Current Affairs The Landmarks of Slavery;

[NilSatisOptimum]

Yes, I am wildly ignorant on this issue. I appreciate corrections and learning. Punish me.

The action taken against Colston statue is now reverberating...

The Scottish streets and monuments built on the slave trade

Who were the slave traders whose names are emblazoned on the streets of Scotland's two main cities?

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

Incidentally, I would happily see every statue of Leopold II removed over here because he was one of the 19th Century's greatest monsters, a child molester and an overall bad wool.

 

[ChesterBlue]

I think it’s a issue with the UK in general trying to whitewash it’s dark past. I refuse to call the UK “Great Britain” for this reason, we never get taught about the real atrocities that Britain committed in the days of the empire and before the empire. No mention of scorched earth policies in Ireland, massacres in India and Africa, and minimum mention of the slavery of millions of people is a big problem.

Take Germany for example, they really looked into themselves and learned from the Nazi’s, whereas the UK doesn’t really do this, and instead tried to bury the ugly little facts that get in the way of celebrating the glorious British empire.

 

[ramacca]

The action taken against Colston statue is now reverberating...

The Scottish streets and monuments built on the slave trade

Who were the slave traders whose names are emblazoned on the streets of Scotland's two main cities?

www.bbc.co.uk

Sajid Khan setting up a body to look at London statues, place names etc.. Oxford looking at the Rhodes statue in Oriel College all these due to the action in Bristol.

 

[PhilM]

This was brought up somewhere else, but apparently our fabled hero William Ralph Dean was the victim of racial slurs and one that many still use today - Dixie.

Due to his darker complexion, the name Dixie apparently was used in reference to the Dixie or Confederate States (deep south), which built itself on slavery.

The Mason-Dixon line formed by a person called Dixon, where the term Dixie originally stemmed from, separated the free north and the slave owning south.

The term was disliked by Dean and he preferred to be called William, and understandably so you'd expect. It would be interesting to know if this is in fact true.

 

[Tipp blue]

Cromwell is a weird one. He is an important historical figure in terms of the Civil War and prosecution of Charles I, but then he was a murderous, bigoted military dictator afterwards who was so loathed his corpse was dug up and hanged.

Oh and he banned Christmas.

And still has a statue at Westminster, and no I don't think it should be taken down and punted into the Thames, with all the bad he did he should still be remembered as a historical figure.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

Sajid Khan setting up a body to look at London statues, place names etc.. Oxford looking at the Rhodes statue in Oriel College all these due to the action in Bristol.

Its about time, however, action not words will need to follow very quickly, these statues have been identified discussed for years, however, nothing happens apart from more talk... If nothing is done by authorities they will go...

 

[Joey66]

....it’s a difficult one, do we change street names associated with the slave trade?

It's history we are supposed to learn from history......do we close the concentration camps down historical tours - remember Germany in that era tried to erase that part of history ...they blew up a hell of lot of the camps .....to try to hide the truth .....
Museums are the best place then the public have the choice to view them ...or the historical sites....
At school History is a subject to learn from so it never happens again - not use it as acts of thuggery like today,s events .......

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

I think it’s a issue with the UK in general trying to whitewash it’s dark past. I refuse to call the UK “Great Britain” for this reason, we never get taught about the real atrocities that Britain committed in the days of the empire and before the empire. No mention of scorched earth policies in Ireland, massacres in India and Africa, and minimum mention of the slavery of millions of people is a big problem.

Take Germany for example, they really looked into themselves and learned from the Nazi’s, whereas the UK doesn’t really do this, and instead tried to bury the ugly little facts that get in the way of celebrating the glorious British empire.

The name Great Britain refers to the landmass containing Scotland, England and Wales. It has nothing to do with how good it is...

As to the Germans, whilst you'll find a lot of stuff telling you how awful the DDR was (and quite rightly so) and the horrors of the Nazi era can't really be denied I would say that they don't really do a lot of introspection or commemoration. The laws in their constitution and the Nurenberg trials forced them to look in the mirror but afterwards there was kind of a code of silence around what Opie did in the 30s and 40s. Their treatment of their Turkish community was awful for a long time, also.

