Icons and iconoclasm

Fierce debate has been sparked by the extraordinary images from Bristol today of the bronze statue of Edward Colston being dragged off its plinth by protesters and thrown into the harbour.

Seldom, and arguably not since the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdos Square in 2003, can we have been transfixed by such dramatic scenes. Indeed, as soon as Colston’s statue hit the ground protesters swarmed onto it and, whilst I didn’t see anyone actually remove their shoes to beat it with, the mood was very reminiscent of Firdos Square; a mixture of ecstatic triumph and visceral rage. Whether planned or spontaneous, the subsequent action of dumping the statue in the harbour mirrored the horrific jettisoning of live Africans into the Atlantic from Colston’s slave ships and punished him in effigy for his crimes against humanity. It is estimated that Colston was responsible for the trans-shipping of 80,000 enslaved Africans to the Americas, of whom up to a quarter died on the passage. Against this background it is hardly surprising that, in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, almost exactly three centuries after Colston’s death, when emotions were running high, protesters’ anger should have been focused on a monument which, for many years, had provoked public disquiet. Well, the statue has now been removed by spontaneous community action and the dilemma for the city authorities, and particularly the black mayor, Marvin Rees, must now be what to do next.

British-Nigerian historian, David Olusoga, who has written and broadcast widely on the history of the Atlantic slave trade, has spoken powerfully about his thoughts on the matter and I concur with him. The statue should have been removed from open-air display years ago and placed in a local museum where it could be properly contextualised. As it is, its location in a public city centre space accords it a dignity and respect its subject does not deserve, memorialising as it does a man who, for all his philanthropy and benefaction, made his fortune dealing in human misery and death.

Another troubling feature of the statue is that it was only erected in 1895, almost two centuries after Colston’s death in 1721 and more than sixty years after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Consequently, this posthumous monument cannot even be excused on the grounds that it was erected in the immediate aftermath of Colston’s death in conformity with the moral principles of his age, before the strong stirrings of the Abolitionist movement. Was its commissioning a deliberately revisionist act by the Victorian City Fathers or simply unthinking? Whatever the motivation, it does not reflect well on them and now the opportunity presents itself for remedial action Mayor Rees should take it. He has already spoken of his concerns over the highly problematic nature of this statue and one would hope he would now act to dredge it up from the harbour bed and place it in a museum where it can be properly conserved and reinterpreted as part of his city’s history. This would be a powerfully symbolic action which, in light of the statue’s recent fate and what that says about the step shift in public consciousness in the wake of a series of high-profile human- and civil-rights abuses, would reflect well on the city.

Am I arguing for the wholesale removal and destruction of all those historic monuments and memorials which no longer accord with the mores of our time? Emphatically not and, besides, where would we begin? Would we purge all classical statuary because Greece and Rome were slave owning societies? Would we remove all images of medieval kings and nobles from our cathedrals because they kept serfs? I am, however, in favour of selective removal of images where they cause grave and widespread offence, but still I would never support their destruction. And what criteria would one use in reaching a decision? Well, I think representations of historical figures, in whatever format, are fair game for removal or screening where their subjects were clearly monstrous — no-one wants to be looked down on in public spaces by images of their former oppressor! This is surely why images of Hitler were removed in Germany, Queen Victoria in India, Lenin and Stalin in Russia, Ceausescu in Romania, Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy and, of course, Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Their buildings, on the other hand, largely remain intact on account of their utility or grandeur.

In the Southern US states controversy surrounds sculptures of Civil War Confederate leaders. In London statues of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris have divided public opinion and there have been protests against the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford.

To engage in constant lively debate about the issues raised by such memorials is surely the important thing. As the early-nineteenth century American abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, said: “the apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal…”. Fittingly, he now has his own bronze statue in Boston, Massachusetts.

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