Quote:
Originally Posted by downquark1
a) This is not new information, this is new perspective. If they had known about Saville in the 80s they would not have tolerated it. Everyone knew how these slavers made their money, it was not a secret. It was not exactly fondly looked upon at the time by everyone.
b) It is manifestly not true that this is providing a fuller picture. You are not providing more information about a film by removing it, or statues.
c) I work with these people. Here's another quote from Orwell:
This is entirely true in my experience. In fact they can't help themselves.
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We can quote Orwell all day:
Quote:
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England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income.
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Orwell wasn't someone who hated Britain but was also not shy about stating that it did bad things and in the above quote references how we were reluctant to discuss it.
It isn't hating Britain to want to account and talk about the bad as well as the good parts of our history. I think it gives you more credibility to be proud of, for example, defeating fascism in Europe if you also acknowledge the bad.
As I said I am ambivalent on the removal of the statue but I do think we shouldn't have statues glorifying people who were slave traders without adding that bit of context. Would you support keeping the statue and adding that context? Changing the inscriptions of such statues to show how their wealth was acquired, how the money that built these cities was acquired? There is also the idea of changing the statue to reflect it's being pulled down. That way both parts of the history are shown.