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Epiphanies 2023: Decolonising History

EirenistEirenist Shipmate
edited January 7 in Limbo
This is a spin-off from a Hell thread. I raised the issue by remarking that the past cannot be cancelled, and it was pointed out to me that no one is trying to cancel the past, but to bring out the full facts, e.g. the part played by 'colonial', i.e. non-white troops in the world wars (There were no coloured troops at Dunkirk', etc.). I wonder if 'decolonisation' is the right word to use here, it conjures up overtones of the felling of statues and the renaming of sreets and buildings, a negative concept in my view, while what is needed is an enlargement of knowledge rather than its suppression. I was very properly told that the proper place for a discussion of the subject was Purgatory. So here it is. Is there a better term to use?

Comments

  • De-Imperializing?

    I’m a white man living in the American South and I have no problem with “decolonizing.” To me it suggests shifting from a colonial mindset that prioritizes the experience of the colonizing group, perhaps to the exclusion of any other perspective, to a more inclusive perspective.

  • Statues and naming things after people are about honouring those people, not merely recording the past. We don't erect statues of people we think were terrible people. Therefore there is no possible justification for objecting to removing statues and renaming streets that isn't 'what they did was actually fine'. It's not suppressing history to stop honouring someone who did terrible things.

    @Nick Tamen will be able to attest that many Confederate statues that are now being removed in the US were in fact erected many years after the Civil War by people with a vested interest in promoting the Confederate cause and in fact suppressing history by promoting a 'War of Northern Aggression' narrative. Removing such statues is in fact widening knowledge by acknowledging this.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2023
    Eirenist wrote: »
    This is a spin-off from a Hell thread. I raised the issue by remarking that the past cannot be cancelled, and it was pointed out to me that no one is trying to cancel the past, but to bring out the full facts, e.g. the part played by 'colonial', i.e. non-white troops in the world wars (There were no coloured troops at Dunkirk', etc.). I wonder if 'decolonisation' is the right word to use here, it conjures up overtones of the felling of statues and the renaming of sreets and buildings, a negative concept in my view, while what is needed is an enlargement of knowledge rather than its suppression. I was very properly told that the proper place for a discussion of the subject was Purgatory. So here it is. Is there a better term to use?

    We do not remember history by names of streets or buildings, or by statues. At most these things can record ephemera; a name, a date. History is much more than that, and changing names and removing statues no more suppresses history than changing the display in the main hall of the NHM suppresses the palaeontology of sauropods.

    As @Pomona says, these monuments and memorials were intended to *celebrate* these individuals. Our enlarging knowledge of that history must cause us to reconsider whether that celebration is something in which we would join.

    Enlarging knowledge of the slave trade might surely put the thought in a reasonable person's mind that they would rather not the street they live in be named after him. Would you want to live in Goebels Gardens, Pol Pot House or Stalin Street?
  • Originally posted by Pomona:

    Therefore there is no possible justification for objecting to removing statues and renaming streets that isn't 'what they did was actually fine'.

    There are a couple of controversial statues which I would rather remained in situ but with a plaque or board explaining their full history.

    "The Mannie" (the Duke of Sutherland) on Ben Bhraggie now has metal sheeting round its base after various attempts to blow the bloody thing up. I think the statue with its ugly metal protective sheeting, with an information board explaining why the metal sheeting is needed, would be far better than removing it.

    FWIW, I have mooned the statue (there was no one else there at the time, other than my daughter who took photos) and found that more satisfying than seeing it removed.

    My gt gt gt grandfather was one of the "grateful tenantry" who, given the choice between donating and eviction, donated towards its erection, so I have an interest in this one.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    When is a crime not a crime anymore? When is it "just history"?

    That's a serious question. I don't know the answer. But I recognize that past crime can continue to have deleterious effects, and that serious attempts can be made in the present time to mitigate the damage of past acts.

    ISTM the current generation of British folks are like the descendants of a biker gang. You yourselves have done nothing wrong! You have nothing to feel personally ashamed of in terms of bad acts. And yet, you remain the inheritors and beneficiaries of crimes. What to do?

    You might feel it's terribly unfair to point that out, and even more unfair to suggest that perhaps there might be material reparations to be made to the descendants of those who were unjustly deprived of their property. Do two wrongs make a right? And is that the correct way of framing it?

