Rewiring history..

[OldDominionBlue]

A little surprising (not the boob part), I once got buttonholed in a bar in Barcelona for being English and was told in no uncertain terms that Drake was a pirate and a cad. Thought nothing more of it, but brought up tje topic with another Spaniard at a later date (I knoe, my life is non-stop fun and games) only to have the opinion repeated. Both blokes, no touching.

I don't know about him being a pirate but he was a slaver. He also played a part in a massacre of 600 people (women and children included) after they surrendered in Ireland as part of the plantation efforts in Ulster.

 

[Raindog]

I don't know about him being a pirate

Basically raided Spanish treasure ships which in turn had plundered vast riches from whichever reaches they had pillaged.

In those days it was all much of a muchness. Pirates, vagabonds, slavers and bounders, one man's pirate being another man's crown green bowls champ.

 

[peteblue]

There seems to be an overt trend at the moment to wipe out elements of history just because it doesn't fit in with current morality and political views.
This isn't a new phenomenon, it was always done by conquering hoardes to eradicate cultures, the library at Alexandria is the biggest known occassion, but more recently too with the Taliban destroying buddhist monuments, the destruction of ancient sites across Iraq and Afghanistan, by both sides, and now with the pulling down of confederate 'monuments'.
Do we allow the past to stand and instruct and to learn from? Or do we eradicate, sanitise, to be forgotten, only to see the mistakes repeated further down the line?
This has been mooted closer to home with suggestions on renaming streets in Liverpool that were named after slave traders. It wouldn't stop the historical fact that our city grew and benefitted from slavery.
Why the need to 'rewire' history?

Excellent post, the barbarians are at the gates and we let them in to our own destruction..........

 

[gorgeousgeorgeEFC]

Robert E Lee was a great leader of men, but his political views (I'm mainly talking about his failure to oppose slavery) were repugnant.

 

[Raindog]

Do we allow the past to stand and instruct and to learn from? Or do we eradicate, sanitise, to be forgotten, only to see the mistakes repeated further down the line?

Interesting point. Couple of questions. What do you believe the motivations for erecting the statues were? And can you see a difference between a memorial for Civil War dead and a statue of a confirmed racist outside a courthouse?

How do you feel about Kelvin Mackenzie? Would you be happy for his statue to go up in your city? His version of the truth was rightly questioned and consigned to the scrapheap of history. Why can't we extend that treatment to others in the advancement of our culture?

(No offence intended, is meant as an example, not to ruffle feathers)

 

[tsubaki]

Robert E Lee was a great leader of men, but his political views (I'm mainly talking about his failure to oppose slavery) were repugnant.

TBH Lee was, by the standards of his time and contemporaries, remarkably enlightened.

 

[degsy]

Basically raided Spanish treasure ships which in turn had plundered vast riches from whichever reaches they had pillaged.

In those days it was all much of a muchness. Pirates, vagabonds, slavers and bounders, one man's pirate being another man's crown green bowls champ.

Spanish = whinging losers...never found a dictator/dictatorship they couldn't love.
The Spanish Inquisition.
Napoleon
Franco / Hitler.
The EU.

 

[LEONARD]

The 'good old day's' in Liverpool', who need's shoes?

 

[magicjuan]

Interesting point. Couple of questions. What do you believe the motivations for erecting the statues were? And can you see a difference between a memorial for Civil War dead and a statue of a confirmed racist outside a courthouse?

How do you feel about Kelvin Mackenzie? Would you be happy for his statue to go up in your city? His version of the truth was rightly questioned and consigned to the scrapheap of history. Why can't we extend that treatment to others in the advancement of our culture?

(No offence intended, is meant as an example, not to ruffle feathers)

We're already in that situation with the Thatcher memorial, many would be willing, myself included, to pull that down. It is more to do with where the power, authority (and lies) and means to erect a statue or monument resides. Who decides? I would assume in the past a lot of monuments were financed by self fortune, families, businesses etc, only exceptional monuments, Nelson for example would be wholly civically funded, I'm not completely sure, but find those people and you could guess their intentions.
War memorials are completely different, they honour the dead amongst us, those who fought in a game of chess among the powerful. Sometimes rightly, others because they were duped or did it for purely desperate economic reasons, the history of employment by nations in the west is strewn with armies supporting vested capital, wether for royalty or corporations and rarely for just causes, but often sold as that.
The post above highlighrs opposing histories. The 'christian', westernised version of history is completely different to the conquered, from the Aztecs to the Navajoe, Moroccans to the Cathars the victories were always portrayed as just, yet they were far from it, as non affiliated historians dig into events, the actual occurences show a far from just cause, other than the spreading of Christianity, itself a lie.
If we are to rewire history through monuments then we have to rewrite our own version of history, tell it as a truth with no bias, though I don't think we have the stomach for the truth, but it could rid us in the west of our rank hypocrisy.

 

[Raindog]

We're already in that situation with the Thatcher memorial, many would be willing, myself included, to pull that down.

