The headlines
of the past few weeks made me think about my home town Liverpool which played a
significant part in slavery in the past. In fact the city’s wealth and
expansion was built on it. There were more slave ships running in and out of
Liverpool in the late 1700s than there were either in London or Bristol. So is
it now time for the city to follow the lead elsewhere and remove evidence of
those people responsible? Or should we
continue to acknowledge it as an example of wrong doing.
My go to
example in these sorts of debates is Hitler’s Germany. We have not erased
Hitler from history even though he is surely the most evil individual that ever
lived. The site of Auschwitz was not burned down and removed so as to forget
what happened. Instead these are used to illustrate the horrors of what
happened so that those who died are never forgotten. Likewise in Liverpool
there is a museum that seeks to tell the true story of slavery in the port and
it stands theoretically as a tribute to those who suffered under it’s
dominance. The Mayor had already announced, before the current situation, that
new plaques would be placed at the site of statues or places associated with
slavery to tell the true story of what happened.
Liverpool was
so deeply part of that movement that its identity is partly shaped by it. The
Beatles song `Penny Lane` celebrates a street that was named after
slave trader James Penny. The city centre Sir Thomas Street is named after the
owner of one of the first slave ships. The Cunard Building now owned by the
City Council has statues of slave ships on its exterior. The well known Rodney
Street consists of houses built for traders. African slaves are depicted in the
plasterwork of the Town Hall. I could go on with a long list but you get the
idea- Liverpool might need to have a number of places re-named or changed to erase all
of this. Or should it?
A plan was initiated
five years ago to change several street names in Liverpool but it ran into
problems when it met more recent history. Changing the name of Penny Lane would
affect tourism as it is a site visited by hundreds of people thanks to the
song. Quite apart from the practicalities of removing parts of buildings,
renaming streets and so forth, there is that question of whether the right
thing to do is forget that it ever happened. Some would say that by not
opposing it you are tacitly supporting it. Others would say you must learn from
history as it happened not try to re-shape it from a modern perspective.
Liverpool has
tried to apologise and acknowledge what happened as a lesson to the future. As
well as the International Slavery Museum which shows the sordid past on which
Liverpool was partly built there is an annual day of remembrance in August
and a free celebration of African culture and music Africa Oye, held each June.
In 2007 the Council formally apologised for the city’s involvement in the slave
trade. Local historian Laurence Westgaph has said the city is not doing enough
and there needs to be a dedicated memorial and more teaching in the classroom.
I have to admit
I don’t know the answer to this issue and as a white man perhaps its not for me to
say. However I can see a worrying trend in which anything deemed offensive from
a Tweet to international slavery and lots in between could be `cancelled` meaning
that the children of the future may end up with fewer valuable lessons to learn
and therefore may be more likely to repeat some of history’s mistakes.
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