    It must be very pleasant to live so far away, geographically and socially, from the ramifications of those crimes. I do not enjoy that luxury. I recognize that I too am the beneficiary of not-terribly-historic crimes. Although I have no immediate expectation of being driven from my home from a crowd with torches and guns, that is exactly what happened to the forebears of the people on this land. I did not participate in that initial crime, nor did my own ancestors. Would it be justice if that happened to me?

    In Canada, we had the Truth and Reconciliation commission, concerning our history with indigenous people. The "reconciliation" part includes finding a way forward together. Cynics will say "well they just want money." But when you read the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation commission, most things don't actually cost money. Some things do.

    De-colonizing includes the attempt to set up a new framework. Here in a former colony, there really was - and there are remnants of - a belief that the British way was best, in all things. But that's not really true, is it? What will it look like to build a society in which that belief is no longer the default?

  • "Grateful", presumably, because the other poor bastards on the Duke's land were not given the choice. :(
  • Lots of British people aren't the descendents of colonisers, but the descendents of the people Britain colonised.
  • Many of my family were the colonisers, but they had little option as they were cleared from their homes, and the emigrant ships organised by the landlords.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Pomona wrote: »
    Lots of British people aren't the descendents of colonisers, but the descendents of the people Britain colonised.

    Citizens of the United Kingdom, whatever their provenance or the antiquity thereof, continue to benefit from past colonization. The riches that were brought to the UK, and the vulnerable people removed from the UK (and no longer requiring consideration), reshaped the society into what it is today.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Many of my family were the colonisers, but they had little option as they were cleared from their homes, and the emigrant ships organised by the landlords.

    Which leads me back to my first question. When is a crime not a crime anymore? Enclosure would now be considered a human rights violation.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    Hostly beret on

    ISTM that this subject is going to be difficult to discuss in Purgatory, because of the inevitable links to racism, classism and so forth, all of which belong in Epiphanies.

    I'm suspending this temporarily while I discuss the best way to proceed with my colleagues backstage.

    Hostly beret off
    la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
  • Leaf wrote: »
    Many of my family were the colonisers, but they had little option as they were cleared from their homes, and the emigrant ships organised by the landlords.

    Which leads me back to my first question. When is a crime not a crime anymore? Enclosure would now be considered a human rights violation.

    When the perpetrators are dead criminality is largely irrelevant. Reparation where people continue to benefit from those actions is another matter. Enclosure benefited the church and other large landowners (like the current Duke of Westminster) who continue to profit from it to this day. The difficulty with reparations is identifying a category of people who might be considered victims of it. My ancestors were farm labourers, so may well have been affected, but the impact was so broad that (unlike slavery or the clearances) you can't necessarily identify specific effects. It's true that the Duke of Westminster's wealth is obscene, but that's a problem with inequality and inherited wealth, not the specific source of the money. Should the church surrender the land it gained as a result of enclosure? Maybe, but to whom, and to what end?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    After backstage discussion, we are moving this to Epiphanies - it will be reopened there with additional hostly guidance. Thank you for your patience :)

    Doublethink, Admin
  • GwaiGwai Epiphanies Host
    So we think backstage that this thread will do better in Epiphanies. Decolonizing is a topic that cannot be discussed without discussing our history of racism.

    In fact, if all would please look over this article from Priyamvada Gopal, it is a good explanation of why this issue is tied up with racism and why we need more and different voices.

    For those interested in a longer and more academic article, I recommend this article as well.

    So please continue the thread, but please continue it in a way that is aware of disadvantaged and non white voices.

    Gwai,
    Epiphanies Host
  • Pomona wrote: »
    Lots of British people aren't the descendents of colonisers, but the descendents of the people Britain colonised.

    And lots of British people aren't the descendants of colonisers at all.
  • The other thing which needs to be borne in mind is that time has not stood still, and neither has money. Globalisation, and the increasing role of billionaires in sucking wealth out of the wider world into their own hands, mean that a lot of money is not now where it was 50 or indeed 30 years ago. This is not to say that we do not remain enriched (in the UK) by our colonial past, but a lot of those riches are now elsewhere, if by no means all of them.
  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    It's a pity we can't go back to Adam and Eve and start history all over again without the bad bits.
  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    About ten years ago or so it was reported in the Ghanaian press that a group of British Baptists had visited the Ga Mantse, the paramount chief of the Accra-based Gas, and apologised for the slave trade. The irony is that their Baptist ancestors were likely to have been opposed to the industry, while the Ga Mantse's predecessors were participants. It is also the case that in 1817 the Asantahene, paramount chief of the Ashanti, wrote to the British government requesting a revival of the Atlantic trade. Clearly, a de-colonised history would require a narrative that is not fooled by the constraints of national boundaries, and recognises class interests which transcend the deceptions of "national" histories. I'm all in favour of this, partly because it gets closer to the truth about human exploitation, and partly because it challenges much contemporary moralising.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited February 2023
    At least part of the issue, was that the transatlantic slave trade hugely increased demand - and that conditions may have been significantly different and potentially worse.

