"Giving the knee"

[cyril evans awaydays]

What are people’s thoughts about statues of the Roman emperors? Have to confess I enjoy seeing them despite appreciating the hard reality for most people they ruled over.

I think it's a pretty complex subject. Statues and icons erected to glorify individuals and regimes are often torn down by invaders or revolutionaries.

What we seem to have in the UK at the moment is neither of those. We have a glorification, rightly or wrongly of when Great Britain was the most powerful state on the planet. The empire that we created defined the multi-cultural state we have today and some of those honoured by statues who helped forged that empire look out of place in the Britain we live in today.

We don't seem to have managed that transition too well. Democratic attempts to deal with Colston's legacy on Bristol seem to have floundered, which must have been a trigger to his drowning at the weekend.

I think the Mayor of Bristol's response was the right one though to retrieve it and store for a future debate when emotions have cooled. I think the targeting of statues of Churchill were perverse. He may have recognised flaws but there are not many statues of Chamberlain and Lord Halifax about I guess. And it allows idiots like Yaxley Lennon to trigger his hits and mobilise the reactionaries.

All this bull about Pyramids, the Mongols etc should be just seem for what it is, Whatabboutery.inc. As should the outrage of someone living in the Dordogne who just sees modern Britain through the filter of the Daily Mail.

[Maurice Swan]

As should the outrage of someone living in the Dordogne who just sees modern Britain through the filter of the Daily Mail.

I dont see why my location should prerclude me from having opinions about the UK, even if you do not agree with them.

[cyril evans awaydays]

I dont see why my location should prerclude me from having opinions about the UK, even if you do not agree with them.

I didn't say that obviates you from a view. I was talking about Whatabouttery as in What about Mandela or Robert Mugabe, wherever his statue is in the UK

[Baloo]

I think it's a pretty complex subject. Statues and icons erected to glorify individuals and regimes are often torn down by invaders or revolutionaries.

What we seem to have in the UK at the moment is neither of those. We have a glorification, rightly or wrongly of when Great Britain was the most powerful state on the planet. The empire that we created defined the multi-cultural state we have today and some of those honoured by statues who helped forged that empire look out of place in the Britain we live in today.

We don't seem to have managed that transition too well. Democratic attempts to deal with Colston's legacy on Bristol seem to have floundered, which must have been a trigger to his drowning at the weekend.

I think the Mayor of Bristol's response was the right one though to retrieve it and store for a future debate when emotions have cooled. I think the targeting of statues of Churchill were perverse. He may have recognised flaws but there are not many statues of Chamberlain and Lord Halifax about I guess. And it allows idiots like Yaxley Lennon to trigger his hits and mobilise the reactionaries.

All this bull about Pyramids, the Mongols etc should be just seem for what it is, Whatabboutery.inc. As should the outrage of someone living in the Dordogne who just sees modern Britain through the filter of the Daily Mail.

It can get more complex. For example, some white supremacist groups glorify ancient Roman and Greece and enlist their cultures to justify their hate-based ideologies. On the basis they represent achievement and great advances in civilisation by white males. In some cases these groups have actually adopted Roman symbols, icons and acronyms into their racist messaging etc.

Some classical scholars are concerned enough by misrepresentations to actively respond to these appropriations by Alt-Right groups - see http://pages.vassar.edu/pharos/