Time of Dresden bombing German cities was largely irrelevant with regards to winning the war. If that happened today, we would be screaming war crimes.
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I admire the descendants of Stonewall Jackson for their stand.
But I have really deep reservations about this.
Yes i am a Star Trek fan, but one mantra from that show keeps coming back to me.
Mankind has evolved due to the lessons of the past. Yet working with yoof who know everything and nothing, products of a dysfunctional education system who don’t know about Dunkirk or Clive of India or Gordon of Khartoum.
The “theft” of political correctness away from teaching respect and understanding of other cultures to “Not offending” is also linked to the global “trend” of apologising for history.
So we remove statues, kids don’t learn history as well as they should, we apologise for lessons that we learned.
And at what point are those lessons forgotten? At what point do we start to make the same mistakes or worse?
Remove statues because they are rallying points for a minority of scum?
Surely they should remain as symbols to REMIND us of the former failings of humans so our kids can look them up on Google at least to tell their kids how evil their beliefs were.
Like I said PC now says it’s wrong. They will go. Think they should be kept to REMIND us of the failings in all of us when control is lost
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Oh and sorry for intruding on your private row boys 
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I think this offers some useful thoughts as to the correct approach to take when evaluating monuments to historical figures. By the way, if you are going to condemn Churchill perhaps it should be over his resistance to Indian independance rather that his decisions that led to casualties in a war England did not start where the opposing side was among the worst in history. If 10 or 15 more Dresdens could have saved a single Jew (or anyone else) from the concentration camps they would have been justified. The German people put Hitler in charge and let him do what he did. Alas, I am greatly worried that in the new future I, as an American, will bear a similar responsibility.
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But that is not the purpose they serve now or ever. If, instead of taking them down, they were resculpted to put clown faces on them with new plaques emphasizing the evil slaveholder, traitorous nature of the person, that might be different. But that will never happen and would lead to massive vandalization of all sorts of statues. Better they just go away now and forever.
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I do see your point, but what sort of reminder do you think they serve for black people, and descendants of slave.
Confederate armies literally went to war over being able to keep slaves.
I agree with your points about teaching kids history, and as someone who has studied history at school in the past 15 years - I think it’s important that we stop whitewashing history.
Far too often Britain’s role in things is skipped over or ignored. It’s important to learn from the mistakes of the past - warts and all.
Honestly, we were taught next to nothing about the abhorrent shite that went down under the British Empire.
There are many things brits can be proud of, and they should be taught too - but it’s important to teach balance.
The apologism or ignorance of the British Empire turns my stomach at times. The British exceptionism that seems rampant at the minute worries me. It’s far too similar to what you see in the states, and I think it’s unhealthy.
I think there is perhaps a place for such statues, but where they are kept is important - confederate leaders on uni campuses? Probably not great. At a museum or something similar? Fine.
There’s a park in Moscow where they keep all the old Soviet era statues - maybe something like that would be a better solution?
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