Frances Weetman

Removing honoured memorials to those we know regard as monsters DOESN’T have to mean “forgetting the past”. The example is Germany; they educate their kids in the horrors of the Nazi era but precisely NO Nazi monuments are still standing.

So yeah, preserve the effigies of brutal exploiters, but in the chamber of horrors where they belong, not in the places of honour they awarded themselves. Black Bristolians have been walking to work and school past a MONUMENT to a man who tortured and humiliated their ancestors.

My argument about this is the same as the Confederacy Generals in the USA; put the statues in a museum about this. Educate us about it in school. But something about literally having statues commemorating them on the streets feels morally wrong and uncomfortable to me.

How come the Germans remember and teach about the Nazis and remember the holocaust without erecting statues of Hitler? This should have been pulled down years ago imo.

There are plenty of remains of Nazism still standing. The mere existence and maintenance of death camps serves as proof of the Holocaust.

Like many, I’d never heard of Edward Colston until yesterday, yet I’d walked down his street and been in his hall many many times.

IMO that’s what museums are for. Giant statues and obelisks exist to commemorate (and often glorify) the subject. If the idea were to teach of what went wrong, it’d be a better idea to commemorate the victims and survivors, not those who carried out the atrocities.

Yes, I think this is a fair point that I hadn't thought of when I wrote my tweet