History happened. We may not like how it is presented, and that is probably because we were on the losing side and did not get to write it. Beliefs held for centuries are not going to be changed by toppling a few statues. Men acting two centuries ago are not going to pass the tests of our time, just as two hundred years from now folk will look back on our own barbarism and likely condemn us. Progressives and conservatives have always battled for the shape of our society and we have learnt that a steady rate of change avoids the pain of revolution or oppression.
So instead of tearing down statues I propose that we erect some statues of people of colour, along with an explanation of who they were and why they stand there.
Here are a few that I think should be put up.
Born a slave on the French part of the island of Hispaniola (now known as Haiti), Louverture is the first and so far only man to lead a successful slave revolt. A self-educated soldier, businessman, and politician, he led Haiti to the verge of independence by defeating the greatest imperial powers of the day: France, Spain, Great Britain, and France again (the Napoleonic France). He negotiated favourable trade arrangements with the USA and Great Britain, and restored Haiti to its pre-revolutionary production by using free men as paid labour on plantations. Reluctant to break completely from France, Louverture sought to govern Haiti under Napoleon, who would have none of it. He allowed himself to be taken to France, hoping to plead his case in person, and was instead locked away and died of hunger and disease.
Haiti declared independence, a declaration that the world was powerless to challenge, and they have been paying the price ever since.
I am sure prominent places can be found in Paris, Madrid, London, Washington and Brussels to erect monuments to this remarkable man and his story.
Martin de Porres was a Peruvian man of mixed race who was born, lived and died in poverty,
and is a Saint of the Catholic Church. Born in the 17th century to a Spanish father and an afro-native Peruvian mother, Martin led a remarkable life of service to the poor and the sick and is now the patron saint of mixed people, barbers, innkeepers, and public health workers.
Martin developed a reputation for healing and providing clothes, food, and lodging for the poorest in Lima. Fearless when faced with disease, he tended to people of all races and persuasions during epidemics, often defying the orders of his superiors to do so.
It took some time for him to be canonised after his death, but he was eventually made a Saint in 1963. He should be celebrated, especially in this time of the COVID pandemic. There are a few statues of Martin around (in Ireland and Peru), but we need a few more in more prominent places.
There is some doubt as to whether or not Nanny had been enslaved, but whatever the case may have been, she rose to the head of one branch (the Windward branch) of the Maroons, who were former slaves of the Spanish who had been set free after the Spanish were driven from Jamaica. They took to the hills to await the return of the Spanish and unleashed a reign of terror on the British, constantly raiding plantations and providing a haven for runaway slaves.
The British responded in force but were unable to inflict a decisive defeat. Recognising that the cost of conflict was too high, the British offered generous terms. Seeing that the Spanish were unlikely to return, the Maroons accepted. Soon after they were working for the British, hunting runaway slaves.
Nanny of the Maroons remains a remarkable woman who ought to be celebrated universally.
Henrietta Lacks lived 31 years, had 5 children and died of cancer. Her existence, like that of millions of Black American women, would have passed without notice, except for a biopsy that was performed on her and the continuing use of the cells so obtained in cancer research and drug development.
In a sense, she is immortal, but even eternity is not long enough for her to benefit from the use of her body. This for me, captures the African experience in the new world most eloquently.
She deserves a statue outside every hospital in the USA, UK, and Canada.
In Brazil, two thirds of police killings are of the black people who make up roughly 55% of the population. That is about four thousand black people every year; thousands more than the police kill in the USA.
This once proud football nation hasn’t won a World Cup since 2002, and were humbled by a 7-1 loss versus Germany in their own country. A quick history lesson on Brazil can be gained simply by observing the evolution of the Brazilian World Cup squads since 1970. I call this phenomenon the browning of Brazil.
There is arguably no nation as uncomfortable with its black population as Brazil is. It was the last nation to abolish Black African slavery in 1888, and mostly due to intense commercial pressure from the United Kingdom.
It may surprise you to learn that there was a major Slave uprising in Bahia, Brazil, inspired by the Haitian Revolution, and undertaken by mainly Muslim Africans.
One of the leaders of this revolution was Ahuna, of whom little is known, but who should be celebrated in Brazil and across the world. Although unsuccessful, Ahuna is a paragon of the human spirit.
Marcus Garvey is perhaps the most important statue that should be erected. One exists already in Kingston, but statues should be erected in New York and London for starters, then in Liberia, and finally in South Africa, right next to Cecil Rhoades.
Garvey is usually described as controversial, and he has certainly done and said things that would have driven him from the public sphere today; tweets going viral, facebook groups springing up, Instagram accounts blocked.
The danger when you judge a man outside of his time is that you cannot feel the context, especially if some visionary character is around in the time painting a picture that becomes true in the future. Garvey was shaped by his experiences, and they were many. He lived life, travelled, loved, tricked, and loathed; all those human things that have fallen out of fashion. It left him with some deeply held beliefs and the spirit to pursue them.
At its heart, the Garvism movement he created held that the only path to betterment for the Negro lay in the aquisition and accumulation of wealth. Power follows property. Furthermore, the only path to wealth creation on the scale necessary for liberation was in the separation of the races and concentration of black resources in black hands.
He failed, and he, along with Booker T. Washington, has been vilified by many people of colour as capitalists, money grabbers, and people who did not understand the higher reasons and pathways to liberation. One hundred years later in the USA, blacks have the vote and a past President, but are still seeking basic societal change. Maybe it is neither the ballot box nor the gun, but the share certificate, the steady stream of profit and a good dividend that wins the day.
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