Observations on statues, history, "remembering" and "forgetting"

Ever since classical antiquity, statues have been controversial. The Bible condemned worship of statues. Literal iconoclasm was an important feature of the Protestant Reformation. Symbolic representations of important historical figures , shorn of explanatory historical contextualisation, are one of a number of ways in which public consent is sought for an orthodox 'national story.'

No important historical figure is without controversy, however. There is no uncontested interpretation of any historical figure, however 'saintly' their reputation is. Churchill's record as a racist and imperialist is as much a part of his history as his leadership during his tenures as prime minister. Often statues were not constructed during the period during which the commemorated person was alive, but reflect another age's perspective on that period. For example, the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was constructed not in the 18th century (he died in 1721), but in 1895. This was at a time when, although the British Empire was at the height of its power and its geographical extent, it also faced pressing competition from Germany, the United States and Japan, in both the military and economic arenas. There was a small but significant anti-imperialist movement, increasing eugenicist concern about the fitness of the British 'race' to defend it, and uneasiness about whether Britain had a moral justification for empire, whether it was based on racial pseudoscience or the concept of 'imperial trusteeship.' This anxiety about the future of empire is reflected in contemporary literature, such as Rudyard Kipling's poem 'Recessional', H. G. Wells' 'The War of the Worlds' and Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness.' Although since 1833 the British Empire had prided itself on stamping out slavery, in this context the political and economic elites of Bristol deemed it necessary to sanitise the reputation of a slave trader, and to present the history of British imperialism as a philanthropic enterprise. Similar considerations must also have been in play when the statue of Oliver Cromwell was errected in Westminster, also in 1895, when British rule in Ireland was under severe challenge, and had already split one political party. It was also attempt to integrate Cromwell in to a Whiggish account of constitutional progress. Statues of Confederate generals were also errected at the same time in the South, as the regime of segregation/apartheid or 'Jim Crow' was being established, in order to find historical legitimacy for that racial order in what whites saw as the 'heroic' struggle of the South during the Civil War.

A resolution to the controversy concerning the statue of Colston was attempted in 2017, but apparently foundered on the insistence of the Bristol Society of Merchant Venturers that the proposed re-wording on the plinth of the statue give more weight to his philanthropic munificence. They were not alone: many concertgoers at Bristol's principal music venue (the Colston Hall) were against its re-naming, and there is an annual commemoration of Colston in Bristol every year. Bristol is far from unique in its struggles in facing up to its slave-trading past: Liverpool, Glasgow, Nantes and Bordeaux face similar problems over street names and statues. As the historian David Andress has written, 'The extent to which British populations generally wish to see the history of imperialism as something that has been essentially disarmed by the passage of time is visible more broadly in the idea of renaming streets and landmarks. There are surprisingly few places in the former Soviet Union still named after Stalin, Lenin and their comrades, but remarkably many in the UK named after slave traders.' (David Andress, 'Cultural dementia: how the west has lost its history, and risks losing everything else.' (2018), page 71.)

The point is that this argument is not 'just' about statues. Statues are just one attempt among many others to compel respect and legitimacy for one version of history, or to advocate another version of history (witness the controversy over the statues of Mary Seacole and Millicent Fawcett). But the study of history is not about establishing one version of the past as the only correct interpretation. As the 19th century French theologian Ernest Renan said, 'advances in historical study are often threatening to a nationality.' Although the historical profession in the 19th century often viewed its role as that of fostering national, or even 'racial' consciousness, as the historian David Cannadine has written, its view of its own role has changed : 'in another, more skeptical guise, it is the implacable enemy of the selective myths, the sanitized memories, and the carefully edited narratives that galvanize collective resolve and sustain national solidarities over time.' (David Cannadine, 'The undivided past: history beyond our differences.' (2013), page 90). This essential role of historical study conflicts with the imperatives of national political leaders in devising school curricula and the desire of many people to believe in one version of history. However, pluralism of interpretations is intrinsically a part of the discipline of history as plural identities are part of each human being. It is in the nature of both historical study and human life that this pluralism always has to be negotiated, and will never be resolved. History is always a series of uncomfortable confrontations with the past, not 'a cosy blanket of half-remembering and convenient forgetting' (David Andress) that many would like it to be.