Slavery hasn’t gone away, it is now worse worldwide than ever it was before the 19th century!
In Britain today, there are estimated to be up to 13,000 victims!
Experts have calculated that roughly 13 million people were captured and sold as slaves between the 15th and 19th centuries; today, an estimated 40.3 million people – more than three times the figure during the transatlantic slave trade!
So let’s not kid ourselves that things have got better!
Let’s not be hypocrites and think that we are far more enlightened than our predecessors, we are not!
Also its not all white on black, its predominantly its black on black especially in Africa and the Indian subcontinent
There are an estimated 14 million slaves in India alone,
It’s generally white on white in Europe.
We are NOW all benefiting from slavery be it the clothes and footwear we buy or the food we eat or even having our cars hand washed ,because it suits us to ignore it and as just as they pre-19th century.
It could be argued that all Christian religious statues are an affront to those who aren’t Christian, that statues of politicians are an affront to those who don’t share the political beliefs of the person commemorated.
Do Germans or Japanese see the statues of gloryfying American or British war heroes as morally correct or as war criminals if their entire families had been wiped out by allied bombing?
Did Winston Churchill theoretically indirectly murder 25,000 hundreds innocent civilians when he approved the bombing of Dresden?
You cannot eradicate history but as Winston Churchill is alleged to have stated “history is written by the victors” you can corrupt it!
The word history comes from the Ancient Greek meaning 'inquiry' and it should be used IMO to critically review what happened and learn from it and move forward to stop doing what was wrong, adjust, and do it right in the future.
Sadly that isn’t happening and the removal of statues won’t solve the problem, it will however potentially temporally bring the issue to the fore, temporarily create discussion and anger, and then what will change?
How can our divided society change?
Will we will all soon revert to “as it was” as has happened since 1868 in the USA or in Britain when 1830 the abolitionist movement began?
This site is worth a read if you are interested in the subject