Black Lives Matter

Stop digging Troy. Whilst everybody I’m sure agrees with you about Colston being a reprehensible individual for what he did, nobody agrees with the point at issue which is that it can be right for people to take matters into their own hands and commit crimes. Education is far better than acts like this and I don’t know anybody in this country, other than criminals, who consider that slavery either today or in the past is acceptable. What I’m sure they do agree with is that breaking laws is not. These four broke the law, even admitted it, yet were let off. Disgusting when it was perfectly possible to find them guilty of criminal damage but impose no penalty due to the extenuating circumstances.

Just to add some detail this is how David Olusoga described the direction of the trial and why the protestors were found innocent. I'm not suggesting he's impartial in any way by the way (he appeared as a witness for the defence) I just thought it was interesting:

They successfully demonstrated that the real offenders were not the Colston 4, but the city of Bristol and those who have done everything in their power to burnish the reputation of a mass murderer.

The keepers of Colston’s legacy had rendered his historic crimes live and present through the erection of a statue to him. By allowing that edifice to stand for 125 years, even as Bristol became home to thousands of black people whose ancestors had been victims of the trade that the Royal African Company had pioneered, they had, so argued the defence, permitted the statue to become an “indecent display”.

Having established these arguments Liam Walker QC, representing Sage Willoughby, the youngest of the defendants, argued that the Colston 4 “were on the right side of history”. Jurors were invited to join them there.

If the mob had taken say a tarpaulin, put it over the statue and formed a circle around it and proclaimed they were not moving from the site until the statue is removed, then I might have more sympathy for them.

Instead two people just happened to turn up with ropes in order to pull the statue down - and knowing it would need plenty others to topple the statue, then when it was down proceed to throw it in the harbour!

I've always understood that 'intent' was needed to be proved to show if or not a crime was intended.

Clearly there was planning aforethought for people to turn up on the day in the centre of Bristol with ropes which were long and strong enough to pull down a bronze statue without the ropes breaking.

That is abundantly clear.

Throwing the then toppled statue into the harbour was clearly malicious - the statute had been fallen so their sole object had been achieved but they couldn't even stop then, they had to go even further - to what point really other than they had lost all control or that too was planned aforethought.

The man who probably led the greatest and most successful mass protest the world has ever seen was Gandhi and he achieved it all peacefully and without any hate whatsoever.

A tarpaulin and a peaceful determination to surround the statue would have got the desired result.

And fwiw, if I was on the jury and lived in and around Bristol as I suspect they do, then I might have a few thoughts in my head as to the safety of my family (my kids at school for instance) and myself if the jury returned a guilty verdict.

I'm sure it may well have crossed their minds too!

You can be on the right side of history too without the need to topple statues, undertake riotous behaviour and seek some sort of public martyrdom if you happened to get locked up for it...

Just a thought.

My understanding of the event was that "the mob" as you choose to call it assaulted nobody, hurt nobody and directed their energies at an inanimate object which they happened to find offensive.
If the criticism is about the British justice system then what do you expect given the history of bad verdicts and their systemic failure to prosecute e.g. deaths in police custody?  Maybe they should have been fined for vandalism and sent on their way but it's not as if they're murderers, paedophiles or rapists is it?
Sense of proportion needed here.

Tarpaulin would have achieved the same result..

Do you really believe that?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Tarpaulin would have achieved the same result..

Do you really believe that?

I bet someone said to Gandhi 'sitting down in the street and not showing our anger or tearing things down, will achieve the same result....?"

'Yes' he would have said.

And he was proved right too!

Sluffy wrote:

I bet someone said to Gandhi 'sitting down in the street and not showing our anger  or tearing things down, will achieve the same result....?"

'Yes' he would have said.

And he was proved right too!

Didn't really work for the Insulate Britain campaign did it?

Seemed to be with UK blessing that we tore down the statue of Saddam Hussain.

Sluffy wrote:

I bet someone said to Gandhi 'sitting down in the street and not showing our anger  or tearing things down, will achieve the same result....?"

'Yes' he would have said.

And he was proved right too!

Great, but the question was whether you really believe Colston's statue would be in a museum now had protestors covered it with tarpaulin?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

I bet someone said to Gandhi 'sitting down in the street and not showing our anger  or tearing things down, will achieve the same result....?"

'Yes' he would have said.

And he was proved right too!

Great, but the question was whether you really believe Colston's statue would be in a museum now had protestors covered it with tarpaulin?

Yes, why wouldn't it be?

Can you prove it wouldn't?

Of course you can't and neither can I prove it would - but my point is that something more peaceful but as high profile COULD (and should imo) have taken place first before anyone needed to resort to pulling it down in an act that is when all said and done vandalism (yes I know they didn't get convicted of that but pulling down a statue and throwing in the harbour without any permission is vandalism nevertheless).

Nobody thought Gandhi would succeed with peaceful protest - but he did!

Of course I can’t prove it, just like I can’t prove Bolton won’t win the Champions League in the next 5 years - but I can make a pretty solid educated guess. 
 
