According to the Herald-Sun newspaper there are 580 statues in the Melbourne City precinct. Of these, 1.5% depict historical women, 2.8% are symbolic or fictional women and 1.4% are non-fictional or non-royal women. The rest are men and animals. Right now there is a bit of a hullaballoo about statues in Melbourne – and in other parts of the world, too. I read recently that in Bristol, Wales, a statue of an (alleged) slave trader Edward Colston was torn down during an anti-racism protest and tossed in the river. It's believed Colston trafficked around 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas in the 17th Century. While we’re in Wales, the Cardiff City Council has had the statue of Sir Thomas Picton covered up where it has stood undisturbed for more than a century. He was remembered as the highest-ranking officer to die in the Battle of Waterloo. But apparently his "abhorrent behaviour" as Governor of Trinidad in the 19th Century was just too much for the Cardiff gentlepersons, and so the cover up was ordered.
In the United States, monuments to many historical figures connected with racism have also been removed. Several statues of American slave owners were also vandalized or removed recently, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Francis Scott Key. Racism seems to be the trigger, although here in Melbourne alleged homophobia is gaining ground. But, I digress …
We have this way of looking back on history’s pages seeking to erase, cancel or revise the past – or judge it and even punish the memories of people long since gone from our world. But today it’s much more than that. There are some iconic figures still with us, of course, but when some group just doesn’t like them or what they stand for – nothing they have done wrong, mind you! – they want to tear down their legacy. And that’s not enough. These voices want to trample upon and cancel not just their legacy and reputation, but their person. Ps Margaret Court comes to mind, who is honoured at the Melbourne Tennis Centre, centre court. This is Salem witch hunt stuff.
Times change, and so do values and perspectives. With the passage of time, sometimes centuries, we see things differently than our forebears did, and we can be rightly ashamed and embarrassed by what they did at the time – and especially if they were immortalised in bronze and placed in some public place. Most of the statue-demolition (nearly all from my reading and research) has to do with venting against racists and racist behaviour in by-gone eras. At the time the statues, plagues, monuments or namings, were set in place to celebrate and appreciate the achievements and characters of men and women – even animals (i.e. Simpson and his donkey commemorating selfless and courageous service with the Medical Corp at Gallipoli in WW1). But later on when we understand with fresh perspective the wrong, even criminal and improper behaviours of some of these past icons compared to today’s standards, we want to destroy those memories – even though this doesn’t change what happened – and we certainly don’t want to celebrate them anymore. Now, I get it, that the memories won’t be erased, but the characters will no longer be revered and celebrated. To some extent I can live with that idea.
Although, probably, no statues will be erected in memory of most of us, individually, what if that could happen? What if someone erected a statue to your memory? And, somewhere down the track some skeleton in the closet was discovered that meant that vocal activists would start screaming for its removal? Sobering isn’t?
But what about other methods of remembering and celebration now being set in place – in legislation, public policy, “reforms” (and I use the term loosely!) and so on, and then, decades hence, when we know better (or think we do) will we seek to reverse those legacies? Will there come a time where we look back as a society and shudder with utter revulsion about our current late-term abortion laws which sanction the violent murder of helpless, innocent unborn babies whose (constitutional) rights were tossed aside in the name of “my rights matter more than yours”? Will we deeply regret, with shame, our legislative monuments to voluntary euthanasia, drug injecting rooms, our new laws (and more coming) allowing gender reassignment even for children? The list could be very long!
We have monuments of all kinds – not just statues, plaques and monuments – and we erect them as a society in smug self-celebration of our progressive, social genius. But even now – in our living memories - as they are measured against the inerrant and holy plumb line of God’s Word, these are clearly wrong and evil, and deeply offensive to God. I pray that we will one day come to a place where we look back and want to tear down these monuments. We will not be able to change what occurred as a consequence, of course, but we will no longer want to celebrate our “achievements” and will be more inclined to sing with greater sincerity of heart our national anthem, “in history’s page, let every stage, advance Australia fair!”
Now that would be genuinely “woke”.
But it starts with God’s people, genuinely living out our faith – a powerful faith God can readily use. Salt and light stuff …
1 Peter 2:12 (NIV)
“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
That’s what I reckon, anyway …
Ps Milton