Exhibit A – June 2020 – A group of people tear down a statue of Edward Colston, a slave trader and philanthropist. Both of these labels are important.
Exhibit B – A different group of people then demand better protection of existing statues and even go out to ‘protect’ those statues.
Exhibit C – January 2021 – Our Government, to pander to their voters who generally reside in the group of people mentioned in Exhibit B, announce new laws which give better protection to statutes etc. with maximum sentences of 10 years in prison.
Exhibit D – March 2021 – A university in the UK erects a statue of Greta Thunberg, which the group of people in Exhibit B do not like, even claiming that they want to tear down or deface this statue.
Conclusion – Fucking morons. If you want to protect a statue of a slaver and tear down a statue of a girl who is essentially trying to make the world a cleaner place, then maybe you need to have a think about why that is, regardless of her motives which we may not know or understand.
PS – Let me be clear. Edward Colston did good… and bad. He needs to be taught about in classrooms so that children can understand the good and the bad and the why of both sides. If he is to be memorialised, a cross section of his history needs to be provided. We should not shy away from historical people like him, but we should also not hold him up as a hero. There needs to be balance and context.
Let me be clear. I don’t know the whys and wherefores of the motives behind Greta Thunberg and the movement she started, but from what I know currently, she believes she’s trying to save the world against some pretty big and well-connected players. She uses protest to get her message across, which will inconvenience some. Even if you don’t think global warming or climate change are real, surely you understand that pollution is bad, dirty and unhealthy. So even if you don’t agree with Greta Thunberg’s climate change/global warming protests or the way in which she goes about it, essentially, she’s just trying to clean up the place a bit. And everyone likes a clean house/garden/park/roadside. I don’t think she warrants a statue yet. She’s a young pup and has loads of time to do good works that we can memorialise her for, long after her passing. There needs to be balance and context.