By Abdul Tejan-Cole
The George Floyd protests have metamorphosed from an American demonstration against police brutality and race to a global rally that has prompted a reckoning on the role of the slave trade and colonialism. In the English port city of Bristol, things came to a head when the statue of the 17th century slave trader, Edward Colston, was pulled off its plinth and rolled into the nearby Harbour by anti-racism protesters. Colston came from a wealthy merchant family.
According to Gurminder K. Bhambra, professor of postcolonial and decolonial studies in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, “(B)etween 1672 and 1689, Colston’s Royal African Company shipped about 100,000 enslaved people from West Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean, branding them on their chests with his corporation’s acronym, RAC.
“Disease and dehydration killed more than 20,000 people taken onto those ships by Colston’s company, and their bodies were thrown into the ocean.” Despite amassing his fortunes through his “brutality towards the indigenous African population, and for his collaboration with King Leopold in the subjugation, exploitation and maltreatment of the Congolese people,” Colston’s statue has been at the city center since 1895 bearing the words, “Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city AD 1895."
Many other petitions have been signed in Britain for the removal of other statues. But Britain was not the only country facing such protests. Other major European colonial powers in Africa also suffered a similar fate. In Belgium, a 150-year-old statue of King Leopold II was removed from a public square in Antwerp. In the city of Ghent, his bust was covered in red paint by demonstrators shouting “murderer” and demanding reparations. Better known as the “Butcher of Congo,” King Leopold II of Belgium was responsible for the deaths and mutilation of 10 million Congolese Africans during the late 1800s. Reputed to be one of the richest men in the world, Leopold II made Congo his personal property. He looted its minerals, enriched himself, and later his country, and enslaved its people.
In Hautmont, northern France, a bust of the 18th President of France, Charles de Gaulle, was splashed with orange paint. The word “slaver” was painted on it. Seen as a national hero in France, De Gaulle has long been accused of being a racist “partly motivated by his 19th century prejudices ... a frantic desire to keep France white and break with the less ethnic conception prevailing under the Third Republic." Following his death, a senior member of De Gaulle's Free French forces, Pierre Messmer, was accused of "crimes against humanity" for allowing the massacre of 100,000 Algerians who took France's side in the colonial war from 1954 to 1962.
In the United States, several state and local governments decided to remove some statues. In Albany, New York, Mayor Kathy Sheehan signed an executive order allowing city workers to remove the statue of Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler in front of city hall. Schuyler, who later became a senator, was reportedly the largest slave owner in Albany. In Boston, a Christopher Columbus statue was removed after it was beheaded by protesters. Historian Glenn Morris accuses Columbus of being "a murderer, a rapist, the architect of a policy of genocide that continues today." In Alexandria, Virginia, a 131-year-old bronze statue commemorating Confederate soldiers erected in 1889 was removed from the historic old town.
Many civil rights activists have been fighting for the removal of Confederate monuments, the vast majority of which were built during the era of Jim Crow laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is estimated that there are over 700 Confederate statues and a similar number of symbols. These do not serve as memorials but as tools to reaffirm white supremacy.
The toppling of statues that depict slave owners and racists is not new. In 2015, a protest movement, Rhodes Must Fall, was started in South Africa to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from the University of Cape Town. Rhodes symbolized the violent legacy of colonialism, imperialism and slavery in Southern Africa. South Africa History Online notes that “Rhodes’ guiding principles throughout his life, that underpinned almost all of his actions, was his firm belief that the Englishman was the greatest human specimen in the world and that his rule would be a benefit to all.”
The ultimate imperialist, Rhodes believed, above all else, “in the glory of the British Empire and the superiority of the Englishman and British Rule, and saw it as his God given task to expand the Empire, not only for the good of that Empire, but, as he believed, for the good of all peoples over whom she would rule.” Following several demonstrations, in April 2015, the statue was removed. However, the campaign did not end. It quickly spread to other universities in South Africa and subsequently moved to Oriel College, Oxford, England. This week, members of Oriel Middle Common Room voted overwhelmingly to explicitly endorse the removal of his statue on the High Street façade. Oriel College's board also "expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes.”
Similar campaigns have been waged in a number of African countries. In Uganda, over 4,000 Petitioners signed to urge the Parliament of Uganda “to take administrative and legislative measures to end a legacy of colonial oppression and impunity manifest in certain street names, colonial symbols, icons and monuments in Uganda.” The petition notes that “(E)vidence of this problematic history and legacy is visible in public spaces in a manner that honors some notorious individuals and entities such as Lord Fredrick Lugard, Henry Colvile, Col. Trevor Ternan and The Kings African Rifles.
As you know, today such symbols of oppression, slavery, racism and colonialism are being pulled down all over the world. Another shortcoming in the naming process is that there are many people who contributed to the history of the country through their participation in the liberation struggle and in civic leadership whose role has not been acknowledged through this process. The Petitioners consider that the prominence given to some undeserving individuals in Uganda’s Capital City and other towns is a continuing affront to their rights to dignity, equality and freedom from discrimination. They believe that the said symbols perpetuate hurt and community discord all based on a known history of military conquest, exploitation, authoritarianism and subjugation.” In Zambia, the #LivingstoneMustFall campaign has sought to decolonize all public spaces and institutions, including seeking the removal of the statue of David Livingstone, the Scottish man who brought the Western world's attention to the Victoria Falls and changing the name of the city named after him.
