Battle over memorials and statues and what they represent

HOW should we deal with the symbols of our colonial past? From the Holocaust memorials of the Second World War to the statue of the colonial entrepreneur Cecil John Rhodes at Oxford University, from the monuments of the Southern generals of the American Civil War to war memorials the world over, nation states in modern times have been caught in the crossfire between history and public opinion. While the destruction of heritage by atavistic and regressive forces has been noted; in more recent times, in parts of the first world and in postcolonial nation states, there have been campaigns calling for the toppling of old statues and the erection of new monuments as a way of “correcting” historical wrongs. The controversy over statues of him has raged for a considerable time and covered a wide spectrum of opinion: “It enables us to acknowledge and address the legacy of our past with openness and honesty,” declared Doug Barrow, who was the Chair of the subcommittee Oxford University constituted to consider the removal of statues of Rhodes as well as those of William Beckford and John Cass. The report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, 2006, outlined the “University’s complex history with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its legacies of anti-Black racism, racial domination and injustice”.