It is indeed their choice. I do though worry that they are making their choice for reasons of wanting to appeal to the mob rather than for any well thought through reasons.
It is a university building name.
To be blunt - what the building is called pretty much doesn't matter in the wider historical context unless it is a historic building that has long had that name.
I can't actually find a news article about Lancaster uni, but it looks like Liverpool uni is renaming a student halls block. Not really a historic building there!
You're making it less accessible though.
I mean, the Colston statue is going to be put in a museum that is free to visit and is about a 5 minute walk from where the statue stood.
It will be put in context of the wider history of who he was and why he was important - both good and bad.
The same museum has also said it will put on display some of the signs and banners that were left by the plinth after the statue was removed.
The whole episode has started discussions that didn't happen before. It has educated people who hadn't even heard of him, even some people in Bristol who before would have just walked passed the statue not paying attention because they didn't know who he was.
To me at least, that makes a much bigger statement in terms of history and education and accessibility to the wider context of that history than a statue sitting in the city centre than many people didn't pay much attention to that didn't even mention most of the history of the man on the plaque next to it.
And you're to some extent destroying part of our culture: I wouldn't underestimate the extent to which things like statues that have been in place for a long time give people a sense of attachment to our shared history, and that sense of continuity and tradition that is actually pretty important to a very large number of people. By removing those statues, you're potentially destroying that and hurting a lot of people - basically in order to satisfy the demands of another group of people (and to be fair who feel hurt by having those statues there).
Which is why the conversation has to be on a case by case basis.
I am not advocating for the mass removal of problematic statues.
In the Bristol case - it very much was not in place for a long time really, an did not give anybody a "sense of attachment to our shared history" etc etc.
To my mind, a far better solution in most cases would be to make sure that the text on the plinths acknowledges both the good and the bad that people do, and perhaps in some cases to add additional statues representing those groups who have been forgotten or hurt in the past.
Which is great when that happens. The sad reality is that has not happened, and in the Colston case specifically, was resisted for many years by those with vested interests and some of those who now claim to be worried about erasing history.
No, you don't need that, but by the same token, once those names are there and have been in place for decades, they have themselves become part of the history and culture of that town. Renaming them because in today's political culture we no longer like the origins of the name feels to me very akin to many authoritarian states (Petrograd - Leningrad - Petrograd kind of thing). There's also a practical problem of all the confusion with addresses and finding your way around that you cause if you rename places. I really don't think we should be going there. Again, a better solution would be to look for the names of historical figures/events from those communities that feel forgotten when naming new streets and buildings, so you have more balance - or even putting decisions about naming new streets in some areas completely in the hands of ethnic minority communities, but without changing the names of existing streets.
In general, I agree, although places and streets etc have been renamed loads throughout history. But again it is a difficult and uncomfortable conversation. One that many people wanted to be swept under the carpet and not had. Certainly I don't think we should rename every street that could potentially be offensive. But take Colston Road in Bristol - it is in an area that is predominately BAME in terms of population and in the last few days residents of the street have started a discussion of having suggestions for other potential names for the street. Should we tell them they can't do that?
I agree, we need to look at what history is being taught to ensure it is balanced. There is obviously a practical problem that there is so much history that it's impossible to teach more than a tiny fraction of it in schools - or even on specialised University courses. Pointing out Churchill's views alongside the history of the 2nd World War (And WWII surely is significant enough that it has to be on almost any British History syllabus) seems a good balance. I wouldn't have thought that Edward Colston's contribution to history was significant enough to even be mentioned at all in a typical syllabus (unless it's specifically, locally, in Bristol). There is though some irony that, even as you call for teaching the entire history, in that same paragraph you're arguably presenting a pretty one-sided view: If you are going to teach Colston at all, then yes, teach about the bad things - the slavery - but also teach about the historical context in which death was completely commonplace to everyone, and most people at the time wouldn't have seen much wrong with slavery - otherwise you're giving a distorted impression by teaching people to measure someone from what would have been a totally different culture by today's standards.
I was just trying to present an alternative view to what is usually taught. I wasn't saying just teach what I was mentioning.
We do need a much wider teaching of our own history, I think we really need to be prepared to have uncomfortable discussions about our history, which for a long time we haven't been prepared to do so. And I'm not just talking about slavery or things related to racism either. How about the history of workers rights (we did the "industrial revolution" quite a few times from what I remember, but not really mentioning the various changes in workers rights and how they were brought about during that time), the right to vote (we briefly covered the suffragettes when I was in school, but not the wider history of democracy and voting) etc? Of course there is the practical problem as you have said, but at least from what I remember from school, we covered the same topics several times throughout the years - surely there is room for some change there?
Some people in Bristol have been trying. Last time I checked Wikipedia was reporting that a poll a couple of years ago showed that a narrow majority wanted the statue to stay. (Possibly opinion has changed now).
It was a vote run by a local newspaper that didn't get much attention at the time. Hardly representative.
I have to admit I don't understand why the Merchant Venturers would object to getting the plaque changed. I can well understand people wanting the statue to stay up for historical/cultural reasons, but making the plaque more balanced seems an obvious thing to do . And maybe if the Merchant Venturers hadn't objected to that, the statue would still be there?
It wasn't just the Merchant Venturers. A local Tory Councillor also was upset and said that having a plaque with that wording was somehow unfair. He is also the same idiot who adopted a golliwog as his mascot and said he would boycott Colston hall (a music venue) if it changed it name. So I suspect he is just a plain racist tbh.
As for would it still be there? I think you need a time machine or some alternative reality to find out. But certainly the inaction partly caused by the Merchant Venturers and the Tory counciller (amongst others, it isn't just their fault!) played a part in people targeting the statue.
