Statues and history – Anarchist Writers

With his complete mishandling of the coronavirus crisis clear (highest death count in Europe, in absolute and per million terms, 60,000+ excess deaths, PPE scandals, etc.) plus the economy tanking by 20%, it is understandable that Johnson seeks to distract attention by wittering on about statues – some raw meat for the Brexters. In short, following the Trump playbook.

What is less understandable is that over 40% still think he is a good PM and would vote for him and his party of nodding dogs… “What has become of your country?” a journalist was asked by a UK-based diplomat: “We see only a ship of fools, and a plague ship at that.” How true – little wonder Johnson and Trump want to inflame the culture war to distract attention from their obvious limitations and incompetencies.

So a few words on statues, remembering history and making history. I do so somewhat hesitantly as the statue issue is really beside the point – the issue is ending institutional racism and the right focusing on statues being pulled down is an attempt to draw attention from that. Still, as I have an interest in history and challenging the myths circulating it as regards anarchism and libertarian thinkers, movements and ideas, I thought I would say a few words.

First, the statue destruction shows the power of direct action. For those who said the statue should have been removed “democratically”, well that was tried and the political machine ensured that it went nowhere. Years of bureaucratic inertia was ended in a few minutes by direct action. Let that be a lesson well learnt!

Second, the gnashing of teeth about the fate of a statue rather than the horrors of the slave trade shows little has changed since Oscar Wilde wrote these words:

“Of course, all crimes are not crimes against property, though such are the crimes that the English law, valuing what a man has more than what a man is, punishes with the harshest and most horrible severity”

Needless to say, I’ve yet to come across any of these people objecting to the pulling down of statues of Stalin during the Hungarian revolt of 1956, the fall of Stalinism or Saddam’s after the invasion of Iraq. Johnson stated:

“We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations.”

There was no outcry when Jimmy Savile’s statues were removed – nor any word of these cretins suggesting that by so doing we “erase” the history of his crimes or that his charity work somehow mitigates his crimes (yes, they were a cover – just as the wealth spent on local philanthropy was the direct or indirect product of slavery). Likewise, the Germans took down all statues to Hitler and the Nazis after World War two and nobody there, or elsewhere, “forgot” the horrors they inflicted. Nor did removing Stalin’s and Lenin’s statues by direct action or overtime mean that their crimes are forgotten. Needless to say, none of those bemoaning the pulling down of slavers are suggesting the Hungarians, for example, were wrong to pull-down Stalin’s effigies.

Still, knowing the Tories, the net legislative effect of the Black Lives Matter protests in the UK may be draconian sentences for those who “deface” statues or burn the Union Jack. It has been suggested that those defacing war memorials should face ten years in prison, which is longer than for rape – which means that Wilde’s comments are still all too relevant. After all, Johnson has simply pushed the issue into the long grass by promising yet another review into racism– although with the innovation of making his intentions to ignore it clear from the start by appointing as its head someone who does not think institutional racism exists.

Third, the statue destruction had done more to educate the general public over historical facts than decades of these statues being shat-upon by pigeons. Removing that statue has hardly “edited” or “erased” the past: it has brought previously hidden facts from the past into consciousness of the present in a way which is truly educational. And talking of “editing” the past, here is Johnson himself doing precisely that:

“What is even more interesting is that Johnson’s discussion of India does not so much as mention the Bengal Famine of 1943-1944 with its death toll of up to three million men, women and children. This is like writing a biography of Stalin that does not mention the great Ukrainian Famine of the early 1930s. Now Johnson certainly knows about the Bengal Famine because he gives it two whole sentences in his discussion of Churchill in his The Spirit of London – and they are savagely critical sentences it has to be said. His failure to confront the Famine and Churchill’s role in sabotaging relief in The Churchill Factor surely reflects an awareness that Churchill’s conduct seriously compromises his supposed status as a ‘Great Man’ even in Johnson’s terms. Moreover, this completely undermines the argument that the British Empire was a benign Empire, operating for the benefit of the ‘native’ peoples. To be fair, Johnson is not alone among Churchill biographers in his refusal to confront the enormity of this catastrophe and the extent of the Churchill government’s responsibility for the death toll.”

