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The Politics Thread 2020

G STAR RAM

By G STAR RAM
in The Jim Smith Room

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Alph

Alph

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, SchtivePesley said:

And well done to Matt Hancock for calling him Daniel Rashford live on TV. Hmmm

Surely that's an honest if ignorant mistake made by granny's every week when they name every grandchild apart from the one they're talking to

But it made the news so people would say "racist bar steward" or "oh my god they say it's racist to get a name wrong!"

And probably gets more comments than his victory 

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Van der MoodHoover

Van der MoodHoover

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, angieram said:

And there we have the very definition of discrimination. Lumping a group of people together and judging them by a single characteristic! ?

Oh I think its been mathematically proven that Manchester United players are not a Group, but are members of the broader Group known as "Bamfords"

?

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Alph

Alph

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, GboroRam said:

I find the arguments about tearing down coliseums and art installations a bit spurious. 

Statues are monuments to celebrate people. Literally taking a person and putting them on a pedestal.

Art has it's own function. Buildings have their own function. 

Statues are a celebration of a person. We wouldn't celebrate them today, so why do we need statues to celebrate them if we later decide their actions weren't worthy of celebrating?

The wider discussions are fine - but solely on making an image of a slaver and putting him on a pedestal for all to see how much you revere him, I do think pushes the line.

Quietly pull down the statue, put it in a museum dedicated to life in that period and explain to people the two aspects to this person - the philanthropist who built hospitals for the poor, and the slaver who made the money to pay for it in human blood. 

Surely it depends what aspect of a person you are celebrating. 

Colston the slave trader wasn't given a statue. Colston the philanthropist was. 

Barbarossa the slave trader/pirate wasn't given a statue. Barbarossa an Ottoman hero was. 

Churchill, Caesar, Napoleon, depictions of Prophet Muhammed. 

A person may only learn of the glory of these people depending where or when they're taught. Their history is my history and your history. Why is it holding us back? How is it stopping us creating a better world? 

If somebody is the pride of a people etc then they're celebrated. Brian Clough, Muhammed Ali, Martin Luther King Jnr. They may not be the pride of all people. 

I wouldn't just assume Colston is 100% a slave trader to everyone. It's possible he represents pride in Bristol history? I don't know because I've never been to Bristol and I don't care to do much research. But obviously he must have had a positive image to some people or they'd have removed it. His name is on a lot of things there isn't it? As a racist? As a slave trader? 

I really don't get how the removal of monuments helps us move forward. Some statues that have been removed such as tyrants and dictators have been removed by people who feel they badly represent them. They're a blight on their history, religion, nationality. They aren't a source of pride to the majority. 

I would never dream of damaging Ottoman statues. Enemies of the past. Slave traders, murderers and rapists. I don't think they influence Turkish and other countries of those lands to be anti - Europe or have any superiority over the Mediterranean. They don't pose a threat. 

Flawed heroes of the Ottoman Empire. And there for people to choose what characteristics they take pride in. 

I just don't understand how the statues stand in anyones way. I can't think of a single scenario where a statue of an enemy could offend or oppress me. Only our own heroes can lose our reverence. And we would only know that by discussing it. 

I think I just don't understand. I'm trying to get another perspective but I can't. I can't possibly understand how relics of the past are bad. They just 'are'. Good and bad like all people. 

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Alph

Alph

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, cheron85 said:

Why not judge things that exist today by the standards we want to be set? The statue exists now, so why shouldn't we judge it's worthiness now? I'd suggest that by leaving something in place that we wouldn't choose by our standards we're tacitly consenting to the persons actions

Suggesting slavery was 'normal' isn't a great argument - White Europeans went over with weapons and subjugated entire swathes of people, ripping them from their homes and family, forcing them into conditions where many died to transport them to lands they weren't from, didn't speak the language and then were forced to work for no money - Whether it was standard practice or not it was abhorrent 

 

Because then we start erasing all of history in plain sight to achieve what? Equality? It's not standing in the way. 

It's all about identity and tracing that identity. Breadcrumbs through history. 

I'm European because, I'm British because, I'm white because, I'm English, I'm working class... This is Derby, it was a...  because of....

It's good and bad. It's just history. 

Onto slavery, slavery was never just about white people in Africa. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, China, Mongol, Ottoman, British... slavery was essential in the economic growth of kingdoms and civilisations. It still exists today. Sex trafficking and cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast. 

It was the way of the world. Like walking a dog on a lead. Like military expansionism. It shouldn't be celebrated now and I don't believe it is. 

As I said to Gboro, you can take away many different things from statues of national, religious, regional heroes. 

If Napoleon is a source of National pride, and national pride is the source of xenophobia or racism then I don't think taking that statue down does anything but insult people. 

People find ways to identify themselves. To create any kind of equality then I don't see how that comes from damaging race/religious/national relations first. It creates anarchy? 

Even if it's eye colour people will seek a way to identify themselves. 

This is why in my head beheading and toppling statues becomes more like fixing a roof by pulling down the house rather than climbing up. 

It's insulting. Some statues have ceased to represent almost anybody. So this isn't me building a Hitler statue in Berlin. 

