Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ~George Santayana
Modern-day book burning is upon us.
Protesters from around the world have found a new target — statues.
Statues from across the globe are being defaced or toppled because of their links with the
slave trade.
The statue of Edward Colston was ripped down a few days ago by Black Lives Matter protesters
in Bristol and dumped in the River Avon.
He has since been fished out.
Confederate statues from around America have been defaced or toppled as protesters go on
the warpath.
Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling for the removal of Confederate statues from
the US Capitol.
Protesters in Australia are demanding for the removal of Captain James Cook monuments,
despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s pleas that Captain Cook had no involvement
with slavery.
In the UK, protesters are demanding the removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue from the University
of Oxford, much to the angst of Vice-chancellor Louise Richardson who has warned against “hiding
our history”, and stating that “we need to confront our past and learn from it”.
Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, holds a similar view.
He said,
“I don't believe removing statues contributes positively to this conversation.
These statues should remain as a reminder of a point in time in our lives – even when
detrimental.
They serve as prompts to encourage people to talk about history.
As Indigenous Australians, we have sought to have the true history of this nation told
so that it reflects both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives and history.
Truth telling is not a contest of ideas but a sharing of the truth.
In order for us to heal the past we need to have genuine conversations and understand
the history of our nation.”
Amen to that!
But it’s not just statues that are being targeted.
American pay TV network HBO have pulled the movie Gone with the Wind due to “racist
content”, due to the movie depicting the American South during the US Civil War, despite
the actress Hattie McDaniel being the first ever African-American to win an Oscar.
Little Britain has also been pulled from a number of streaming services due to its inappropriate
blackface content.
Similarly, Australian Comedian Chris Lilley is in the process of being deleted.
A number of his shows have been removed from Netflix due to his use of brownface while
portraying non-white characters like Jonah from Tonga.
The long-running American TV show Cops has been axed after 32 seasons, apparently due
to its celebration of bad policing, and its depictions of poor American communities.
Hey guys, while we’re at it, we better delete the Encyclopedia Britannica.
It contains nasty historical references to slavery and other such topics.
Wikipedia is next to go, because it dares to include articles about blackface, and even
includes a biography of the former President of the Confederate States who was an active
slaveholder.
I mean, we should all be outraged and demand that Wikipedia is deleted immediately.
To be fair, Google allowed me to find all of this information.
That could potentially be misconstrued as Google promoting racism, so just to play it
safe, we better delete Google.
Recent news also shows that protesters are pushing for racist place names to be renamed.
Creeks, military bases, even the country music group Lady Antebellum have changed their name
to Lady A due to slavery connotations.
Do you know who else was a slave owner?
George Washington.
Sure he emancipated all of his slaves, but only after his death.
Just to play it safe, we better destroy all those $1 bills.
The Washington monument has obviously got to go.
While we’re at it, we better rename Washington, D.C. to something less racist.
Oh yeah, we’ve also gotta rename Washington State.
You know what else has links with slavery, all those buildings that were built using
slave labour.
The first one that comes to mind is the White House.
Yes, the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States was
built, at least in part, using slave labour.
Obviously, if you’re against slavery, we’ve got to dismantle this symbol of forced servitude
as soon as possible.
The Egyptian Pyramids were built by slaves, weren’t they?
Better knock them down.
Chichen Itza in Mexico, yeah, it’s got a history of human sacrifice.
We better knock that down, too.
The Colosseum in Italy, yep, it’s got a history of pitting slaves against one another
in gladiatorial combat, so of course, we better demolish that post-haste!
Pretty much any of the Wonders of the World have some sort of dark history which we obviously
need to erase from the history books.
But the most important thing, at least in America, that has links to slavery and was
constructed by slaveholders, is the Constitution of the United States.
James Madison, the so-called “Father of the Constitution”, was a slaveholder.
We better delete him.
George Washington, yeah we already spoke about him.
Deleted.
Benjamin Franklin, yeah he dealt is some slaves in his time, at least, early in his life.
Better delete him.
Thomas Jefferson wasn’t present for the signing of the Constitution — I think he
was off in France representing his country — but he certainly dealt in slaves, so let’s
delete him.
Actually, most of these guys probably had some dealings in slavery, so we better just
erase them all.
The fact that this document was written by slaveholders, we better just get rid of that
too.
So here we are.
Fully blacked out.
We’ve removed all that is wrong in history.
Is that what we wanted?
Just to erase the past?
You know what this reminds me of?
George Orwell’s 1984 — The Ministry of Truth.
The Ministry was responsible for any necessary falsification or deletion of historical events.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in this kind of world where we just
blackout history…
Do you?