Disappearing History

[gerrynag]

Funny how no one has picked up on what I said re: a Jimmy Saville statue. Why is that ?
Look here in Spain, how many statues to Franco and his hench men were removed ? Not only statues, they actually moved his body from the Valley of the Fallen. Is that changing history ? Of course it isn't. History is made by people. not statues.
I wish people on here would show as much passion about the right-wing thugs in London, who attacked the Police and urinated over the plaque to a Policeman who died trying to stop a terrorist. To my mind, that is a much greater threat to the country, than moving a few statues, that hardly anyone had heard of before.

[Gardenofengland]

Did I mention my passionate interest in History ?

Well I wasn't going to comment about the problems in several countries with regard to the vandalising and distruction of historical monuments, but it worries me that similar mindless distruction could happen in Spain.

History happened , it can't be changed , so wherever we live I feel it's so important to preserve all history, Warts and All, everyone needs to have the chance to learn about the past, and it's not correct to cherrypick the nice bits, it's really important to be able to understand about the Good and Bad things that happened in the past.
How are future generations going to be able to understand the mistakes made by the past generations and of course it's also important to note that many of the famous people now being targeted actually did good things as well as bad things.
I should mention that I'm not in anyway looking at this in a political or racist mode, far from it- I detest all forms of racism and bullying.
In Spain we don't have to search that far back to find 'wrongdoers', but it was a different time with different idiology and if you study Roman history , which surrounds us everywhere here in Spain, you would soon notice slavery and very cruel acts carried out by so called 'leaders'.

For anyone able to visit the Museum ( Albert Dock ) in Liverpool , I would recommend spending sometime studying the excellent information about slavery that's available there it really does explain it all well.

In the 1950's I was taken by my grandfather to visit some underground storage rooms in the dockside at Birkenhead, where slaves often spent months chained to the walls with little or no light, horrific.!

Maybe I'm rambling and ranting a bit now, but I hate the thought of mindless thugs anywhere getting away with so much destruction...
What do other members think. ?
Regards,
Gordonious

I took my mixed race grandson to Liverpool for his 13th birthday. He lives in London, we visited the museum in Docklands before. Shame to say I missed Birkenhead out of our visit 'up North' my home town, as it has always and still does live in the shadow of Liverpool. But the museum at Pier Head was great and Liverpool is a great City. Changing names of university halls streets etc. Is Wrong!.To deny history is stupid. Not a fan of Macron but think he has got it right adding info next to a memorial plaque. History is our history we cannot change it just learn from it.

[BENIDORM]

Maybe some of the more long-standing members will recall my thread about the TSMS Lakonia Disaster.?

I spent a lot of time researching where the victims had been buried and eventually with the help of many of the members and the A.Com Management we were able to place a memorial plaque at the cemetery in Gibraltar, I was so grateful for all of the help given to me with my quest.
I really wanted to explain and preserve the history and explain this tragic event and now there are many articles written about it and even museums have added it to their exhibits etc.
This is the type of history that I can and want help to preserve and of course when and where I can assist retrieving and preserving and identifying artefacts I do so.
Over the years I've given many historic items to museums in numerous countries , etc., for instance military items and documents to Eden Camp in Yorkshire and a field telephone to an Italian museum and shell cases for a display of Spanish Civil War.
Just thought that I'd mention my interests in trying to keep memories alive and ensuring that idiots don't destroy history.

Regards,
Gordon

[BENIDORM]

GoE,
Good to hear that you enjoyed visiting the Liverpool museums and I think that they give quite a balanced view of slavery and many other interesting subjects.

Birkenhead is also worth visiting ,I particularly liked visiting the German U-Boat , a bit eerie for me as it's very similar the the A.boat submarine that I served on in the 60's, and suppose some will even say now that something like a U-boat shouldn't be preserved ..

Regards,
Gordon ...

[Lavanda]

As an aside, when I was in Hawaii I went to visit the USS Arizona, a ship that had been hit and sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbour. The whole visit took four hours with an exhibition of photographs and text plus maps and artefacts to fill in the background for any visitor not aware of what had happened. Next, visitors went to the USS Arizona's viewing platform by motor launch crewed by US naval personnel. It was incredibly moving and many people were in tears. The hatches of the USS Arizona were just visible below the surface of the water and, of course, the ship was a grave filled with servicemen who had not escaped. There was a memorial with all their names close by.

However, among the visitors were a very large percentage of Japanese. Most of them were visibly emotional and many were crying.

History should give the opportunity for learning but also for atonement and sorrow and, finally for forgiveness.

[Lavanda]

I am currently reading ‘Emperor — A New Life of Charles V’ by Geoffrey Parker and I am up to page 344 out of 546 with a further 190 pages of notes, appendices and lists of things.

When the Spanish ‘discovered’ the lands and peoples in the New World they initially went a bit crazy killing the natives and plundering as much treasure as they could find. A Catholic priest, Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, was appalled at what he witnessed and wrote to Charles in protest saying that the local population were now subjects of Spain and his Majesty, and were prime candidates for Baptism and becoming souls for God. Charles agreed and the natives came under his protection. This led to a huge problem for the conquering Spanish. Who was going to collect all the treasures, carry them to ships and transport it all to Spain? Not the local people. They were not slaves but subjects.

Between 1511 and 1515, 400 Black Africans were transported from Guinea to the New World to work as slaves. By 1516 to 1520 almost 4,000 were transported. These Black Africans were not subjects of his Majesty and they were not Catholic, or even considered suitable for conversion. They were slaves to do the hard work in the New World in order to spare the natives who were subjects of his Majesty and therefore could not be slaves.

With a 16th century European Catholic head on, it must have made some logical sense back then.