And that's the point, to me at least. I thik the removal of the statues is less of a 'rewiring' for any particular aim, and in this context I find it hard to reconcile with the destruction of the Library in Alexandria, for example. I see it more as society and the public consciousness evolving and reaising that it may not be in everyone's interests to have certain statues around. I liken it more to the introduction of electric cars and windfarms - what was once a good idea is no longer seem¡n that way, we shouldn't see it as a mistake per se, just what was right for one time isn't quite right now. Lesson learned and move on. Indeed, I imagine a whole lot more discussion and debate goes on now before a statue goes up to ensure it's appropriatness and acceptability.

Not to labour the point, as I've mentioned it already in another thread, but I think the statue debate needs to happen. If there is more good than harm to be acknowledged from the statute, then fine, it stays. Easier said than done though, a you put quite nicely at the end of your last post. The debate on a Thatcher statue wouldn't be over in an evening (I hope), and would drag on even longer in any town north of Watford.

 

[peteblue]

As an example, of which I presume most of these are similar, here is the one outside my office. You can see it here in front of the Parish Courthouse and a larger shot as well. I'll have to get a closer image later; it's an interesting statue that I believe includes a Greek goddess.

This first picture is the courthouse

This is the statue, 2 stories tall, in front of the entrance to the courthouse. It's set between the US and Louisiana flags. It marks the entrance to justice and the foundation of law and governance of the Parish. I don't think its location is "incidental" to the images it's meant to provoke--I don't think you can ever assume that images are accidental. (The top is obscured by trees, I'll see if I can get a better picture)

Our Parish was named after the the conglomerate of Caddo Indians (local Native Americans under one name) and the city and Parish seat after a river boat captain who broke up the "great raft"/"log jam" and innovated the riverway and economy of the area, allowing the river to become navigable while still floating logs from forest to sawmill, and finally allowing the area it to be settled. None of the history of the area is relative to the 5 people nor the Greek Goddess on the monument, and no Civil War battles were fought in this area (the nearest battle was in an adjacent Parish).

So tell me, what does this symbolize, other that Jim Crow era oppression of black by whites? There's no "history" nor "heritage" that this preserves, only hate and oppression.

I'd leave the statue alone and knock the rest of it down tbh......

 

[peteblue]

Here in England we have so many statues and tributes to our former masters who in reality were exporters of mass murderer it would only be just to call them serial killers but I think the general public would tend to be protective of these and would cause uproar if they were removed.

Indeed, here is one of Britains greatest traitors, yet we don't mind his statue in London.....

 

[Raindog]

Great example. That's why in an enlightened society we can look past subjective squabbles and recognise a wider achievement, something which can be celebrated.

I think the problem with the Confederate statues is that there appears to be no 'wider achievement'. I may be wrong, but from what I understand (I'm not American btw) the sole aim of Lee's rebels was to preserve slavery, so what is being celebrated? I'd be interested to hear what the arguments for keeping said statues actually are, as I've not come accross much more than 'It's part of our history', a history which started with the noble aims of shrugging off oppression and unpalatable ideas, yet is now impervious to the same ideals which shaped the nation.

Be happy to be educated.

 

[tsubaki]

The post above highlighrs opposing histories. The 'christian', westernised version of history is completely different to the conquered, from the Aztecs to the Navajoe, Moroccans to the Cathars the victories were always portrayed as just, yet they were far from it, as non affiliated historians dig into events, the actual occurences show a far from just cause, other than the spreading of Christianity, itself a lie.
If we are to rewire history through monuments then we have to rewrite our own version of history, tell it as a truth with no bias, though I don't think we have the stomach for the truth, but it could rid us in the west of our rank hypocrisy.

The problem is that "to tell the truth with no bias" is rewriting history - there is no way we can ever get to the truth of what happened and why because so much of it is lost forever to us. The only sensible way you can do it is to search for and properly examine what sources remain to us - do that, for example with the conquest of the Aztecs, and you discover that even at the time people recognized what they (in this case Cortes) had done and spoke up against it (Cortes spent much of the rest of his life fighting lawsuits over events that occurred during the conquest, and the incomparable de las Casas memorably described in shocking detail what the conquistadors had done).

 

[magicjuan]

The problem is that "to tell the truth with no bias" is rewriting history - there is no way we can ever get to the truth of what happened and why because so much of it is lost forever to us. The only sensible way you can do it is to search for and properly examine what sources remain to us - do that, for example with the conquest of the Aztecs, and you discover that even at the time people recognized what they (in this case Cortes) had done and spoke up against it (Cortes spent much of the rest of his life fighting lawsuits over events that occurred during the conquest, and the incomparable de las Casas memorably described in shocking detail what the conquistadors had done).

It becomes the seperation between official history and 'known' history. The root of this issue, certainly regarding the statue issue is projection and perception. The 'glorification' of known slave traders as opposed to the villification of slave traders.