Let us recall that at the Black Lives Matter demonstration someone spray-painted “was a racist” to Churchill’s plinth: that is a historical fact – which was literally erased the next day by a cleaner. He was also pro-fascist in terms of Mussolini: indeed, he had favourable words for Hitler until Nazi policy clashed with British interests. All facts which the statue does not mention… they have been erased as inconvenient from many of our historical accounts and we can be sure that the likes of Johnson would fight to stop a plague being placed on the plinth providing passers-by a more rounded account of his life and ideas.

Needless to say, a statue does not really allow the viewer to know or understand anyone’s legacy. As an obvious example, Trump wrote that “these Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,” Trump said, adding that the administration “will not even consider” renaming them. Yet they are named after Southern Generals who had a history of losing, defeat and slavery! Perhaps he should read a book on American history? I can recommend Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.

Still, I guess we now know that the politicians in the UK who voted to close libraries think that the statues of slavers and imperialists educate us about history. Nobody gets their knowledge of history from a statue and by making history by means of direct action more people have become aware of Britain’s role in the slave trade as a result of a statue in Bristol being pulled down than it being on a plinth for decades. In terms of editing or censoring the past, we must remember and stress repeatedly that putting up that statue ensured this rather than it being pulled down.

The people who are bemoaning the fate of statues in the name of “history” also block attempts to add plaques which give some idea of what these people really got up to in, you know, history. This can be seen from Bristol– with no progress in adding historical facts to the statue thanks to the local Tories and the vested interests they voice. Such as this Tory councillor:

“I am horrified and appalled by the rank lawlessness which was exposed in Bristol on Sunday when the famous statue of Edward Colston was attacked and vandalised by a criminal mob. […] Edward Colston to me and generations of Bristolians stands out as a hero whose wealth has continued to benefit the housing, education and healthcare of the citizens of this city.”

Wealth created by selling human beings (at least those who survived the journey) – surely enslaving people is “rank lawlessness”? But, then, his opposition to vandalism is selective. A few years ago he helped stop a plaque being added to the statue (via a petition) to provide some history to passers-by. It would have read:

“As a high official of the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, Edward Colston played an active role in the enslavement of over 84,000 Africans (including 12,000 children) of whom over 19,000 died en route to the Caribbean and America.

“Colston also invested in the Spanish slave trade and in slave-produced sugar. As Tory MP for Bristol (1710-1713), he defended the city’s ‘right’ to trade in enslaved Africans.

“Bristolians who did not subscribe to his religious and political beliefs were not permitted to benefit from his charities”

He helped block this: “If it goes through, it will be a further slap-in-the-face for true Bristolians and our city’s history delivered by ignorant, left-wing incomers”. So stating facts is wrong… so much for the noble cause of defending history from the vandals who seek to erase, edit or censor it. His opposition is understandable, though, for he knew that if they put these historical facts onto the statues then any right-minded person would ask “why the hell is this statute here? The man was a monster.”

Which is the problem they face – if a statue of Churchill had an honest account of his life and ideas many people may question what kind of society celebrates such a person? And if helping to defeat the Nazis outweighs the rest then surely no one would object to statues of Stalin being erected in Russia (or in Whitechapel)? If not, why not? Johnson threw some red meat to his followers:

“I will resist with every breath in my body any moves to remove Churchill’s statue”

Yet no one is suggesting that and so he avoids addressing the real issue. Still, perhaps we could add a plaque to the plinth of Churchill’s statue which detailed his less well-known opinions and actions? Would Johnson support that? For some reason I doubt it. He knows that statues erase the awkward facts of history and he likes it that way, as shown by his own writings. He suggests that the statues of slavers should stay for educational purposes:

“If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history – like some public figure furtively trying to make themselves look better by editing their own Wikipedia entry.”

How many statues of working-class people are there? Where are the statutes commemorating strike leaders or strikers? As such, the selection of statues we have is a “distortion of our history” in that most of them were placed there by wealthy men to commemorate other wealthy men. Likewise, when the statue of Nancy Astor was erected it was because she was the first female MP – that she was also pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic was not mentioned. It was like someone editing her Wikipedia page to make her look better by removing those awkward facts.

