Thursday, 11 June 2020

History Today

Still no sign of the Far Right (if they can be so described in Britain; they are no Rivarol readers) turning out to "protect" statues of people of whom they had never heard.

Churchill? Yes, but they know almost nothing about him. Nelson? They know the name. At a push, they might be aware of the bizarre fiction that Britain's contribution to the slave trade was to end it, which is taught in all seriousness on the rare occasions that British schools mention the subject at all.  But that role of the Royal Navy's was long after Nelson's time, and far more compromised than most people realise.

And the rest? Not a chance. Purely objectively, the characters on any popular sitcom or soap opera are more a part of their culture. By the way, if you are baffled that a black liberation movement might take exception to the founder of the Metropolitan Police, then you might politely be described as part of the problem. Here as elsewhere, it overlaps with the working-class movement. Put up a statue of a miner in place of Peel. At least anyone passing by might know what he was.

But all human monuments come down eventually. That is an integral part of the historical process. At best, they end up in museums, although that is largely a matter of luck. Most of them are just destroyed. Always have been, always will be. That is not a denial of history. It is history.

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