Following the toppling of a statue of Edward Coulston, a notorious slave trader, in Bristol on Sunday (7 June 2020) by protesters involved in Black Lives Matter demonstrations, there has been a general backlash in the mainstream and right wing media. Coulston was responsible for forcibly transporting at least 80,000 slaves to the Americas, with tens of thousands dying in the process.
The Communist Party’s Anti Racist Commission and the Young Communist League released the following statement yesterday (10 June 2020) in support of the action.
“Britain must confront its racist and imperialist past. In order to fully recognise the problems of racism in Britain and its continued imperialist role, it is absolutely necessary that Britain confronts its racist and imperialist past – says the Young Communist League and the Communist Party’s Anti Racist Commission.
“History isn’t neutral. Having statues dedicated to those who benefited from slavery in Britain’s public spaces, effectively legitimises their status and by extension the slave trade and racial oppression. We give full support to the demands that statues of slavers and racists be pulled down and hidden away.
We have long demanded that Britain’s education system must cover all its history including the crimes of Empire, its wars, slavery, and the millions made, the subjugation of people in Africa, and a quarter of the planet along with the history of black people in Britain itself.”
Challenge News Desk