You’re reduced to clutching at straws again.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Of course I can’t prove it, just like I can’t prove Bolton won’t win the Champions League in the next 5 years - but I can make a pretty solid educated guess. 
 
You’re reduced to clutching at straws again.

And you are just trying to contrive yet another argument that simply isn't there.

It's good to know you can make 'solid educated guesses' - but that's still all they are - just guesses.

It's not unreasonable to try peaceful protests first before ripping down statues - is it?

My view is that in the prevailing social climate at the time with national mass BLM demonstrations and a focus on a statue of a slave trader in Bristol that making a peaceful stand such as I've suggested may very well have led directly to the statue being removed as a reasonable outcome.  I can't imagine the councillors and politicians wanting to be seen to be on the side of a slave trader and not remove the statue - can you?

And they certainly wouldn't want to be seen sending in the police in to remove the peaceful protesters staging a sit in around it - that certainly would lead to deselection or the loss of votes for them at their next elections!

That's my 'solid educational guess'!

And probably what would have happened seeing that the all four Bristol MP's are Labour and the council is controlled by the Labour/Green Party and thus would have no political pressure put on them by the Tory Government to keep the statue where it was!


It's you my friend who are the one 'clutching at straws' - simply doing your best to create yet another meaningless and pointless argument on here...

...which no one other than you wants...!

The controversy around Colston is far from new in Bristol. As late as 2018 the Society of Merchant Venturers managed to derail a proposal to add a plaque explaining his role in the enslavement of Africans.

Campaigns have been taking place since the 90’s, even massive attack got involved at one point. The fact is authorities had years to do the right thing, Bristol is a diverse and progressive city - tearing down a statue glorifying a slaver is a public service.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:The controversy around Colston is far from new in Bristol. As late as 2018 the Society of Merchant Venturers managed to derail a proposal to add a plaque explaining his role in the enslavement of Africans.

Campaigns have been taking place since the 90’s, even massive attack got involved at one point. The fact is authorities had years to do the right thing, Bristol is a diverse and progressive city - tearing down a statue glorifying a slaver is a public service.

I am aware of that thank you.

However the national BLM campaign that was happening at the time clearly change the mood of the country in respect of issues such as historic slave traders and I suggest even a peaceful process at the time may well have brought the same result of removing the Colston statue.

Politicians especially the City's local councillors are very sensitive to changes in public perceptions and I'm sure non of them (well maybe one or two idiots as there usually are) would want to be tagged with being a racist for fighting to prevent the statue being removed at that time (some may have hoped to put it back sometime later perhaps) but non of them would want to be stigmatised and non electable the next time around.

Councillors can sometimes do the right things if maybe for the wrong reasons but I reckon a peaceful process similar to what I suggested may well have worked but instead we got the mob vandalism activists instead.

Have you ever read about the fable of the Wind and the Sun - I think persuasion over force would have been best used on that day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Wind_and_the_Sun

We'll never know, but Cecil Rhodes is still standing - and you can see from Lust's link above there are many in positions of power who see it an an affront for these protestors to have been given the benefit of the doubt by the jury.

There's still work to do in this country, but the juries decision certainly gives hope we can face up to our past.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:We'll never know, but Cecil Rhodes is still standing - and you can see from Lust's link above there are many in positions of power who see it an an affront for these protestors to have been given the benefit of the doubt by the jury.

There's still work to do in this country, but the juries decision certainly gives hope we can face up to our past.

Err no, that's not what the Attorney General is considering doing it for, this is her reasoning -

“Trial by jury is an important guardian of liberty and must not be undermined. However, the decision in the Colston statue case is causing confusion.

“Without affecting the result of this case, as attorney general, I am able to refer matters to the court of appeal so that senior judges have the opportunity to clarify the law for future cases. I am carefully considering whether to do so.”

If the case does go to the court of appeal, the judges will not be able to rule on whether the jury’s decision was correct, only on whether there was an error in law in the directions that were given to the jury.

It is all about ruling on a point of law and not for vindictive reasons at all.

I don't think anyone can't face up to the past, I think the problem is more that we shouldn't be held accountable for the sins of our fathers.

What happened three hundred years ago can't be changed and Colston statue was put up years ago in memory of all the good he did for Bristol not to honour him as a slave trader.

Yes society changes and what was once acceptable is no longer deemed so and we all must move with the times and it clearly was the time for the statue to go.

It's just the way it was done and that Colston is judged by our society's values and not those of his time.

No doubt if he was born today he wouldn't be a slave trader and if you or I was born in his time we'd probably think nothing of people owning slaves.

For many years Colston was seen as a good person, the last 50 years no so much and today nothing but toxic.

It is what it is and Colstons time was simply up to be remembered in a prominent centre of a big city.

I don't think many couldn't accept that then was the right time to take the statue down and I'm fairly confident that some sort of high profile peaceful protest would have achieved just that without the need for going way over the top as the activists did on that day.

Anyway what is done is done and we simply move on from there.

Poignant that Sir Sidney Poitier died today. His deeds and roles certainly helped the cause of racial equality RIP.

okocha wrote:Seemed to be with UK blessing that we tore down the statue of Saddam Hussain.

Exactly and look where that got us?