A break with the past

Abstract

First paragraph: Over the past decade, many statues commemorating problematic historical figures have become forcefully contested. In one of the most prominent instances, after a statue of Cecil Rhodes was removed in South Africa, the Rhodes Must Fall movement quickly spread to Oriel College, Oxford. Despite the recommendation of an independent commission, the college eventually decided to keep Rhodes’ statue, citing pressure from donors, financial costs, and regulatory obstacles. Then, the Black Lives Matter Movement led to protests over the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston at Bristol Harbour. The statue was defaced, pulled down, and dragged and thrown into the docks – where ships of his company had set sail on the voyage to commit one of the most systematic violations of human rights in history – before eventually being fished out to be displayed, lying down, in a museum.