London – The UK government is proposing a controversial new law to protect England’s historic monuments after local authorities demolished or removed the statues of slave traders. Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
Currently, in England, local governments have to approve any major changes to buildings, but the same rules do not apply to statues. The new legislation would expand the requirements for buildings to cover statues and add an option for the national government to veto decisions by local councils.
“An attempt has been made to impose a single, often negative narrative, which does not so much recall our national history, but tries to erase a part of it. This has been done by the hand of the flash mob or by the decree of a” Cultural committee “of town hall militants and woke up the dignitaries,” community secretary Robert Jenrick wrote in an article in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph.
The proposed legislation must be passed by Parliament to become law.
“What has been maintained for generations should be considered reflexively, it should not be removed on a whim or by order of a crowd,” Jenrick continued.
In June, a statue of slave trader Edward Colston, who died 300 years ago, was demolished and thrown into the river by Black Lives Matter protesters in the English city of Bristol, which caused a debate on heritage and inclusion. Local officials, after consultation with various parties, decided that the Colston statue would be placed in a museum next to protest posters.
“It’s up to us to make sure we record this moment so that future generations can understand the journey Bristol has made,” Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees told the BBC at the time.
Shortly afterwards, the Mayor of London, Sidiq Khan, set up a new Commission for Diversity in the Public Kingdom to review public places of interest, art and street names in the capital, so that they reflect the diversity of the city and “fostering discussion about what legacies should be celebrated.”
“There are some slaveholders who should go down, and the commission will advise it,” Khan told BBC News. Under the proposed legislation, the national government would be able to veto decisions taken by local authorities on the advice of the commission.
Members of the art community, historians and racial equality activists quickly criticized the government’s plan, accusing it of trying to distract itself from more pressing issues, including the widely criticized response to the pandemic left by the UK with the worst per capita. COVID-19 mortality rate of any nation.
“(It’s) smoke and mirrors,” Dr. Halima Begum, director of the Runnymede Trust’s racial equality think tank, told the Guardian newspaper. “With an eye on the upcoming election, Jenrick has used this article to precipitate an artificial cultural war, to shake up the conservative base and distract himself from the terrible failures of this government around Covid.”
“I wish I could get away from the language of censorship and erasure and understand that it’s about broadening, deepening, and creating honest, inclusive narratives,” Museum Association advocacy group director Sharon Heal posted on Twitter.