    But that is not really the issue, regarding decolonising history. It is about not omitting large chunks of our own history in order to paint ourselves a more flattering picture of the past. And not assuming that “our” history is solely the history that the white English ruling class deemed important.

    Certainly when I was at school, we were taught about the existence of the empire and the slave trade - but learned almost nothing about pre colonial Africa or the nature of the societies in which the colonisers took power. I know more about Rome 2000 years ago than I do about Ugandan history for example, despite the fact the country was colonised by the British.
  • Thanks for the link to the academic article, Gwai. Decolonization is much discussed at Canadian universities. I have printed the article to read.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited February 2023
    Pomona wrote: »
    @Nick Tamen will be able to attest that many Confederate statues that are now being removed in the US were in fact erected many years after the Civil War by people with a vested interest in promoting the Confederate cause and in fact suppressing history by promoting a 'War of Northern Aggression' narrative. Removing such statues is in fact widening knowledge by acknowledging this.
    I can indeed attest to this. Statues were generally not being erected in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.* My understanding is that Confederate veterans were generally opposed to statues, displays of Confederate flags or the like immediately after the war. Physical remembrances of the war focused on cemeteries. It was later, with the rise of Jim Crow and full blossoming of the Lost Cause narrative—the start of which did date back to the time immediately following the war—that statues really started popping up all around the South. Typically, these statues were of a generic Confederate soldier (often facing North) and commemorated the Lost Cause in general rather than any specific person. They were very much intended to reinforce a social order predicated on ensuring white supremacy, especially when placed in places such as in front of the county courthouse.

    Removal of those statues is very much about understanding what they were really erected to communicate and perpetuate.

    * FWIW, in my 60+ years, I’ve rarely heard a Southerner use “the War of Northern Aggression” as anything other than a somewhat tongue-in-cheek term for the Civil War. Not that very problematic ideas can’t be prettied up through humor, and if it is used seriously it’s certainly a sign of much bigger issues. In my experience, the more “serious” alternative term to “Civil War” is “War Between the States,” and I don’t hear it as much as I used to.

    Of course, others’ mileage may vary on this, and I’m aware that “War of Northern Aggression” was used (and perhaps first popularized) by mid-20th C. segregationists who used the term in the context of their opposition to federally-imposed integration. I’m merely speaking about how I’ve tended to hear the term used.

  • When my mother (born in 1919) was in college in Ohio, a girl from the south stated they "you never would have beaten us if you hadn't blockaded our ports". At least some people harbored ill feelings for generations and perhaps still do. It was also called the Brothers' War.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Imagine a village. One day, imperial forces come to the village and forcibly remove the children. Some try to hide; they are found and taken anyway. The parents are powerless to stop this. Soon the village is silent, without children's laughter.

    This is the opening scene of Ivo Andric's novel "The Bridge on the Drina" and the forces are those of the Ottoman Empire.

    This is Canada, all through the twentieth century. The last "Indian residential school" closed in 1996. So not exactly as far back in time as Adam and Eve, Kwesi, and much more recent than the Ottomans.

    A colonial historical view of residential schools: "We built and staffed schools for the education and benefit of [Indian] children. It was more economical and effective to bring them to centralized educational and residential facility than to have localized education. We tried to bring children of the Stone Age into modern times, and fit them for the society in which they must earn a living. Boys were to be taught trades, girls to be housekeepers, with basic literacy and numeracy for both."

    A decolonized historical view of residential schools: "We forcibly removed children from their parents and homes, and forbade them contact with their siblings in the school. We subcontracted education to religious organizations, with many teachers appointed by their bishops to this role, whether they wished to be teachers or not. We permitted every sort of heinous abuse to occur. We provided one-half of the food budget and one-half of the medicine budget otherwise allocated in the cases of 'white' residential schools, so [Indian] children were malnourished and sick. We provided no healthy role models for home life, familial or romantic relationships, no means for establishing generational wealth, and punished communication in their native languages and attempts to transmit ritual or culture."