There are many pros and cons to this debate. Those against changes have argued that slave traders and racists of yesteryears should not be judged by today’s standards. Most of what was acceptable in the 1800s is not acceptable today. They say we have the benefit of hindsight and it is unfair to use that to judge them. They have accused those demanding change of seeking ethical purity. This, they say, can never be achieved. They further argue that history should not be obliterated. Changing the names of places, they say, destroys history with the stroke of a pen. The colonialists, racists and slave masters are a part of history, and we cannot sanitize history by removing them from our history books. In making the case against the removal of Winston Churchill’s statue, British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson stated in an article in the Telegraph that, “If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history – like some public figure furtively trying to make themselves look better by editing their own Wikipedia entry.”
The argument has also been advanced that toppling statues and changing school names, school uniforms and names of cities and towns will not put food on our tables. It changes nothing, they say. On the contrary, they argue that it is a costly venture to change the names of places and famous landmarks. The cost of changing all the road signs, making new maps, etc. could be better spent on education, health and repairing those roads. For some, naming schools after “famous” Westerners is an avenue to raise funds from Western well-wishers and sympathizers. Some in the hospitality industry believe that they will lose tourists revenue, which is a major foreign currency earner. Because changing names is so divisive, some are genuinely worried that the process may become politicized, so they are happy to maintain the status quo.
A further argument that has been canvassed is that some of those whose statutes we seek to remove have a mixed legacy. Although Colston was a slave trader, he later became a philanthropist who founded boys’ and girls’ schools, donated to churches and hospitals and established almshouse to provide for the poor in Bristol, London. The same may be said of Cecil Rhodes, whose estate funds a scholarship. However as a 2016 letter to the Financial Times notes, Rhodes’ “misdeeds were inflicted upon Africans, while his philanthropic largesse has historically been directed overwhelmingly towards people of other continents, many of them westerners.”
Many in Africa continue to eulogize the colonial empire despite ample evidence of its history of dispossession, appropriation, elimination and enslavement. In an article titled “Requiem for the Monuments Men,” Adekeye Adebajo noted that “European colonialism of Africa was the continuation of slavery by other means. Both systems involved profit-driven exploitation – cloaked under the perverse justifications of a mission civilisatrice – with the project legitimised by Western leaders, capitalists, churches and scientists.”
Many, including the political philosopher Frantz Fanon, have written about how the colonial powers destroyed local norms and values, which were then replaced by European ones. In his book “Black Skin, White Masks”, Fanon discussed the adverse psychological effects of colonial subjugation upon black people. To attain this goal, during the colonial era, wholesale changes were made across the board to change the indigenous names of places in Africa. Almost everywhere the British went they gave the places British names. There are places and institutions in The Gambia named after Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Sir Cecil Hamilton Armitage, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Sir Charles MacCarthy. In 1851, a European visitor quoted in the book, “A transport voyage to the Mauritius and back: touching at the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena” reportedly asked, “Why not stick to the original designations of places, which have always some meaning, besides being more picturesque, instead of planting the whole earth with new Londons, and Yorks, and Canterburys, which have no reference whatsoever to the scenery or other conditions of the place? Can anything be more incongruous than a Wapping on the banks of a river filled with hippopotamuses, or Vauxhall, Stepney, or Stoke Pogis, surrounded by tropical vegetation?”
The colonial powers knew the answers to these questions. They knew that changes of names contributed to a loss of identity by the indigenous people. In most African countries, the colonial educational system was used to destroy the identities and values of black people by teaching them to hate anything local and traditional. They demonised and devalued our customs and practices. In an Aljazeera article, The Shame of My Name, Filmmaker Sameh Mejri explained “how some Algerians during the colonial period were forced to change their names by French colonial authorities at the time. Many of the names the Algerians were forced to carry hold demeaning and even vulgar meanings.” The same is true in most of Africa, where many adopted colonial names just to attend school. The colonialists reduced us to a state where we felt inferior if we had African names.
However, changing names will not be easy. It can be polarizing and divisive. It is essential that there is adequate local consultation, engagement and decision-making and that the parameters are clear. The objectives of the exercise must be clear. Its focus must be limited to removing offensive place names and renaming places after national heroes. It may also be a good idea not to name any place after any living person. The purpose and goal of the exercise will sadly be defeated if the process becomes politicized. It must be an exercise that genuinely seeks to help restore our history and give us a sense of belonging and pride in our own. It can help demonstrate that we are no longer subjugated people. Most of the colonial names have no meaning. The continued existence of so many colonial and offensive place names 50+ years after many of our countries gained independence is an affront to our dignity. It is now time to change them. No, Pedro da Cintra did not discover Sierra Leone as we were taught in school. There were people here long before he arrived. Burning Spear rightly called Christopher Columbus “a damn nasty liar”. It’s time to value our own and honour our heroes by acknowledging their sacrifices. It is the first step to doing what Emperor Haile Selassie, Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley preached – we must emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.
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