10 Jun 20 | News and features
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Statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, which has since been taken down. Credit: Philip Halling
The most apt description of the impact of the death of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African American man who died on 25 May when a police officer leant on his neck and back for eight minutes and 46 seconds, came from a child. Floyd’s six-year-old daughter Ginna simply said: “Daddy changed the world!”
She’s right. Floyd’s death has sparked large-scale, public Black Lives Matter protests around the world, including in the UK. And it was in the UK that Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston last weekend. It was then rolled through the city centre and dumped in Bristol Harbour.
Colston was a member of the Royal Africa Company, which had a monopoly on the slave trade at the time and is believed to be responsible for an estimated 30,000 African deaths.
The toppling of the statue has been both celebrated and criticised. Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees, for example, condemned the manner of the statue’s removal, though he admitted that the statue’s presence was an “affront” to black people in the city.
Some have attacked the action as one that is silencing and could set a bad precedent. But was it?
Removing a statue is symbolic and as the national debate about history, slavery and empire shows, it also very significant. The prime minister and other officials have stressed that it is important to follow process in these matters. But the people of Bristol had tried. For years, there had been an ongoing discussion about removing or adding a plaque to contextualise the statue. All efforts had reached a stalemate and frustration grew as suggested language for a plaque was watered down in efforts, some felt, to minimise his crimes. In the end, the whole thing came down and those who tried to stymy efforts to tell a fuller version of history found themselves swept aside as history was made.
It is perhaps in an effort to forestall similar actions that local Labour councils across England and Wales have indicated that they intend to set up commissions to look at other monuments and explore which ones ought to be taken down. This is not a bad thing, but if the public is not engaged in the process then a valuable moment for public education and civic participation could be lost. The act of tearing down of Edward Colston’s statue arguably did more to further a public discussion of slavery, history and racism than the statue ever did standing serenely in place all these years.
It’s an important discussion because putting up a statue is also a political act. Those who decry the removal of statues as erasing history might consider that in the many cases where statues represent editing or curating the past, that is itself a form of erasure. Colston’s statue was erected long after his death and is not even his true likeness. The honouring of the man has less to do with the facts of his life and career than the fact that he had given a lot of money to his home town, for which he was described in no less glowing terms than as one “of the most virtuous and wise” sons of Bristol.
Statues are also about who we wish to hold up for admiration and that is where history is dialogue with the present. It makes sense to discuss to whom we want to draw our eye upwards, to stand head and shoulders above the rest of us? There is potential for a rich discussion on which statues could be added, moved to museums, contextualised or quietly brought down to earth.
Parliament Square is now home to a statue of Nelson Mandela, who was once considered a terrorist by the Conservative government, and Millicent Fawcett, who as a suffragette endured much opposition and criticism of the group’s methods of direct action. With the passage of time, views on these historical figures have changed. The graffiti artist Banksy has suggested putting Colston back on his plinth as part of a new sculpture depicting Black Lives Matter protesters pulling him down. We may yet see public art memorialising these protesters in years to come.
Where will it end? Some ask. The answer is it never ends. Humans are dynamic and creative creatures, always making history and looking back over it. The prevailing view on Colston’s removal is one of broad agreement with the result but not the methods, the familiar “Yes – but not like that.” But if it was comfortable, it wouldn’t be a protest. Nobody advocates violence, but there is another familiar saying: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
The issue of statues is by no means the most important thing at this moment. But it’s not without significance, otherwise he wouldn’t have been there in the first place. We need more discussion about statues, their symbolism and the history around them, not less. Colston’s removal has done that.
Kiri Kankhwende is a freelance journalist who writes about politics, race and human rights
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13 Jan 16 | Magazine, Volume 44.04 Winter 2015
Kunle Olulode, director of Voice for Change England
The opportunity to re-introduce Astrid Lindgren’s children’s literary figure Pippi Longstocking to a new Swedish generation in 2014 should have been a fairly innocuous affair. However, the decision to edit out parts of the programme, which originally aired in 1969, on anti-racist grounds caused a major furore. Two scenes in particular, Pippi’s reference to her father as King of the Negroes and secondly her slit-eyed impersonation of someone from China, were removed, provoking national and international debates about the rights and wrongs of the re-edit.
Critics rounded on the Swedish broadcaster SVT, accusing it of imposing adult PC values on a beloved fictional figure. But this situation is not unique to Sweden. The people who run television programming throughout western Europe are acting in the same way. The programme could be seen as simply part of work reflecting attitudes of a particular period. I fear there is a danger we lose the contextual understanding of the work and an understanding of the period by editing it in this way.