Do we really want to define “Britain” as this? Is there really nothing else in British history worthy of marking? If so, then they really have a low opinion of the country they claim to love. To defend all statues is just silly. Most statues are in no danger (George Elliot’s, for example, was never in danger). And defending statues does not mean defending “our history” – it means defending a part of that history, the part those wealthy enough and influential enough to get a statue raised cared to recall. In other words, it means defending ruling class history and, in this case, some of its most appalling aspects – knowingly.

As such, I would suggest that the notion that we need these statues to preserve “our” history may be just lip-service, as is the denouncing of “vandalism” for our Tory Bristol councillor also noted:

"I have never been a believer in taking the law into one’s own hands. However, if this partisan and nauseous plaque is approved, I can not find it in my heart to condemn anyone who damages or removes it”

So he could not condemn those destroying a plaque stating historical facts but does for those removing the statue of a slave trader? Clearly, it is neither opposition to property destruction nor a concern over hiding history which drives his position.

Similarly, the Daily Mail had an article entitled “I fear for Britain’s future if we erase the past” yet this is precisely what the defenders of these statues want – they are the ones who don’t want the whole history of the British Empire, of the crimes of the ruling class, to be publicly aired. How many articles has that rag published which mentioned Britain’s role in the slave trade before the statue was pulled down? It now had to address the issue and so give their readers some notion of the real history of Britain – still, they may provide the politically-correct account focused on Wilberforce and erase the rest. After all, Americans seem to forget when they “remember the Alamo” that it was a revolt in favour of freedom… to own slaves.

As such, pulling down the statue has educated more people about the history of the slave trade than if the statue had remained standing. So such actions do not and will not mean erasing the past, quite the opposite as it has exposed part of that past which the statue had hidden. And it is fear of the future which is driving the right’s attempt to keep the past hidden – not least, the question of reparations for the crimes of the past (for those who may say that why should future generations pay for the crimes of the past? Well, we have been – reparations to the slave owners were finally paid for in 2015!). Likewise, these demonstrations have highlighted the systemic racism within the UK, USA, etc. and so are putting pressure for change.

And if people see that direct action gets the goods, well, they will start applying it elsewhere too – which is obviously a fear of those at the top of the social hierarchy. Imagine their horror – they may have to listen to those they rule and do something to address the burning injustices rather than merely mention them in speeches and get on with making them worse.

The responses to the demonstrations are also of interest as it shows that Britain is not as non-racists as many white-people like to suggest. When Hancock struggled over how many black people where in the cabinet, some of his defenders on yahoo said it was good that there were none as it showed that Johnson selected people due to their talents — who can look at this cabinet and consider any of them as talented? It is, truly, a government of the talentless. Funny, though, how being “colour-blind” and being racist seem to end up in the same place and with the same outcomes… like being “critical of anti-racism” (I wonder if there were a better way of saying that… maybe anti-anti-racism or, removing the two negatives, we get racism… quelle surprise!).

The right – as expressed by their new poster-child Laurence Fox – want to be able to express what passes for their thoughts without anyone else critically commenting on them (unless to agree, of course). Words are important, their words of course, and if you disagree with them then freedom of speech means that you should shut up. Which is what their bleating boils down to — they want to be able to say what they like without consequences (for them). That means people should not reply — a strange definition of “freedom of speech.” Yet I thought it was a case of not caring about anyone’s feelings? The right to “say it like it is”? And so on… apparently that is just for the right for these snowflakes don’t seem to like criticism.

Now the element of truth in this is that some people respond in ways which undermine the case – screamed abuse rather than reasoned debunking or refuting. Sometimes abuse is acceptable – rational debate did not stop Nazis – but in general it makes those defending hierarchies look like they are the victim. We need to raise the level of debate everywhere and seek to convince rather than coerce when applicable (as noted, self-defence against fascists is essential). Yet saying that does not mean we should not challenge those who say racist, sexist things – refuting them or just mocking them depending on what they say.