We aren't all equal. Separated by race, nation, class, culture, gender, religion, sexuality. To celebrate anything that represents one will more thank likely upset one of the others. To celebrate none means erasing some history and again offending someone. The most sensible solution is to try to celebrate all our representations. Or at the very least respect them. 

And we do. Most of us. We respect other national and regional pride. Some don't. And they're out there beheading Columbus and doing nazi salutes.

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Van der MoodHoover

Van der MoodHoover

Posted
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24 minutes ago, Curtains said:

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj-prGdgYnqAhV5REEAHYLpD48QFjAKegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk%2F1297189%2Fboris-johnson-car-crash-protestor-parliament-police-incident-latest&usg=AOvVaw2qMeurbOmcpaKm4t8nJbMd 

 

 

Bit of a metaphor for Bozzer?

"Car crash"......

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GboroRam

GboroRam

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Posted
1 hour ago, Alpha said:

Surely it depends what aspect of a person you are celebrating. 

Colston the slave trader wasn't given a statue. Colston the philanthropist was. 

Barbarossa the slave trader/pirate wasn't given a statue. Barbarossa an Ottoman hero was.

That is when we do get into the Jimmy Savile realms though. We don't keep his name on the hospital wards, even though they commemorate his good acts. We balance all his life and weigh up that the negative vastly outweighs the positives.

It's not forgetting history. In fact it is actually showing truth. When you only mention Savile the marathon-running, charity supporting man you wipe out the vast part of his history. It's whitewashing (if that's not an offensive word to use) his true history to not represent that part of his life that was the base, child-molesting abuser.

I just think the argument that we keep statues as history is strange. We built statues as a mark of respect to the individual it represents. Perhaps sometimes those people don't deserve the respect we give them, on reflection with the passage of time.

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1of4

1of4

Posted
Posted

So Marcus Rashford is now setting useful government policy. Well I suppose it's better than waiting for Johnson to do anything comparable.

What as johnson managed to do in the last few weeks that is of any use to the majority of the British people?

Set out a workable plan, on how the country can start to get back to normality. No.

Set out a plan and supplied the financial backing that schools will need to get fully open to all. No. 

 Made any progress in the talks with the EU in regards to his oven ready trade deal. No.

Talking of the trade deal negotiations with the EU. Didn't the government set legislation in place, that If there wasn't significant progress made by the end of June then the talks would be terminated.

I was wondering who will be the person, who deems if we have or haven't made significant progress? Is it Frost, our chief negotiator, Prime Minister Johnson or his boss, sorry adviser Cummings.

 

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Wolfie

Wolfie

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42 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

That is when we do get into the Jimmy Savile realms though. We don't keep his name on the hospital wards, even though they commemorate his good acts. We balance all his life and weigh up that the negative vastly outweighs the positives.

It's not forgetting history. In fact it is actually showing truth. When you only mention Savile the marathon-running, charity supporting man you wipe out the vast part of his history. It's whitewashing (if that's not an offensive word to use) his true history to not represent that part of his life that was the base, child-molesting abuser.

I just think the argument that we keep statues as history is strange. We built statues as a mark of respect to the individual it represents. Perhaps sometimes those people don't deserve the respect we give them, on reflection with the passage of time.

This is not a defence of slave traders (did I really just have to state that?) but the comparison has been made on here before and the answer is the same: What Saville did was illegal at the time he was doing it. Comparisons with historical figures who did bad stuff according to moral compasses and laws centuries later are quite different, surely?.

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Stive Pesley

Stive Pesley

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21 minutes ago, Van Wolfie said:

This is not a defence of slave traders (did I really just have to state that?) but the comparison has been made on here before and the answer is the same: What Saville did was illegal at the time he was doing it. Comparisons with historical figures who did bad stuff according to moral compasses and laws centuries later are quite different, surely?.

That is a good point. Another good thought exercise is - what about statues of Hitler/Stalin in Germany/USSR - should they have been left standing in place if the tenets of your argument were applied objectively?

 

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Wolfie

Wolfie

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12 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

That is a good point. Another good thought exercise is - what about statues of Hitler/Stalin in Germany/USSR - should they have been left standing in place if the tenets of your argument were applied objectively?

 

Depends on what the people want to do with them. From what I understand most Nazi & Stalinist statues or architecture have been removed or neutralized with a degree of public consensus behind it. I don't know enough history to be able to say.

If we're going back to the Bristol issue, there were various polls and online petitions over recent years and removing the statue was never supported by a majority. An online petition struggled for support until after the recent killing of George Floyd and then tens of thousands of signatures appeared overnight. Is that the public finally engaging and voicing its opinion or activist bandwagon jumping?. I have no idea.

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Highgate

Highgate

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50 minutes ago, Van Wolfie said:

This is not a defence of slave traders (did I really just have to state that?) but the comparison has been made on here before and the answer is the same: What Saville did was illegal at the time he was doing it. Comparisons with historical figures who did bad stuff according to moral compasses and laws centuries later are quite different, surely?.

So let's say if you lived in Bristol in 2020 and the city is having a vote on whether to keep the Colston statue where it is or not.  Do you vote to;

a) Leave it where it is. 

b) Take it down and put it in a museum somewhere. 

c) Take it down and roll it down the hill and dump it in the harbour.

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