Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"The dark star behind Brexit, without which it cannot be understood, remains the British people’s unreconciled relationship with the experience of empire. The empire is a huge and complicated subject that, to our enduring collective detriment, is barely taught and is thus also barely known and absorbed into public discourse. This is partly why Sunday was probably the first time that most people outside Bristol will ever have heard of Colston." — Martin Kettle, the Guardian

Symbols of crime and empire "The statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston , which was pulled down by anti-racism protestors in Bristol earlier, has been dumped in the River Avon. It had been situated in the city’s centre since 1895, and was subject to an 11,000-strong petition to have it removed." (Source: the Guardian online) There are many similar statues in Britain. Most Brits do not care about their existence. They have accepted Winston Churchill on a five-pound note, a statue of Henry Havelock in Traflagr Square and another of General Charles Gordon also in London. In a poll in the local newspaper, the  Bristol Post , in 2014 56 per cent of the 1,100 respondents said it [Colston's statue] should stay while 44 per cent wanted it to go. A comment by nwhithfield on the Guardian : Many cities in Europe have squares, roads, tunnels and so on named after figures from the 20th century, often done post war - Roosevelt, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and even John...