Yes, indeed, all lives matter – that is what Black Lives Matter stands for: that black people should be treated the same as white people, that when they meet an agent of the State that they stand the same chance of coming out of it alive as a white person. It is precisely because all lives do not matter equally today that people (of all colours) are taking to the streets (during a pandemic!). To raise the slogan “All Lives Matter” in response to this movement shows that you think this is not the case and that you are fine with the current situation — in short, you are a racist. You may not consider yourself one, but you are as you ignore the grim reality which shows every day that not all lives matter equally. You are not being “colour-blind”, you are just being blind to systemic racism.

So it is good that these statues have come down – they have destroyed the bureaucratic, polite, bottle-neck which stopped addressing these issues. As well as Rhodes (hopefully) falling, UCL has announced it is renaming a building and lecture two theatres named after eugenicists – fun fact, I went past those places a lot when I lived and worked in London and I had no idea who they were named after nor what their views or contributions were which suggests those claiming that their naming somehow enriched our historical knowledge are talking complete nonsense.

While history is unchanging (although, of course, our understanding of history changes as does what we consider important in it changes as society grows, new facts emerge and previously discovered one re-evaluated based on changing views) what we decide to discuss and highlight changes. And we should not forget that there was a time when these statues did not exist. They were placed there by people, they can be removed by people – the long-dead cannot govern the living.

So those who clutch their pearls over the statues are those who understand these words from Orwell’s 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” They (or those they approve of and serve) control the present and they want that control of both it and the past to remain unchallenged in order to secure their control in the future. For a people who forgets its past is doomed to repeat it — so if we forget that “our” wealth was created by slavery then we will not see that we are still living with that legacy, a legacy that ensure current wealth inequalities produce a situation of wage-slavery where the many toil under the orders of the few (or their agents) to enrich that few. Questioning the past will inevitably means questioning the present (and vice versa) and that is why some are so keen that the statues remain untouched – not even the addition of a plaque – for history is not being remembered but forgotten.

As noted, while history remains unchanged our understanding of it does not. New evidence appears, new perspectives mean old evidence gets reinterpreted, what and who is considered import changes from historian to historian, from book to book.

An article, for example, written by an anarchist and a Marxist on the same historical events or movements will be radically different because they will be looking for different things, consider different aspects more important than others, and so on. Thus Leninist accounts generally ignore (or else seek to rationalise the disappearance of) genuine working class economic and social power for their view the seizure and maintenance of party power as the key (see how often soviets or factory committees get mentioned in Leninist accounts of the 1918 to 1921 period, for example). Likewise with the source material historians work from for journalists from bourgeois papers covering reports will not look for the same things or accounts as one from working class papers. There is a good passage (one amongst many!) in Jerome R. Mintz’s The Anarchists of Casas Viejas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) in which he notes that the original newspaper reporting of the massacre in the bourgeois press simply regurgitated the police account and it was only the CNT journalists who asked the workers what happened (as noted elsewhere, the same limited perspective can be found in well-respected Marxist historians).

History, then, while objectively existing is subject to differing interpretations based on a whole serious of influences – class, race, sex, ideological, etc. Likewise, I know that looking at historical figures is problematic at times. After all, I have done a lot of work with regards to Proudhon whose sexist and racist views are well-known (the latter, though, have been exaggerated by opponents of anarchism). Does his sexism, say, mean we ignore his other contributions? No, because his other contributions show the contradictions his sexism expresses — as Joseph Déjacque exposed in 1857. Simply put, if we ignore his (rare) sexist and (rare) racist comments in the works published during his lifetime and nothing changes in terms of his ideas other than making them consistent. The same with Bakunin’s racism. Or, to mention Kropotkin (someone else I’ve done a lot of work on), does his support of the Allies in 1914 means we purge him from the ranks of anarchism? Of course not. We mention it and critique it, but we recognise their wider importance.