[ashtondav]

Nothing wrong with remembering and learning from History.

Very wrong to have monuments to those who were on the wrong side of it. Should we have left on public display busts of Hitler and his cronies? What about Stalin, Saddam Hussein?

i took one of my best friends, a german, to a bar - whose owner i knew well. When introduced the owner instantly put his finger across his upper lip and did a goosestep. Didn't really find it funny.

[Lavanda]

I found that funny! My parents are both German by birth and I have a German first name. When I started primary school 62 years ago the little English boys and girls were undoubtedly racist and unmerciful in their taunts and bullying. I went home after the first day and asked my Mum if I was a Nazi because I had no idea what that was. I was only 4 years old. Maybe my parents should have given me a history lesson before I started school and so I was a bit prepared for how ghastly children can be to other children who are not the same as them. I survived.

[katy]

Nothing wrong with remembering and learning from History.

Very wrong to have monuments to those who were on the wrong side of it. Should we have left on public display busts of Hitler and his cronies? What about Stalin, Saddam Hussein?

I think in the new world order it maybe time to stop erecting statues to the "great and the good", time to move on. Also who decides which is acceptable? was a lot of controversy on erecting one to Thatcher, probably others too. memorials to people killed in war are ok. many towns and villages have all the names on them.

Anyone read the manifesto of BLM, real marxist stuff including defunding the police

[BENIDORM]

At the moment I'm really so busy, preserving history !!

So I'm not in a position to write lengthy replies ,but I do appreciate all of the interesting views added ..

All I will say is that I feel that it's important to ensure that all history , in whatever form, is made available to everyone now and in the future, if this doesn't happen the same mistakes will happen again and again, and if parts of history are removed or suppressed then the danger is it will go 'underground' and develop like a nasty virus at some point.

Have a Good and Safe Day Everyone,
Saludos,
Gordon.

[gerrynag]

So you think that the Germans should have not removed statues to Hitler and the Iraqis not toppled the monuments to Saddam, the Spanish got rid of place names glorifying Franco ?
Has removing those items really suppressed history in those countries ? Have the Germans forgotten about the Nazis ?
These points have been made before, but people who have complained about the removal of statues in the UK, for some reason have ignored them.
History is history, removing a few unsuitable statues will not change it. History does not change, but our interpretation of it will change over time.

[katy]

Had a newsletter from National trust as I volunteer. Not only are they reviewing statues on properties but other symbols of slavery (whatever that means!) What next blacking out some of the Van *beep*’s dodgy bits with black servants featured...perhaps they could hire the incompetent Spanish restorer There is a very suspect Titian too

A statue of a black man has been removed already from the front of one stately home. Last year the Trust attempted to force everyone to wear an LBGTQ rainbow badge...this year BLM badge?

See the D*Y*KE has beeped

[Lavanda]

I get BEEPED for the craziest things as well. I know the painting you mean. If you go into any gallery or any stately home black people were included in some portraits. They were part of life and part of the family who were being painted or who had employed the artist.

I'm currently reading, "Yo, Julia" by Santiago Posteguillo. I'm only up to page 88 but the Severo family's chief slave, Calidio, a trusted and powerful person who is saving money to buy his freedom, has a voice. In fact he has chapters. I hope he ends up all right ... Rome, at its height, had more slaves in the city than free persons.

[olive]

I saw that the Spanish authorities had expressed concern over defacing of statues in the US including Christopher Columbus. Had a google and he wasn’t a very nice man. Nobody told us that at school just that he was a discoverer ( not that the lands were lost)

[Paulinmalaga]

Thought he was Italian

[peteroldracer]

Thought he was Italian

Typical of country's attitude to foreigners working for the state - do good things for the country and they are heroes, bad things and they are "an evil ******" (choose your own phrase).

[olive]

At one point he had a Portugeuse wife. Isabel and Ferdinand of Spain sponsored his West Indies exploits. He wouldn't have been Italian per se as the country was only formed in modern times. He was probably Ligurian. Whatever, it does illustrate how cosmopolitan some people were in those days.

[katy]

Cervantes toppled too. Will they drop him from Spanish literature A level and have a book burning. Ha ha.

[K&LTupper]

Maybe they'll remove the Enid Blyton plaque in the London Borough of Southwark. Ha ha

[BENIDORM]

Well as I thought, most of the thugs who have been destroying statues and defacing memorials are politically motivated extremists.
This situation got out of hand very quickly, what a sad state of affairs
No allowance has been made for the fact that several hundred years ago life was very different, obviously greed ruled, as it does now, but also ignorance played a big part .
It would be quite difficult to find an important person in history who didn't do something wrong, so hopefully people are now thinking about the situation more, and as I stated originally history happened , you can't change it, but it is far better to try to understand it properly and that means everything, warts and all...as I said earlier.
The Romans were responsible for making the world a better place to live in , but they also did some very cruel acts, usually in the name of religion, for instance putting complete families into the ring with several lions and then cheering when the lions ripped them to pieces, Lions 10 --Christians Nil.

So would I be comfortable with statues being on view of more recent dictators like Hitler, Stalin , Franco etc..?
Well yes actually, if they were placed with tact in the correct places and all of the good and bad deeds were available to read and study.
How can anyone understand history if they don't have all of the facts available and to be able to look at the face of the culprits would hopefully make people realise that evil people don't always look evil.
I've actually got a good number of pictures of all of the more recent villains, I'm a stamp and coin collector, but I certainly don't worship them !.
Anyway I hope that commonsense rules...eventually.
Regards,
Gordon.
ps. I don't have a racist bone in my body and I've had friends from all walks of life and races, my best friend is German and I've probably visited every museum in Berlin including holocaust memorials and camps.