A Brave New BLM World

We are living in interesting times. An arresting police officer killed a black person precipitating widespread protests in the United States, despite coronavirus restrictions. It did not take long for other countries to join in. It seems bizarre that people should protest in London about the death of a man in Minneapolis. The protests escalated. Infowars got caught planting agent provocateurs, but there is no doubt that the protesters needed little help. A common feature (in the UK, at least) is the defacement of war memorials during protests. If you have to spraypaint a monument to those who fell defending your country to get your message across, you are doing it wrong.

So what of the toppling of statues? I am not in favour of mob rule and mob justice. If a historical person is no longer considered suitable as a subject of a statue, then we should consider this coolly and calmly as a society, and not in the heat of anger as a mob. Having said that, it is perhaps overdue for discussion.

How do we decide who is worthy of a statue and who is not? What about Winston Churchill? He was a great man; his contribution to the war was invaluable. He played a key role in the Allies' victory over the Axis. On the other hand, he was a terrible man. He made some terrible blunders in the First World War, the Welsh miners' controversy and he committed atrocities in Ireland and India. Do we celebrate him? Do we renounce him? Perhaps, we should do both, so that we remember everything he did, good and bad. This is a complex issue and there is no easy answer. The last thing we want to do is whitewash our history.

What of history? The history of the human race is rife with instances of one group of people coming to prominence at the expense of others. What do we do with the Colosseum/Flavian Amphitheatre? Do we marvel at this feat of ancient Roman engineering? Or should we be appalled that it was financed by the spoils and built by the slave labour gained from Rome's subjugation of Judea? Contrary to the meme that is circulating, the pyramids in Egypt are safe; they were built by paid workers and not by slaves.

Let's do this right. Let's make the legacy of George Floyd's death a better world. We need to avoid dropping the ball on this because the Far-Right will pick it and run with it. Now that would be a disaster.