Anarchists have no problem handling the obvious fact that our “great men and women” were human and so reflected their times in certain ways while exceeding it in other ways. Compare this with the regular failure of Marxists to mention the sexism and racism of Marx, Engels and others (some like Ernest Belfort Bax rarely gets mentioned these days). When discussing history, the ideas and attitudes of thinkers, and so on, everyone is selective in what facts gets raised and what they consider important enough to mention (space considerations are always at play). Thus Marxist accounts of anarchism stress Proudhon’s sexism and racism while anarchist accounts mention them in passing while Anarchist critiques of Marxism rarely mention the personal flaws of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky as we concentrate on the flawed ideology and its application rather than personal failings (which can be many). This is understandable as Marxists cannot critique anarchism without expressing their authoritarianism as Albert Meltzer rightly noted:

Marxism normally tries to refrain from criticising Anarchism as such — unless driven to doing so, when it exposes its own authoritarianism ( “how can the workers run the railways, for instance, without direction — that is to say, without authority?”) and concentrates its attack not on Anarchism, but on Anarchists. This is based on a double standard: Anarchists are held responsible for the thought and actions of all persons, live or dead, calling themselves Anarchists, even only temporarily, or persons referred to as Anarchists by others, even if they disagree, or whose actions could be held to be Anarchistic by non-Anarchists. even on a faulty premise, or are referred to by others as Anarchists. Marxists take responsibility for Marxists holding their particular party card at the time.

Indeed, most Marxist “critiques” of anarchism amount to little more than “Proudhon and Bakunin were horrible individuals” and an assortment of sometimes right, usually selective and often just plain false claims (for example, see this). Still, they do serve a purpose as it gets anarchists to do research to challenge them – and in this way our understanding of the past is improved along with our understanding of anarchism as a theory and as a movement.

For example, as far as Proudhon goes I can point to these articles debunking various pieces of the “conventional wisdom” found in numerous works on the history of anarchism (both for and against):

None of this would have been done if I took a “oh, he was sexist and racist” approach which Leninists and others embrace (for anyone other than their heroes). I hope I have done similar useful work on Kropotkin, the evolution of the anarchist movement and other subjects, although it is for others to judge whether any of this is useful and robust. Some would dismiss this work out-of-hand for the “judgement of history” is clear – but as I show, history is written by the winners (or those with the louder voices!). Just like the statues, they present a representation of history which is just as selective – and just as deserving to be pulled down and replaced by a more nuanced accounts.

This is not “rewriting history”. That is when you invent a false impression – either by being so selective in your accounts as to be misleading or just invention. The likes of the British SWP and American ISO do this constantly and it particularly annoys me when they do it to anarchists. They like to suggest, for example, that the Haymarket Martyrs were not anarchists but Marxists. They write articles on Louise Michel and fail to mention she was an anarchist. Recently, while I’ve been looking around for material for the third volume of A Libertarian Reader and searching specifically for Ethel Mannin as I’ve come across her articles in Spain and the World. So she was an anarchist – as indicated in her Wikipedia page… but the SWP fail to mention this in an article ironically entitled Ethel Mannin: hidden from history. So the SWP decide to “hide from history” her anarchism. Worse, they seek to make her a Marxist by implication

“In 1938 Mannin published her book Women and the Revolution, dedicated to Goldman, although she also makes it clear that her sympathies lie with the POUM. She stood with her ‘Marxist comrades of the POUM…with the Communists as bitterly our enemies as the fascists themselves’”.

Makes you wonder why she wrote extensively for Spain and the World rather than a Trotskyist journal… compare that account to those by Albert Meltzer. The good news is that I found two articles by her for volume 3 (and a few things I decided not to use). The bad news is that with Trump twittering about “ugly anarchists” we can expect yet more inaccurate Leninist attacks on anarchism raising all the same points which have been replied to and, when needed, debunked time and time again.

This is annoying – and as selective as the statue-shaggers hypocritically bemoaning the “erasure” of history while doing all they can to present a skewed account of that history. So, yes, the statues should come down in order to better understand the past, learn from it and ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past which allowed such statues to be erected in the first place. We can think of better people to place on plinths but not, of course, on a pedestal!

