(Previously On That Story Girl – Part 1 ; Part 2; Part 3)
We all have landmarks in our lives. They are the anniversaries and the stories we tell about them; they are scars that are healed wounds; they are the physical places – pubs, churches, forests… And Statues.
Statues are a very particular type of physical landmark. They are a physical record of place and space, serving as a landmark. At the same time they are a piece of art, a record of history, a story hewn in a touchable medium, an idol raised to men who reflect our values, a reminder of who is in charge and who should be watched. Monuments to power, fear, hope, victory.
Statues, like Stained Glass Windows in churches, started as a handy visual representation for a community. A focal point of the history and story of a people. But commissioned and paid for by those with agendas of not just which stories get told, but how those stories get told.
The men and ideas we choose to valorise in statuary reveal as much about us as it does about them. And how we portray them, the veracity of the portrayal, reveals even more. We choose our idols to make ourselves feel better. We tell physical stories through rock and wood and metal to justify the new narrative we want to form. So in an age of expansion and colonialism, an age of conquest and subjugation, we call upon and raise idols that reflect that narrative. In an era of hope, we raise corresponding statuary. In a country not our own, we either enter as supplicants and erect statues reflecting that, or as conquerors and impose fear with statues of violent men.
So when our values change (for better or worse) these men and ideas no longer reflect our own. When the depth and truth of a story becomes more clear, those we once celebrated become anathema to us and we allow our monuments to rust and crumble.
There are times when those monuments must be actively tumbled. Not in an effort to erase history, but to tell better stories about it. When tearing down idols of our old selves, we acknowledge our stories; we admit their truth and decide to tell our stories in a better way. In looking again at whether we hold the same values as those who are not only represented by our statues, but those who raised them, we become more honest about history – and how it’s painted.
We cannot change our past – but we are not slaves to its values, or its heroes. Stone stories of dead white rich men who tortured thousands and whose personal narratives speak only of exploitation and abuse are simply not the stories I want my community to tell any more. Not unless they are stories of warning and what to avoid. And they are certainly not (for me) worthy of being lifted up for all to see and admire.
I’m reminded in all this of the Weeping Angels of the Doctor Who universe. A terrifying antagonist who doesn’t actually kill you, but displaces you in time. Quantum locked into stone when observed, they move quickly as soon as one’s back is turned and banishes their victim to the past – feeding on their lost potential in the current timeline. There are a number of issues at play in the fear the weeping Angels elicit – Loss of potential, death without being dead, being torn away from all you know – but I wonder if on some level the idea of the observation doesn’t have something to say to us in this moment. That to blink, to become indifferent to the stone stories that are statues is to become somehow vulnerable to them. To ignore or turn our backs on the values and people they represent is to risk becoming enslaved to the past rather than learning from it. Stuck in the past, without intelligent interrogation of our own stories and paths we have trod, we become powerless to move on or effect our present.
I love this line from a friend’s recent post “What if… what if the past is only unchangeable in the sense that its wrongs cannot be denied – but everything else can still be shaped and given new meaning and purpose?”
Let’s stop blinking and really look at the heroes we celebrate. Let’s acknowledge that although the past cannot be changed, we can move on from its values and choose new ones. We can raise statues of Hope, Kindness, Justice and Peace – and carve and re-carve stories of those who embody those virtues. We
(“The Empty Plinth” is another great post I read on this recently, really worth checking out.)
That Story Girl 
In the last couple of days I have heard a number of people who are being very critical of what others are saying about statues. Whether you love or hate a particular statue it has an effect on you although I confess that I spent three years in Bristol as a student and never paid any attention to the Colston statue or, for that matter, the reason why the Colston hall was so named. I was just pleased that there was such a good student discount for the classical concerts there.
It was not that I was ignorant of Bristol’s past. How could you ignore street names like Blackboys Hill or Whiteladies Road or learn the stories of the great houses of the city and their builders? I just consigned the history to the past and did not think of its contemporary resonance.
That is probably enough confession for the time being. People will have enough evidence to condemn me if they choose and I will have to plead guilty. Now I ask myself the question how can I practice and encourage restorative justice in regards to my country’s dark history?
As to whether we should either leave or pull statues down I am in two minds. I remember hearing the great pianist, Alfred Brendel, say that after growing up in Austria during the Third Reich he cannot get the voices of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels out of his head. How then can I blame anyone for getting rid of the statues of murderers? If possible I would do as historian, David Olusoga, has suggested and put them into a museum of Britain’s colonial past where we can study them and what they symbolise effectively. I fear that the current idolising of Britain’s “greatness” that played such a role in the Brexit debate means that for the time being this will not happen.
In the meantime I want to celebrate art like Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North just as you do at the head of your fine essay.
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Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment.
Always appreciate when someone adds a personal element to their response to “events” – honestly, I think that’s the only honest way we can process a lot of the culture shifting that’s going on right now; in both sharing our own stories and listening to those of others.
And yes, I agree the same elements of resistance to pulling down those statues that celebrate British (and especially English) exceptionalism underlies much of what drove the result 4 years ago and still rumbles today.
Thanks again. 🙂
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