UK and Europe World • Page 63

I goddamn love Bristol.

 

I’d gone to a whole load of gigs at the Colston Hall before I ever found out about who Colston was and what he’d done. So all the people online saying we shouldn’t be pulling down statues and erasing history should get to fuck. Instead we should be teaching all this stuff in at least at secondary school level to educate people of our country’s racist past.

Also I’m glad Colston Hall are in the process of changing their name (though I wish they’d hurry up with it, seems like that’s been going on for ages now).

 

As a former History teacher, I totally agree. I taught at two different schools and the most I ever taught on slavery was one lesson to a (I think) Year 8 class. Michael Gove fucked the National Curriculum to only include things that celebrate British history. So many kids would have no idea what the guy did.

Move it to a museum maybe, but dumping in the river is as good for me.

 

There is an interesting debate on the Glasgow reddit of a similar nature. A lot of the city streets are named after tobacco / slave traders. Someone has even put different street names up underneath them.

I am assuming this isn’t a new statue in this comment. But I would rather they were left and the plaques on them were more accurate historical information.

 

They’d been arguing the last few years to put a new plaque on it and it not just getting approved due to them not agreeing on wording. The timeline of this also matches up with the discussions Colston Hall had about changing their name. Which also hasn’t managed to actually get round to changing it yet.

I do agree having a better plaque to educate would work but I don’t think you actually need to have a statue of the guy either.

 

I really wish our country was able to debate things like adults, and wouldn't take everything as a personal attack.

We are long, long overdue a grown up discussion, acceptance and apology for our countries racial history and, to a larger extent, the legacy of Empire. Dumping a statue in a river might be the catalyst to start that, I hope, but either way it cannot be something that is swept under the carpet any longer.

I do understand the "judging historical figures by the standards of today" argument, but the subject is a lot more nuanced than that, and judgements against people like Colston can be made. People like Churchill are a lot harder to discuss and so people just ignore the negative aspects.

 

Pritti Patel

Sadly, with a Conservative government focused on dividing people and pursuing an extreme Brexit, I can't see yesterday being a catalyst for a grown up discussion.

I agree it's much needed. It's a shame that nuance is pretty dead these days.

 

Totally. It's much wider than just the Government though. We need the BBC, Channel 4, shows like The One Show that our parents and grandparents watch, all that sorta stuff to start a meaningful debate as a wider society. I agree the Tories won't do anything in power - they've already come out and said they disagree and it was "thuggish" to tear it down - but as a society we need these difficult conversations and it's gotta start somewhere. I'd love the Beeb to announce a whole schedule of programming examining the impact of British Colonialism, warts and all. Obviously BBC4 already do excellent niche history programming doing that exact thing, but it needs to be a wider conversation and acceptance than just academics and "lefties" who are already a captive audience.

It shouldn't be heresy in our society to say that while a good war time Prime Minister, Churchill was not a good man and did some horrendous things. But today if you say that, people take it as an attack on his war effort and nothing else, and claim you're being unpatriotic or whatever. Our society needs to learn that you can be proud of your country or proud of where you're from whilst still accepting that we as a country have committed some absolutely vile acts and atrocities.

 

Frankie Boyle did a ‘Tour of Scotland’ on the BBC and had a segment on street names of Glasgow. It opened my eyes a lot and I’m sure for other folk it did. Especially as his show is perhaps more accessible that a straight up 1 hour history documentary. Found the segment below, it is worth a watch:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=514455532785635

 

Some great points here.

 

If anyone has seen the Tory survey circulating around, regarding the 'Official' Immigration Bill and which was only sent to fellow Tories - I've written another email template to send to your MP, expressing disgust. Feel free to use & share.

Official Immigration Bill Survey - Letter to MP

Here's the survey in question, encouraged to fill it in and disrupt their biased algorithms: https://action.conservatives.com/immigration-bill-survey/

 

Regardless of JKR's recent awful bullshit, can we all agree that the Sun is a fucking inhumane, hateful publication and everyone who works there should be blacklisted from the industry.

Please avoid sharing tomorrow's front page if you can.

 

Wait, what's happened?

 

They've dug up JK Rowlings ex husband, who physically abused her, and have their front page headline today about how he's not sorry for beating her. It's vile.

 

fuck sake. what is wrong with people? how can there be so many shit people out there?

 

As sad as it sounds, are any of us surprised by The Sun? Disgraceful.

 

It would be in everyone’s best interest if the Sun went bust. They are major part of the wide spread hate and division we see in this country today.

 

BLM protest in a park near me. Everyone is socially distant and it's quite big. Surprising considering my town is hugely brexit and has a large amount of racist old white people.

 

My town is now the second biggest hotspot for Coronavirus deaths in the whole of the UK...

 

What a mess out there today. Just terrific the we spent the last few days arguing over Fawlty Towers whilst literal Nazis were planning their rally in the capital.

 

New to this thread, hello everyone. So embarrassed by this country at the moment. Anti anti-racism protesters trying to protect statues fighting with police who were also stationed to protect statues. Then standing in front of Churchill statues giving nazi salutes. One of the groups has called themselves “the football lads.” If it wasn’t so abhorrent it would be laughable

 

I love that media has been calling them "Anti-BLM protestors". Like they're not even trying anymore.

I think the word they're looking for there is "racists". If you are anti-black rights, then that makes you a racist.

 

Also, just to be clear on where we currently are as a country, Tories have spent the last two days arguing against feeding starving children.

Absolutely mind-blowing.

 

If you ever want to really know how shit this country is, look at the amount of people on local Facebook groups effectively arguing children should starve because they are poor or have bad parents. Absolutely insane.

 

And there's the inevitable U-turn that has been coming for almost 2 days now. Even thought we all saw this coming, the Tories still tried to fight it. They could have stayed silent, hoped the story would die, and then taken action if not to get some good press.

Now they're the party that has spent almost two days, in the middle of a pandemic, arguing that children should go hungry if they're unfortunate enough to be born to parents that are already in a cycle of poverty. They'll try and claim credit for this, but the truth is there in black and white - they resisted feeding starving kids for as long as they politically could.