This isn't to say "Britain good, Germany bad" Every country struggles to give a balanced account of itself and to accept that both the good and the bad make up who they are. To expand on my earlier bit about Leopold, Belgians like to point out that he kept all the money from the world's largest plantation that he ran to himself and thus, their hands are clean.

The reality is that he was employing Belgians to enforce his terror in the Congo and that he spent the money on building monuments to his glory all over Brussels which he then donated to the state on his death and that plenty of them paid to view the human zoos that travelled the country. The museum of the Belgian Congo was, until its closure for a total remodeling 5 years ago, well, erm, interesting.

 

[Blueclouds]

The pubs need to open up so everyone can chill out.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

And still has a statue at Westminster, and no I don't think it should be taken down and punted into the Thames, with all the bad he did he should still be remembered as a historical figure.

Has one in Warrington too lol

 

[the sniderman]

It's history we are supposed to learn from history......do we close the concentration camps down historical tours - remember Germany in that era tried to erase that part of history ...they blew up a hell of lot of the camps .....to try to hide the truth .....
Museums are the best place then the public have the choice to view them ...or the historical sites....
At school History is a subject to learn from so it never happens again - not use it as acts of thuggery like today,s events .......

joseph this is maybe the worst false equivalence i have ever seen on here. in ur world it auschwitz would be a grand statue of adolf hitler that we bus children to walk around and learn from rather than the apparatus of his wanton slaughter to study and be horrified by.

 

[PhilM]

The name Great Britain refers to the landmass containing Scotland, England and Wales. It has nothing to do with how good it is...

Stemming back from the days when the monarch often sat and reigned in Brittany, with Greater Brittany (translated from Old French) meaning basically that...

Brittany but greater in size.

Has one in Warrington too lol

George Washington was a slave owner and he's in Washington too and on a big f'in mountain that they cherish.

 

[degsy]

Create a museum for all of it. Learn about the history. Grow

This

 

[ChesterBlue]

The name Great Britain refers to the landmass containing Scotland, England and Wales. It has nothing to do with how good it is...

As to the Germans, whilst you'll find a lot of stuff telling you how awful the DDR was (and quite rightly so) and the horrors of the Nazi era can't really be denied I would say that they don't really do a lot of introspection or commemoration. The laws in their constitution and the Nurenberg trials forced them to look in the mirror but afterwards there was kind of a code of silence around what Opie did in the 30s and 40s. Their treatment of their Turkish community was awful for a long time, also.

This isn't to say "Britain good, Germany bad" Every country struggles to give a balanced account of itself and to accept that both the good and the bad make up who they are. To expand on my earlier bit about Leopold, Belgians like to point out that he kept all the money from the world's largest plantation that he ran to himself and thus, their hands are clean.

The reality is that he was employing Belgians to enforce his terror in the Congo and that he spent the money on building monuments to his glory all over Brussels which he then donated to the state on his death and that plenty of them paid to view the human zoos that travelled the country. The museum of the Belgian Congo was, until its closure for a total remodeling 5 years ago, well, erm, interesting.

I know that’s what Great Britain actually means, but let’s be realistic, a lot of people use the “Great” part in the same way as Trump does.

I agree with you there, I was merely using the Nazi situation as an example, but you’re 100% correct, frankly the majority of Europe has really really dark pasts.

I just personally think until we start to really learn and teach in schools about the horrors we committed in our imperial days, we will always have these super patriotic Brits. An example is virtually every historical British hero was a proper monster. Drake was a pirate who used to steal all the valuables from Spanish galleons, and then sink them with all of their crew on, Churchill was essentially a white supremacist, Cromwell was a genocidal maniac who ruled with a iron fist and committed countless atrocities, and Queen Victoria built one of the most evil empires in history, on the backs and misery of millions of slaves and over the corpses of millions of natives from conquered countries