Britain is littered with the romantic glorification of a repugnant past. From John Cabot to Cecil Rhodes. Their ‘philanthropism’ has statues memorialising them as well as streets and schools named in their honour. Rhodes even named a country after himself – Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe).
#RhodesMustFall was a protest movement which began in South Africa against a statue of Cecil Rhodes (an ardent believer in British imperialism and white supremacy) at the University of Cape Town and led to a wider movement to decolonise education. Being that our curriculum is itself censored having very little information about the British empire and the impacts of colonialism in the continued economic underdevelopment of many countries, the irony of the Prime Minister’s response to the pulling down of Colston as “censoring our past […] impoverish[ing] the education of generations to come” is particularly telling.
As with Rhodes, the current movement is not just an opposition to this legacy but more broadly of their vision, which in Rhodes’s will, was explicitly stated (cited in: Nhemachena et al, 2018):
…the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa…
Where does society’s morality lie when it is the removal of statues which attracts controversy instead of their more than symbolic celebration of slavers. How does pulling down a slave trader’s statue ‘undermine’ anti-racism protests. This was public order, not disorder. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr (1963):
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods or direct action’… We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Like the Berlin wall, the statue of Edward Colston was a symbol of oppression and just as we would not question the action if Jewish protestors had pulled down a statue of Adolf Hitler, we should not criticise the motives of those who sought to remove the glorification of a man who was central in the transportation of over 80,000 Black people from African countries as slaves. This is about more than just the removal of a statue; this is about acknowledging the history on which this city was built.
Image by Caitlin Hobbs
It is deeply insulting to ask the ancestors of those who were chained to the decks of Colston’s ships to be okay with the memorialisation of a man who carried out these abhorrent acts. Symbols matter. We erect statues to commemorate those who we aspire to be like, but the glorification of a man who for so many symbolises the oppression of their people undermines the importance of their history. Yes, this is part of British history, and it is exactly this history which needs to be understood more but this is not the mechanism by which to do it. Memorialisation’s represent glorification and celebration and should therefore be reserved for those who have done good without having to do it at the expense of others.
While Bristol was built on the back of enslaved Black people, today it boasts the first Black mayor of Europe, a Black woman as deputy mayor and is considered one of the best places to live in Britain, as well as one of the UK’s fastest growing cities economically. Beneath this exterior is a city grappling with the sins of its past. In 2016, the treasury revealed that taxpayers in 2015 were still paying off a debt of £20 million - 40% of its national budget (around £17 billion in today’s money) borrowed by the government in 1833 to ‘compensate’ slave owners for the loss of their ‘property’. And so, for the past 187 years, Black people have been paying for the compensation provided to rich slave traders such as Edward Colston.
We often hear arguments that these men need to be understood in the context of their time, but these memorials are not just legacies. The history of Bristol is steeped in the trade of enslaved peoples and their stolen labour. Its wealth today is based on this trade and its physicality is replete with symbolic reminders of it. To re-imagine race equality, to catalyse change, we must be mindful of this past and its presence in our present.
Bristol’s high levels of economic growth are in stark contrast to its even higher levels of exclusion. Whilst becoming increasingly diverse it has become an even more unequal city. A report in 2017 published by the Runnymede Trust found that Bristol ranked 7th out of the 348 areas of England and Wales on an index of multiple inequality and was the worst major city in the country. Unequal access to opportunity continues to be structurally embedded as the norm.
This speaks to the very real socioeconomic determinants of inequality which are rooted in history and the continued structural and systemic racism which has followed. We argue that the system has failed but a system cannot fail those it was never built to protect. We cannot hesitate to interrogate the legacies of such historical figures, which just like the empire, are often viewed through rose-tinted glasses.
We like to think of Bristol as a place of multiculturalism and diversity, but the reality for those who are not White is very different given that Black African and Bangladeshi households have 10p for every £1 of White British wealth. Bristol is far more unequal than most other cities in the UK. BAME groups face far greater disadvantage in areas of housing, education, and employment than they would if they lived elsewhere, and this disadvantage is even more stark if you are Black African (Runnymede, 2020).
60% of Bristol’s BAME population live in the city’s most disadvantaged wards (BSWN). The government’s Racial Disparity Audit Racial Disparity Audit (RDA) reveals the intricacies of the UK’s deep-seated racial inequality and these entrenched disparities. Although, it is particularly telling that in an audit about racial disparities (i.e. the RDA), that ethnicity is categorised by ‘White’ and ‘Other than White’ - this only further establishes White British as the norm against which everyone else is negatively judged.
At BSWN, over and over, our research paints a picture that disparities are just the norm, that they are expected and all too often we ask those most vulnerable to take the biggest risks, to have faith in new programmes. Those who are expected to understand inclusion are generally those most impacted by exclusion. We need to ensure our discussion around equity and inclusion is not just an effusive game of words but that the goal of policy is to support systemically equitable outcomes.
Bristol has developed its One City Plan led by the Mayor that seeks to address inequality in all its forms. This is a plan designed to create a city where, in 2050, all its communities, neighbourhoods and peoples are celebrated and embraced by all; a fair, healthy, and sustainable city. Pulling down his statue was as symbolic as it was a very real acknowledgement of the continued impacts of the legacies of slavery on Black people today and signalled a departure from the status quo.
We believe Bristol is leading the way in demonstrating this. By harnessing the energy of our young people of all races, such as we saw on Sunday 7th June, Bristol has the potential to be the first city in the West to meaningfully address systemic racism and address its history head on, to chart a truly inclusive path for all its citizens.