    The first version valorizes the brave little empire for attempting to educate the children of "Indians." The second version lays out the horror of the planned imperial structures of isolation, cruelty, neglect, and systematic destruction of culture and language of the people of these nations.

    I live amongst the wreckage that residential schools created.

    This is just one small example of what it means to de-colonize history. But I think it's more than an anti-imperial view, although it certainly includes it. Decolonizing is not just an "against" of being anti-imperial; I think it includes a "for" as well. Decolonizing is an attempt to build a society not grounded in the assumptions of imperial power and social structures.

  • Leaf wrote: »
    Decolonizing is not just an "against" of being anti-imperial; I think it includes a "for" as well. Decolonizing is an attempt to build a society not grounded in the assumptions of imperial power and social structures.
    Yes!

  • questioningquestioning Shipmate
    edited February 2023
    (deleted)
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Pomona wrote: »
    @Nick Tamen will be able to attest that many Confederate statues that are now being removed in the US were in fact erected many years after the Civil War by people with a vested interest in promoting the Confederate cause and in fact suppressing history by promoting a 'War of Northern Aggression' narrative. Removing such statues is in fact widening knowledge by acknowledging this.
    I can indeed attest to this. Statues were generally not being erected in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.* My understanding is that Confederate veterans were generally opposed to statues, displays of Confederate flags or the like immediately after the war. Physical remembrances of the war focused on cemeteries. It was later, with the rise of Jim Crow and full blossoming of the Lost Cause narrative—the start of which did date back to the time immediately following the war—that statues really started popping up all around the South. Typically, these statues were of a generic Confederate soldier (often facing North) and commemorated the Lost Cause in general rather than any specific person. They were very much intended to reinforce a social order predicated on ensuring white supremacy, especially when placed in places such as in front of the county courthouse.

    Removal of those statues is very much about understanding what they were really erected to communicate and perpetuate.

    * FWIW, in my 60+ years, I’ve rarely heard a Southerner use “the War of Northern Aggression” as anything other than a somewhat tongue-in-cheek term for the Civil War. Not that very problematic ideas can’t be prettied up through humor, and if it is used seriously it’s certainly a sign of much bigger issues. In my experience, the more “serious” alternative term to “Civil War” is “War Between the States,” and I don’t hear it as much as I used to.

    Of course, others’ mileage may vary on this, and I’m aware that “War of Northern Aggression” was used (and perhaps first popularized) by mid-20th C. segregationists who used the term in the context of their opposition to federally-imposed integration. I’m merely speaking about how I’ve tended to hear the term used.

    When I encounter the "War of Northern Aggression" types online I tend to refer to it as the "Slavers' Rebellion".
  • For many years after the war it was referred to in the North as “The War of the Rebellion.” Southerners tended to prefer “The War Between the States,” with its implication of a conflict between sovereign entities of equal standing, as opposed to “Civil War” which implies an internal conflict within a single polity.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    For many years after the war it was referred to in the North as “The War of the Rebellion.” Southerners tended to prefer “The War Between the States,” with its implication of a conflict between sovereign entities of equal standing, as opposed to “Civil War” which implies an internal conflict within a single polity.

    This is why the American Civil War is something of a misnomer. It's more akin to a failed secessionist conflict (part of a polity seeking independence) rather than a true civil war (rival factions fighting for sole control of a single polity). Still, the name has the been around long enough semantic corrections at this point are unlikely.
  • Crœsos wrote: »
    For many years after the war it was referred to in the North as “The War of the Rebellion.” Southerners tended to prefer “The War Between the States,” with its implication of a conflict between sovereign entities of equal standing, as opposed to “Civil War” which implies an internal conflict within a single polity.

    This is why the American Civil War is something of a misnomer. It's more akin to a failed secessionist conflict (part of a polity seeking independence) rather than a true civil war (rival factions fighting for sole control of a single polity). Still, the name has the been around long enough semantic corrections at this point are unlikely.

    Yes, but it does underline the importance of semantic subtleties in defining political agendas.
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    Perhaps we need to have fewer catchy names for wars.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    When I was very young I had heard about the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. I was given to believe the Mau Mau were ruthless people. Of course, I was listening to White American Reports which were in favor of the Brits.

    When I was in seminary, I got to know a person who is Kikuyu. Fact was, his village was attacked by the King's Rifles. He himself was shot in the leg. To hear his version of the story helped me realize it was the other way around.

    And I know the term Mau Mau is a misnomer.

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