The High Price of Toppling Statues

The desecration of property has been an unfortunate by-product of the more extreme fringes of the George Floyd protesting movement. In Britain the vandalism and defilement reached new heights when historical monuments were the subject of protester wrath.

In Bristol on Sunday June 7, Black Lives Matter protesters toppled a bronze statue of seventeenth-century British philanthropist, politician and slave trader Edward Colston, provoking cheers from the enthralled witnesses. History has, correctly, not been kind to Colston and many viewed the act as deserved vengeance that was a long time coming. Bristol’s own mayor acknowledged that he had never liked its prominent placement, which he called “an affront”.

But when Sir Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square was defaced, the behaviour of the protesters was deemed by many to be a little less justifiable and a little more impetuous. Graffiti was scrawled on Churchill’s monument during the same march in which a lone protester, just a block away, tried to burn the Union Flag flying at the Cenotaph, a memorial to Britain’s war dead. It was indeed a bold move considering Churchill’s place in the British pantheon of great figures. His pugnacious wartime leadership which led to the defeat of Nazi tyranny has resulted in many regarding him as the saviour of the Free World, the one who orchestrated its survival from the jaws of peril. Such is the adulation for Churchill that in 2002 he was voted in a BBC poll as the Greatest Briton of All Time.

While the wilful ransacking of businesses is a contemptible tactic of activism and a public nuisance, the trashing of historical monuments is that and much more. It is dialectically linked to the desire of many protesters to rewrite history or at least excise certain parts to manufacture a narrative that lends credence to the objectives they pursue. The trashing of national symbols represents a dangerous impulse and an intellectually reprehensible manoeuvre that produces expenses extending far beyond mere graffiti-removal.

A phenomenon that is unfortunately creeping into the analytical toolkit with every year that goes by is the increased use of “presentism”. Presentism is the tendency to interpret past events and people in terms of modern values and concepts. This penchant to judge our forebears against today’s criteria is deeply unfair. We would not castigate our younger selves with the sagacity of today because to do so would be disingenuous and overlook the beauty of the learned lesson that is only cultivated over the passing of days. If the razor of presentism was wielded consistently and without selective prejudice, very few figures in history would escape ridicule. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, Gandhi was a philanderer and Churchill was an imperialist who endorsed policy that caused a great deal of suffering to the people of the sub-continent. Such behaviours are rightly lamentable in this era. By the standards of their time, however, they barely raised an eyebrow.

History has a habit of making fools of us all. No doubt, in 100 years from now our great-grandchildren will be deploring the actions and policies of today. This is the beauty and the curse of history. If we are to become practitioners of presentism then we should at least be consistent and tear down every monument to a historical figure who would fall short of today’s moral codes. Better still would be to leave them untouched as teachers of history rather than allowing them to be tyrants and racists from beyond the grave.

Another unfortunate aspect of the contemporary analysis of historical figures is the proclivity to focus more on the bad than the good, or in the worst cases, exclusively the bad. For men as politically complex as Churchill this leads to an unfavourable appraisal of their contributions and a tepid memory of their legacy.

In many ways Churchill was a walking contradiction. The nimble attitude with which he approached politics resulted in him crossing the floor not once, but twice, and giving Stalin much of post-war Europe despite being an inveterate anti-communist. These actions and many more have left historians and biographers reaching an impasse in trying to categorise the seemingly uncategorisable. His views and politics could be defensibly termed—to borrow from the man himself—“a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. Many of his proficiencies were only possible because of his deficiencies. His past misfortunes paved his future fortunes, and a lifetime of mistakes was the carefully constructed scaffolding for unmatched successes.

It is therefore important that when you subject these people to the knife of criticism you take into your assessment the person as a whole. It is a cute irony that the desecration of his monument coincided with the seventy-sixth anniversary of the D-Day landings, the single day which perhaps best exemplifies the British people’s struggle against genocidal fascism. To say Churchill was important in those landings would be an unpardonable understatement. While the crowds decried perhaps his largest character flaw they conveniently overlooked his greatest achievement on one of its most important anniversaries—preventing the hegemony of a racist tyranny. I wonder how many of the protesters who revelled in the dirtying of Churchill’s monument later that day involved themselves in a moment of silent gratitude for the D-Day soldiers’ sacrifice and Churchill’s instrumental leadership in orchestrating such a monumental feat.

An obsession with someone’s failings is an ingratitude that leads to some of their greatest strengths being forgotten. That is a sad disservice to history, let alone to the recipient.  

The phrase “sunlight is the best disinfectant” was introduced to American legal discourse by Justice Louis Brandeis, who served on the United States Supreme Court in the early twentieth century. In essence, it declares that the best way to derive important lessons from something, particularly something vile and regrettable, is to put it out in the open for all to study. This point is far more pertinent to the less defensible Edward Colston than Churchill. I for one had never heard of Colston, and would feel cheated if I was denied the opportunity to visit Bristol and learn from his life and errors because someone was repulsed by his statue.

The figures of the past—most especially the tyrants, racists and bigots—can be our greatest teachers. The old saying, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it”, is apt here. The most prominent example of this ideal in practice is Germany’s very public and thorough preservation of its shameful Holocaust history. The most regrettable and ugly chapters of history deserve to be displayed in prominent places—not because they should be celebrated, but rather because they serve as enduring reminders of how far we have come.  

Churchill of course will survive this affair; the rhinocerine hide he developed from years of ridicule in the political arena will make light work of repelling a little graffiti. But it is an opportune moment for the rest of us to remember how essential it is to remain vigilant in the preservation of all shades of history. The cost of its desecration is far more than chipped bronze.

Tristan Heiner is a recent law graduate from the University of Queensland.