In an age of self-deluded perspective, the saintification of the gains of war, there is no distinction between angel and gargoyle; and so we look again at statues and heroes and re-ask, "What is true goodness?"
When you are raised to look up to an old hero, to discover their evil aspects can feel as if a person insulted a parent or relative. An emotional response is expected and is comprehendible. However, our real history really isn't taught well. Many of the old rich people in England got rich not only with black slaves, but with white slaves too. They had people working in slave conditions, giving them a tiny wage only to take it back for lodgings and food. Children died in the mines, factories and in agricultural accidents, families lived crammed into small rooms. They called it "social murder" and themselves "white slaves." My grandmother was born in the slums of Liverpool to an Irish family of such poverty, having left Ireland, as many did. Her feet were deformed from wearing hand-me-down shoes. My Grandfather was surrendered to a workhouse orphanage at twelve because, on his father's death, his mother could not afford to feed him and his sister... These are our real history. A history of trauma after the bloody subjection from the upper classes, forced to toil until death with no chance of a family life or joy. In terms of generations it's relevant - and this is why so many British communities still struggle with education and health. The rich thought of the poor as another race and that death through starvation was an appropriate form of population control. And if all that wasn't enough, poor girls were sold as sex slaves into the brothels of continental Europe, factory owners treated our women as their harem, married or not, under-age or not. So let us be willing to replace statues of the landed "gentry" with real heroes we can look up to, sporting heroes maybe... or heroes of charity... or medical heroes... perhaps some fabled heroes of English Legends.... But removing old statues could be something cathartic for the entire country as we start to see our real history and not the very-trimmed version we were told.
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