The shameful past

I recently heard about some students who want statues of William Gladstone removed. Gladstone was a British Prime Minister who served 4 terms in Parliament and helped some slave owners get compensation when the trans atlantic slave trade was abolished.

Video courtesy BBC News.

I think it is a bad idea. Britain needs to face up to its past, and we all do, hiding from it doesn’t make the problem go away. Some people who train their pets not to foul in the home, will take a pet that has broken the house rules and rub their nose in their mess and tell them, don’t do it again. The same can’t be done in this case explicitly, but destroying the evidence I feel destroys one of those markers that reminds Britain of its arrogance and iniquity of many years ago, that it was proud of at the time. These statues also reminds the oppressed who oppressed them so that we might be aware of the serpent that given latitude, might strike twice.

Additional reading:

The Independent: Britain’s colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition
Cambridge University Press: Gladstone and Slavery

Posted in Race.

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