We must see this justified and timely action not as “vandalism” in the form of “statue destruction” but as a manifestation of settling account with the despicable acts of the present together with the dark memories of the past.
Aydin Çubukçu
It was not something unexpected that the anger which have been pressed down in a cauldron with a tight lid on top to express itself with violence with any reason. Although one could not know where, when and how, with this much accumulated problems, with such increased pressure and no valve, this cauldron would surely have explode one day with the loud rumble of the peoples who had been shoved inside.
Recently the coronavirus has spread not only as a pandemic but also as a crisis. According to the analysts, there is a serious risk of a global famine. In other words, large masses of people feel suffocated by the threat of what is to come as well as what is happening.
It is for this reason that, with the police brutality pressing down on his neck, George Floyd’s final words “I can’t breathe” has become the shared password of the millions.
Every moment of explosion is a nodal point of the chains that come from distant past and the threads of hope that stretch out to the future. Rage, resentment and hope are like the roots and branches of a tree which grows on the land of pain and anguish… When the future is envisaged, the past is not forgotten.
Thousands of protesters who filled the streets of London for several days in order to amplify the voice of Floyd were joined by some other thousands in Bristol last Sunday. They brought down the controversial statue of Edward Colston, an English slave trader, and ditched it in the river. Laying on the ground before being thrown into the river, a protestor pressed down on the neck of the Colston statue, just like the police officer had done on Floyd. Protestors in London spray painted “was a racist” under the crossed out name on the statue of Churchill. The time had come to bring to account the crimes of the past as well as of the present. The bourgeois press used the caption "disgraceful act of sheer vandalism ", words uttered by the Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel (who is Asian origin).
What was done to the Churchill statue was just a reminder. Yes, he was a significant politician in the English history, he was this and that, but he was racist!
Colston, on the other hand, was a member of the governing body of the slave trading Royal African Company which was set up by James II who later took the throne. Colston made a huge fortune from the slave trade, selling the kidnapped Africans to the plantations in America. Just like every despicable person who feed on human flesh he was a “philanthropist”. He set up schools and hospitals and made huge donations to the church… The conservative press and politicians use these as an excuse for their accusations of “vandalism”. They try to whitewash the fact that Colston enslaved more than a hundred thousand people, and sweep under the carpet of “philanthropism” the bodies of those thousands of black men, women and children who died during the journey as a result of sickness, hunger or torture.
Colston’s statue was the target of previous protests, too, but they did not lead to its removal. Now it lays in the bottom of the river Avon and no one would try to fish it out to re-erect it in its old place. The protestors want a statue of Paul Stephenson, the defender of black workers’ rights, to be erected in its place. He organised the Bristol Bus Boycott in 1963, after one of the city's bus companies refused to employ ethnic minorities, and succeeded in bringing about change.
The protests which have been going on for days in the US and spread to other countries, shaking the main centres of the capitalist world show us how to open the window which would enable us to breathe. Now, we are passing into the post-corona period or the “new normal”, which defines not only the measures against the pandemic but also a new order of exploitation and plunder which involves putting the burden of the economic and social destruction caused by the pandemic onto the shoulders of peoples. The door is ajar to new taxes, cuts in wages and social rights, unemployment, price rises, etc.
They will press harder onto our necks. They will tell us to “grit our teeth” as we scream “we can’t breathe”. Maybe we will not notice for some time the quagmire that we are being pushed into because of the confusion caused by the pandemic. But the voice of George Floyd will make itself be heard sooner or later: “Breathe! Open the windows, break down the doors, and breathe!”
When we give ear to this voice, the fate of Colston’s statue will be inevitable for all other parasites.
For this reason, the accusation of vandalism can be considered as the vision of the bourgeoisie. Their historical experience reminds them that the show of anger which started with a statue could lead to the destruction of the palaces of the capitalists. In our part, we must see this justified and timely action not as “vandalism” in the form of “statue destruction” but as a manifestation of settling account with the despicable acts of the present together with the dark memories of the past. Then, we will be able to take a deep breath!
Yusuf Karadaş
Fatih Polat