William Dalrymple, a historian, suggested in the last debate speech at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) that Britain should establish a “colonial history museum” to restore “those terrible historical truths” for our future generations.
In June this year, angry demonstrators in Bristol threw a bronze statue of slave owner Edward Kerr into the river. Times have changed, and the former national hero has now become a despised war criminal. On how to deal with these statues, Darling said that although he “doesn’t want to see them removed”, it is still “necessary”.
“It’s just like in Germany. We won’t see the statues of Hitler or other Nazi officers. Britain should also clean up these statues of war criminals. ” Darling believes that this has nothing to do with the trend of the times, but the corresponding measures based on facts. “For children, the Museum of Colonial History can play a great educational warning role, and this knowledge can’t be learned in class.”
The statue of John Nicholson is the best example. It is said that he once said that “the killers of British women and children will be skinned alive, pierced or burned to death”. In The Last Mughal, Darling mercilessly criticized Nicholson, calling him “extremely cruel and abnormal”. Today, two statues of Nicholson still stand on the land of Northern Ireland.
The statue of another colonial war leader, colin campbell, is located in Clydeside. This hero who has made outstanding achievements in the battlefield is mean and vicious in Dalinpu’s eyes: “This man sewed pigskin on Indian soldiers, forced them to lick blood, and then killed them with cannons.” In addition, Major General Henry Havelock was “equally vicious and ferocious. In Lucknow and Camp, nearly 100,000 civilians died at their hands. If this is in other places, it is an out-and-out war criminal. “
Colin campbell Statue Image Source: Wikipedia
Darling believes that there are many problems in history teaching in British schools at present. “From Henry VIII to william wilberforce, children believe that the British Empire has been on the road of liberating slaves and opposing racism.”
“What the British Empire did in India and other places was not written into the syllabus, which is a big problem,” Darling said. “Many British people know little about that history, unlike India, Ireland and Australia, such as British colonial rule in India, potato famine in Ireland or the extinction of Tasmanian aborigines. Therefore, in my opinion, it is necessary for us to seize the opportunity to build a museum of colonial history and use these statues of war criminals to fill the gap in school education. “
In the face of Darling’s proposal, historian Edward Chancellor disagreed: “In my opinion, the act of demolishing historical statues is closely related to social current affairs, which is behind the rise of boycott culture and condemnation culture, the popularity of confession and censorship system, the decline of social tolerance and the prevalence of anti-intellectualism.”
“As long as they meet the right opportunity, they will destroy all the statues,” the prime minister said. “This is a huge impact on the values of the Enlightenment and a signal of the rise of cultural nihilism. Behind this is a shallow, one-sided and ignorant view of history. They can’t understand that different historical periods have different values, and as historians, we should try to remain neutral and objective. “
Reporter Swapan Dasgupta also expressed opposition to Dallinpu’s proposal. In his speech, he pointed out that “history will not change because of a small bronze statue. People’s intention to remove these statues is not to rewrite history, nor to make history fairer. What they really want to do is beautify history, abandon those uncomfortable truths, purify the past and make history conform to contemporary moral values. “
In the subsequent solicitation of opinions, 53% of the audience said that statues from all over Britain should be
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