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...
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51