Mark Twain’s classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been at the centre of a similar debate in the United States, but the book was always intended to be controversial. Critics rounded on it when it was first published in 1885. The Committee of the Concord Public Library in Massachusetts, publicly declared the book “couched in the language of a rough, ignorant dialect” and that “all through its pages there is a systematic use of bad grammar and an employment of inelegant expressions”.
The enterprising publisher saw this as a “rattling tip-top puff” and used the library ban and …
You can read the full article in the latest Index on Censorship magazine. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide. Order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions (just £18 for the year).
02 Jul 15 | Europe and Central Asia, mobile, News and features, United Kingdom
It is probably a sign of the success of our society that people like me spend so much of our time defending the rights of jerks.
Racists, misogynists, Christian fundamentalists, jihadists, wannabe jihadists, counter-jihadists, homophobes, trolls, Top Gear presenters, True Torah Jews, Nazis; cretins of all colours and creeds. In modern, liberal Europe, these are the people who tend to get in trouble over free speech. In the past, they were the ones in charge.
That is not to say everyone else is entirely free from censorship; and of course, the reason we defend free expression as a good in itself is because we understand that the powers used to silence the craven can also be used to silence the virtuous, but by and large, it’s the oddballs who tend to get into trouble. Them and journalists.
And so we turn our attention, wearily but determinedly, to the case of the “anti-Jewification” protest which was due to take place in London’s Golders Green on 4 July. As others have pointed out, anyone hoping to prevent the “Jewification” of Golders Green is, frankly, a bit late. But then, we know full well that Judenfrei policies have experienced some success in the past.
The stationary protest will now not take place in Golders Green, but instead in central London – Whitehall to be precise, away from Golders Green’s Jewish community. Ironically, many Jews are now planning to make their way to Westminster to stage a counter-demonstration.
As Richard Ferrer, editor of Jewish News, noted: “Saturday’s rally is fast turning into the social event of the season for the capital’s Jewish community. When it was originally announced, synagogues braced themselves for their lowest Shabbat attendance figures in years. I had a family lunch booked, but had to make sure it didn’t clash with the scheduled Holocaust denial and book burning.”
It does all sound rather fun, but the moving of the Nazi demonstration does raise questions about the nature of protest and how it is policed.
A demonstration must be disruptive, by its very nature. So there’s a dilemma raised by the moving of a protest from the scene of its target, in this case the Jewish community, does it become effectively meaningless? What happens if a swastika waves in a side street in Whitehall, with no one there to fear it? Does it still resound?
The police decision to move the demonstration, in spite of earlier claims that they were powerless to do so, has effectively neutered it. It’s meaningless.
Now here’s the question: should the police have a right to neuter protest in that manner? Or does the fact that the neo-Nazis are allowed stand in the street and make their little speeches, even if it’s not the street they wanted to stand in, mean that their free speech has been fully protected? I’m not entirely sure we’ve thought about this fully. But I do recall past campaigns against “designated protest zones”, for example during the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
I don’t really know what the answer is here: I guess the simple point is that one should be free to protest outside institutions but not outside people’s homes. But then what about the UK Uncut protesters who staged a “street party” outside then-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s home?
This case of the relocated anti-Semites is interesting exactly because it has not turned out to be Britain’s Skokie case. To briefly recap, Skokie was an Illinois town where many Holocaust survivors had settled.
In 1977, the National Socialist Party of America proposed a march there. They were opposed. The case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court. The ACLU backed the Nazis’ right to march. Eventually, the court upheld the Nazis’ right to march. But they never actually did. [For more on this case, read Index on Censorship magazine, Vol 37, Number 3, 2008].
In 2015 in north London we have a similar but different case. There are some Nazis wanting to march in a Jewish neighbourhood, there are some people who object. But there is no great call to principle, no great desire to take up the cause seemingly on either side. It’s hard to even get anyone on the Nazi side to own up to who exactly is in charge. Joshua Bonehill, the Somerset Stormtrooper and all round troll, is widely believed to be responsible. He was arrested early this week on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred. No one seemed that bothered.
This is the British way of free expression; a matter of practicality rather than principle, a pliable concept, one that can almost always be tempered by appeals to taste: it is simply distasteful for Nazis to demonstrate in Golders Green; just not done to burn a poppy.
By and large, taste wins out in these compromises. Remember that the Chatterley ban only came to an end because it was deemed that the book was of high enough literary quality, not because adults have the right to read what they damned well please.
