Author: T.R. Reid
Publication: Washington
Post
Date: November 6, 2000
For most of the world,
the age of imperialism is just a chapter in the history books, a tale of
bigotry, conquest and plunder as Europeans used the gun and the gallows
to impose Western rule on the peoples Kipling called "lesser breeds without
the law."
There's one place, though,
where the colonial era is still glorified: the streets of London.
The sun may have set on the British Empire, but it glistens every morning
here on countless bronze statues and gold plaques honoring the old imperialists,
treated as heroes to this day in the city that was the seat of history's
most far-flung empire.
But now London is asking
whether it's time to pull down those reminders of times long past.
The city's new mayor, Ken Livingstone - a politician so far to the left
he's routinely referred to as "Red Ken" - says he want to replace some
of the field marshals and colonial governors with statues of modern-day
icons. His plan has sparked a lively argument about what kind of
people Londoners should look up to.
Many people - including
angry veterans of overseas regiments - argue that the old imperialists
are genuine British heroes and have every right to stand tall in the city.
Others say the shining memorials to a now-abandoned philosophy offer a
valuable lesson in the way national values can change. And some argue
that the whole concept of heroic statuary in a busy, car-centered city
is as outdated as imperialism itself.
Because London has had
a citywide mayor for only six months, it's not clear whether Livingstone
has the authority to remove the memorials. The mayor says he can
replace any general he wants, although he's willing to give the removed
heroes a sort of statues' graveyard a few miles down the Thames.
The streets, parks and
plazas of London offer a rich assortment of eminent imperialists.
Atop a tall plinth on Parliament Square stands H.J.T. Palmerston,
the swashbuckling prime minister who sent an army to invade China in 1856
because the Chinese wouldn't let British drug dealers sell opium there.
Behind the Defense Ministry
is Gen. Charles "Chinese" Gordon, who destroyed a priceless art collection
in Beijing during the Opium War "to teach the heathen a lesson." On King
Charles Street stands Gen. Robert Clive, the "conqueror of India."
Astride his charger on Horse Guards Parade is Gen. Garnet Wolseley,
the "conqueror of Egypt."
London also honors key
players in Britain's American empire. On Gloucester Street there's
a plaque in memory of Benedict Arnold, known in U.S. history as a
Revolutionary War traitor but described here as "American patriot." And
the city has four statues honoring George III, the mad king whose excesses
inspired the Declaration of Independence, where he is described as "a tyrant
. . . unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
Dr. Livingstone,
you presume? He's here, too. David Livingstone, the explorer-missionary
who set out to convert "darkest Africa" to Christianity, stands in bronze
at the Royal Geographic Society.
This is not to say the
London has a one-sided view of imperialism. The famous anti-colonialist
Mahatma Gandhi sits cross-legged overlooking Tavistock Square. The
hero of the fight against South Africa's apartheid system, Nelson Mandela,
is honored on the South Bank of the Thames.
You don't have to be
a soldier or statesmen to get a statue in London. Actors David Garrick
and Charlie Chaplin are honored in the theater district. Sigmund
Freud stands near his London study in Swiss Cottage. There are four
statues of Shakespeare, three of Charles Dickens and one each of the comic-opera
masters Gilbert and Sullivan.
You don't even have to
be real to be honored here. Sherlock Holmes stands near his fictional
flat on Baker Street. Peter Pan flies over Hyde Park, and Paddington
Bear stands forlornly in his eponymous train station.
But the statues that
the mayor has targeted are those of colonial-era generals, many of them
unknown to modern-day Britons. "It is time to move these generals,"
Livingstone said. "In our capital city the people on the plinth should
be identifiable to most of the population."
As examples of the memorials
he wants to remove, Livingstone points to two statues at a key central
plaza, Trafalgar Square. One honors Gen. Henry Havelock for
his suppression of an Indian revolt against British rule in 1857.
The other depicts Gen. Charles Napier, who captured the province
of Sindh in what is now Pakistan. "We have no right to seize Sindh,
but we shall do so," Napier declared.
In addition to his military
conquests, Napier has a strong following among Latin students because of
the famous pun he dispatched from the front in 1843. As his superiors
anxiously awaited news about his attack on Sindh, Napier sent back a message
bearing a single word: "Peccavi." That's a form of the Latin verb pecco,
meaning "I sin." In other words, "I have Sindh."
Reflecting this country's
impeccable sense of tradition, critics have blasted Livingstone, the mayor,
for rewriting history. "If you think the imperial experience was
wicked . . . almost all the statues in London would have
to be cleared out," said John Casey, an English fellow at Cambridge University.
"These men incite great admiration. They were buccaneering, high-spirited
and dashing."
Others argue that reminders
of the nation's imperialist past serve an educational function. "To
commemorate, say, Mandela, and to be aware that the imperial heroes of
an older Britain are also commemorated offers a very useful lesson in the
way values and ideas change," said Andrew Porter, the Rhodes professor
of imperial history at the University of London.
Livingstone has called
for a "period of consultation" on the issue. And sure enough, newspaper
columnists, letter to the editor columns and radio talk shows have been
overrun with proposals. If the most frequent suggestions were adopted,
memorials would be erected to the widely admired entrepreneur Richard Branson,
the popular soap opera star Barbara Windsor, model Elizabeth Hurley and
Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister who dominated the nation in the 1980s.
Several people have suggested the Thatcher memorial should be aplinth bearing
nothing but her favorite accessory, her handbag.
In a nation of devout
bird lovers, the debate about statues has also turned into a debate about
the birds who tend to spend their days atop statues. In a typical
letter to the editor, C.A. Haynes of Lancashire issued a stern reproval
to the Guardian newspaper.
"I might not recognize
Gen. Havelock," he wrote, "but I assure you it was not a pigeon but
a black-headed gull on the statue in your picture."
