A case for Statues

Winston Churchill is our celebrated war time leader, not despite his racist views, but because of them. Churchill, like all politicians, was an opportunist, and in the 1930s he could see the decline of the British Empire playing out before him, a decline most evident in India’s growing desire for self-rule. Churchill held to a hierarchical perspective of race, he believed that white people were superior. As such he believed it was the duty of white people to rule over lesser races, such as those in Africa and India. So, for the sake of the Empire, Churchill cultivated his Victorian, reactionary, right wing ideals, ideals which brought him into direct opposition with Indian independence efforts. Ideals which shaped him into the stoic, enduring, cigar smoking, political operator who is alive today in our popular imaginations. Ideals which shaped him into the perfect war time prime minister.

I am not saying that this is good or bad. Far from it. All I am saying is that this is history. Throughout history great things have been achieved by individuals and nations, that have utilized beliefs we would now rightly deem abhorrent. There is no purely good or bad anywhere. Even individuals that our world holds up as paragons of virtue, such as Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Teresa, all have skeletons in the cupboard. In everything, and in everyone, there is good and bad. And to identify something beyond ourselves as being an exemplar of good or bad, requires very careful consideration on our parts. We may well inadvertently deny an aspect of ourselves.

History cannot be put in a box. Just as good and bad pervades all, so does history. The fact that you are alive, that your parents met, that your country is what it is, that borders lie where they lie, that your occupation is what it is. The fact that streets are located where they are, that houses look like they do, that monuments sit in parks, and that people organise in the manner they do, it is all down to history. The United Kingdom is rich with history; read and consider any space, and you will uncover the rich history which brought it about. The very notion that history can be contained within museums, portrays a great ignorance of the history all around us.

Wrongs are righted, progress is made, not through denying or covering over our past, but by considering it deeply.