I FOR one was disappointed by Edward Colston’s statue being removed and dumped in the harbour in Bristol.
Not because he was a horrible slave trader or god forbid even a Tory, but because of the precedent it could have.
Do we now remove Churchill for his Bengal famine disgrace in 1943, or Emmeline Pankhurst for bombing the Chancellor’s home or, god forbid, Robert The Bruce for killing many English? Where do you stop?
WATCH: Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol bring down slave trader's statue
We should be able to live with our history, good or bad, but where we are failing is the education towards the bad side. Quite frankly I’d never heard of Colston and his abhorrent “business” up until yesterday and can’t defend him just because he gifted his fortune to Bristol.
Slaves built some of the greatest structures in the world, the Pyramids and the Colosseum – do we dismantle them?
Iain McEwan
Troon
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