How do we think about taking down controversial statues in the UK?

The controversial statues are an attack on the UK's white majority

Question: How do we think about taking down controversial statues in the UK?
Position‹2 of 3›: How dare they tear down our statues
Argument‹7 of 9›: The controversial statues are an attack on the UK's white majority

Britain is a white country. This debate is about race, and an attempt to subordinate British people.

The argument

During the Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, the Edward Colston statue was toppled and thrown into the Bristol Harbour, and statues of historical British figures, such as Winston Churchill, were defaced. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, claimed that removing these statues would be to lie about British history and the values and understandings of what was right and wrong at the time. They are part of our educational history. Winston Churchill, for example, may have expressed views that are inappropriate to us, but the memorial commemorates his achievement in saving this country. After the removal of the Edward Colston statue, there have been petitions to remove statues that are considered offensive, and petitions countering those to maintain the statues. Those petitioning for the maintenance of these statues view the monuments as part of British heritage. The removal of these statues and monuments are seen to be a direct attack on British history and on the UK's white British majority. By removing the statues, British forefathers are being demonised, and an attack is made upon the values, roots, and heritage of the British people. The illegitimate removal of the Edward Colston statue, and the defacing of the Winston Churchill statue are nothing but destructive acts of anarchy, and thereafter removing statues that portray British historical values, in the event that it were to offend minorities, is wrong.

Premises

[P1]The contested statues commemorate historical British figures and form part of the nation's educational history and heritage. [P2] Proponents argue that tearing them down — as with the toppling of the Edward Colston statue and the defacing of the Churchill memorial — amounts to lawless acts that demonise British forebears. [P3] On this view, removing monuments to placate minority objections attacks the values, roots, and heritage of the white British majority. [C] Therefore, proponents hold, the controversial statues' removal is an attack on the UK's white majority.

Counter-arguments

The removal of statues that may cause offence to minorities is not an attack on the UK’s white majority. It is vital to understand British history and be educated about it. Whilst it is essential to understand history and its colonial past, it is ever more significant to understand that the structure systems set up during colonial periods have paved the way for the dynamics of exploitation today. Issues relating to garment manufacturing, land disputes, access to healthcare, and other socio-economic inequalities, all exist today. Current victims of inequality in the UK include those who were killed during the Grenfell Tower fire due to corporate greed, all from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background, and the demographics disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The removal of the statue of Edward Colston (a slave trader), defacement of Winston Churchill’s, (who is known to have caused the 1943 Bengal Famine, and contributed to the social class divisions in Britain), and thereafter the removals and petitions for removals of other statues of historical colonialists, are not an attempt eradicate British history, or attack the UK’s current white majority. The toppling of the Edward Colston statue during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest expresses that the feeling that institutional racism exists is present, and is embodied in our global structure, which emanates from the past. The demand for removal is more symbolistic of a wanting for change in today’s institutions, to eradicate inequality on both the national and global front.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That the statues form part of a heritage does not establish whose heritage they are. Colston's fortune came from the trade in enslaved Africans, whose descendants are also British, and the argument treats a contested inheritance as the property of one group. [Rejecting P2] The toppling of the Colston statue and the defacing of the Churchill memorial can be criticised as unlawful without the further conclusion. The argument slides from an objection to the method to a claim about the motive, and the method does not supply it — the same objection would apply had the statues been removed by a council vote, which the argument also opposes. [Rejecting P3] The central inference does not hold. A monument is a commemoration rather than a record, and removing one leaves the history in archives, museums, books and the curriculum untouched. Nor is a demand advanced by British citizens of many backgrounds, and supported by many white Britons, well described as an attack by minorities on a white majority. As the counter-argument notes, the removals were argued as claims about present institutions and present inequality, not as claims about ancestry.