Black Lives Matter. Do the Statues Matter? (II)

by Laura Lai/Essay

I cannot agree more with Prof. Kymlicka that it would be moral to introduced reforms in order to prevent such problems for the whole society. Besides, the Blacks are American English-speaking people with great human and intellectual potential – lots of talented people in many fields are Black – that is a great waste for the society as a whole to continue preventing them integrating and keeping them at the edge of poverty. Some reforms introduced by the current Trump Administration to support Black Colleges and Universities, as well as economic reforms that show the greatest employment rate among Afro-Americans, as well as Latin-Americans; reforms to protect the indigenous people showed some progressive steps in the recognition and integration struggle.

But the tragic death of the Afro-American George Floyd brought up all the injustice so far and the police brutality. The Blacks argue that such brutality happens regularly and we all heard of judicial errors through which Black people served tens of years in prison without being guilty. If that would be a matter of individual choice, I place myself on that side, who prefers an innocent good Black person walking freely and I would definitely feel very insecure to know that a white murderer is walking freely around.

Obviously the tragic death of George Floyd was like the drop that filled up a deep glass of long injustices and discriminations. The protests are a democratic right. People have the democratic right to voice their demands, but the violence – with which I fully disagree and that I also do not understand, because Black people’s shops were also vandalized – shows the anger and the frustration accumulated all these years. Some protesters’ anger and frustration directed towards some statues that they pulled down by themselves (ex. the statue of a slave trader pulled down and thrown in the river Thames in London) or asked to be removed (ex. anti-racists protests in Oxford). There is also a third case – that of New Zealand – in which the local council decided to remove the statue of the British naval officer John Hamilton, known also as a racist and imperialist. Such demands were formulated by protesters not only in the United States and the United Kingdom, but also in France and Belgium – and maybe in other parts of the world I do not know about.

The debate surrounding the pulling down of the statues (and what to do with them if removed) was a heated debate. Is that deleting culture? Is that deleting history? Do all statues need a reassessment? What to do with those controversial after removal? Shall we melt them? Or maybe shall a Museum of Racism be created the same way as Museums of Holocaust or Museums of Communism were made?

An overwhelming majority of those I have heard agreed with the protests and condemned the violence. Some people questioned also the right to protest amid COVID-19 pandemic when there are laws demanding social distancing, wearing masks and that do not allow large crowds of people – rules broken everywhere where anti-racist protests took place. These people are not anti-protesters, but their worry is justified by the quick spread of the virus that may put everybody at risk, cancel all progress made during the lockdown and put more pressure on the already overcrowded hospitals and overburdened medical staff. As the virus does not distinguish among races or any other category of people, and as there is no vaccine against it yet, protesters showed lots of courage in front of the virus, putting their lives in danger, too. This shows that they were strongly motivated to make their anti-racist voices heard. Is the removal of some controversial statues like deleting history or deleting culture?

A statue is a monument that represents the carved figure of a person, who at some point in history played a significant role in literature, music, politics, etc. A research undertaken by the University of Otago (New Zealand) that studied 123 statues concluded that one in four statues is vandalized and that is usually the statues of royalties, politicians, army officials (ex. the statue of King George V in Matakana was decapitated five times). Professor Nick Wilson, said:

 

    ‘These attacks are quite clearly driven by issues around colonization, and also militarism. 

    People are attacking these statues because of past injustices.’

 

Therefore, the argument advanced by some people – maybe slightly hesitant about whether or not to remove these statues – that X or Y (whose statue was asked to be removed) was also a philanthropist does not count for the protesters. To be honest, such an argument does not count for me either. According to the same Holly Bible we all know and those philanthropist were familiar with, one must share from the little it has worked for; if one does not earn anything has nothing to share and there is nothing to blame. I have all due respect for philanthropists who share from what they earned (as computer inventors/devices that we all use, as sportsmen, etc.), but I do not call a philanthropist a person who shares a wealth made on others’ sufferings. (to be continued below)