Tastefulness being the characteristic the British most pride themselves upon means it’s rare that anyone will argue against it. It’s a soft tyranny most people seem happy to live with.
This article was posted on 2 July 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
11 Dec 14 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, United Kingdom
I feel sorry for Mario Balotelli. I’m sure he’ll take that as a comfort; knowing he’s not the only one asking “why always Mario?” That is not to say I think he’s drifted through life blameless and immaculate: not at all. I’ve only seen him in the flesh once, when Manchester City played Arsenal. He had a terrible game and got sent off for what even I, sitting in row Z at the other end of the ground, could see was a stupid and dangerous tackle.
But I’ve had a soft spot for Balotelli ever since someone pointed out he looks like a baby dinosaur. Without wishing to infantilise him, he’s like the boy in school who can’t help getting in trouble even when he’s trying to be good. Ballotelli’s current situation is the perfect example. Last week, the player posted an image on Instagram, showing Nintendo character Super Mario (from whom the footballer takes his nickname, or at least would like to).
“Don’t be racist!”, it read (Yay!)
“Be like Mario” (LOL!)
“He’s an Italian plumber” (indeed he is)
“created by Japanese people” (correct)
“who speaks English” (sort of)
“and looks like a Mexican” (I suppose he does. A bit.)
“…jumps like a black man” (hmmm)
“and grabs coins like a Jew” (oh)
Long story short: people suggested that this might be a bit racist towards black and Jewish people, Balotelli responded that his mum is Jewish. Eventually, he took the post down and apologised. But by then it was too late. The Football Association announced over the weekend that the striker would face an investigation for using insulting and improper language with “reference to ethnic origin and/or colour and/or race and/or nationality and/or religion or belief”.
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe for a moment that Balotelli meant to insult anyone with his Instagram post. I think he entirely sincerely posted the meme seeing it as an anti-racist message. The problem for poor Mario was that his ill-judged but innocent Instagram came while the football world was actually paying attention to anti-semitism, as Wigan chairman Dave Whelan spouted a series of inappropriate race-related comments (Jews, money, you know, that stuff) after hiring former Cardiff manager Malky Mackay, who himself had run into controversy over dubious texts (Jews, money, on and on it goes).
Whelan stylishly compounded the issue with a “clarifying” interview in the Jewish Telegraph, where he spun the ”some of my best friends are…” line, saying there must be “a dozen” Jews with apartments near his residence in Majorca, and “so many Jewish people go to Barbados at Christmas. That’s when I go. I see a lot of them in the Lone Star, in restaurants. I play golf with a few of them.”
In the same interview, Whelan told how when he was younger, people called the only Chinese restaurant in Wigan “the Chingalings”, and absolutely nobody had minded (though one doubts anyone asked the Chinese people of Wigan).
Whelan now also faces charges of misconduct from the FA. I’m not about to suggest that the FA has no right to investigate Whelan, or anyone involved in professional football in England. Associations can have their own rules and standards. But it would be sad if, in football’s newfound determination to deal with discrimination, innocents such as Balotelli got caught in the dragnet.
The interesting question is whether, in combating racism, one confronts the words used, the stereotypes invoked, the intent behind them, or all three at once. Is it possible to disentangle the three?
Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than the debate about whether Tottenham Hotspur fans should be able to chant “yids” or not. Short explanation: some Spurs fans are Jewish, many identify as the “yid army”. Some people — mostly not Spurs fans — feel that Spurs fans chanting “yids” legitimises anti-semitic chanting by fans of other teams. Spurs fans say it’s their chant and their word and they are using it positively. Unpick that one, sports fans.
Words in and of themselves are neutral entities. Does saying the word “yid” — in and of itself — make me more or less anti-semitic? No. But the creation of a taboo can elevate a word, bringing a certain thrill to its use. In a society where, more or less, we have decided bigotry is a bad thing (which is not to suggest a society where bigotry is no longer a problem), the use of words and phrases associated with bigotry can take on a thrill of its own, as much for the well intentioned as for the malevolent. The bad taste joke, the inappropriate interjection, the drunken football chant using the words you might not be supposed to use, are the shared cigarette behind the school bike shed; the shared, line-crossing moments that so often bond people.
The joy for most Unilad Bantalopes lies in that shared bond. For the person who created the meme which ill-feted Mario Balotelli shared (very much from the Bantasauraus school), one could simultaneously attempt to be anti-racist and use racial stereotypes. Human beings are complicated like that. And that’s why a zero-tolerance approach to words and meanings is unlikely to work on us.
This article was posted on 11 December 2014 at indexoncensorship