And, no, I don’t think anarchists should build statues to our “great men and women” nor name towns after them (like Trotsky, Stalin and Zinoviev – at least Lenin was dead and could not object). Saying that, I am not too bothered by the square named after George Orwell in Barcelona (who, for all his flaws, should be remembered) although I am bemused by the rampant naming of streets and stations after famous people in France. And I think it is no coincidence that Odo’s statue on Anarres was on a park bench rather than elevated onto a plinth. I think we can leave our “great men and women” in the cemeteries to visit – full disclosure, I’ve dragged my poor partner to Durruti’s, Ascaso’s and Ferrer’s graves in Barcelona (all in one place), Makhno’s, Wilde’s, the “Wall of the Communards” (Père Lachaise) and Proudhon’s (Montparnasse) graves in Paris, Proudhon admittedly by accident as we were just passing through and I did not know he was buried there.

I’ve gone somewhat off topic. As usual some may mutter…

To end, regular readers will know that I have been pointing out the contradictions of Krugman’s attacks on the Trumpettes for a few weeks. He regularly calls them “anti-government ideologues” while also noting that they are in the government, that they are using government power and are clearly fascistic in nature. We get another example in this column:

Most frightening, however, has been the palpable desire of powerful figures on the right — not just Trump — to find a way to meet Black Lives Matter protests with state violence.

We can only assume this will be “anti-government” state violence ordered by a government made up of “anti-government ideologues”… Thus this example:

In 2014, Tom Cotton ran for the U.S. Senate proclaiming: “I believe in less government and more freedom.” Seven days ago, amid massive anti-racism protests accompanied by scattered looting, the Republican senator from Arkansas demanded the deployment of at least five Army divisions to the streets. “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters,” he wrote, employing a military term for “take no prisoners.”

The protests in America, and elsewhere, have been mostly peaceful and any “violence” (when not inflicted by the police onto the protestors) has been limited to property damage (i.e., not violence at all) and yet this “anti-government ideologue” wants the troops to open fire! When will liberals I conclude that these people are not interested in freedom at all but property? That like other propertarian ideologues happy to embrace fascism to secure it and the power that goes with it?

Paul Krugman does make a valid point when he writes:

The answer is that Trump, and most of his party, are reactionaries. That is, as the political theorist Corey Robin puts it, they are motivated above all by “a desire to resist the liberation of marginal or powerless people.” And Confederate iconography has become a symbol of reaction in America.

That’s why some Republicans in Maine objected to making a song about the 20^th Maine — the volunteer regiment whose heroic defense of Little Round Top played a crucial role in the battle of Gettysburg — the state ballad. It was offensive, they said, to “say that we’re any better than the South was.” Um, the South was defending slavery.

The reactionary impulse also explains, I believe, why some privileged white men, from the editor of the influential Journal of Political Economy to the (now former) C.E.O. of CrossFit, have been unable to control self-destructive outbursts attacking the Black Lives Matter protests.

After all, from a reactionary’s point of view the past three weeks have been a nightmare. Not only are marginal people who are supposed to know their place standing up for justice, they’re overwhelmingly winning the battle for public opinion. That’s not how things are supposed to work!

Precisely – which is why (self-proclaimed) “anti-government ideologues” have so regularly turned to fascism. They are not anti-government, they are just pro-private-power – and will use the power of the State to secure it. Simply put, you cannot be an anarchist without being against all forms of hierarchy – political, economic and social. Limiting libertarian opposition to just the State simply produces contradictions, assuming it is sincere (which it often is not). What is repulsive is that the right invoke the word “freedom” to do so and, of course, that have stolen the word “libertarian” from us to do so. Corey Robin is right in this and his book The Reactionary Mind is well worth reading (at least the first chapter). As Samuel Johnson noted long ago: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

See, even a Tory can say something which is right (and I did not need a statue to discover him: that was via Noam Chomsky). However, he was wrong on numerous other things, not least the notion that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” – as the right today shows, it is the first refuge.

To end, the Black Lives Matter protests have been impressive and the bravely of those who have taken part should be noted facing as they have militarised and well-armed police forces and a pandemic. I can think of replacements for those slaver statues – ones which embody not a few “great” men but the real force for change in society: the oppressed masses uniting and fighting for freedom and equality.

Until I blog again, be seeing you…