Lord Nelson must remain

It’s just as painful to watch now as it was two years ago. Footage of Isis fighters destroying Assyrian and Akkadian artefacts in Mosul Museum. It’s more than the destruction itself which is horrifying though, it’s the attitude behind it. The inflexible, dogmatic worldview which condemns anything non-Islamic, non-Sunni to oblivion, whether ancient temples, churches, monasteries or even mosques, albeit of the ‘incorrect’ variety. But ancient artworks aren’t just valuable for their beauty, they also offer lessons on human nature. No one dwarfed by an Assyrian Lamassu can ignore the message of power and ruthless ambition.

In America a similar dogmatic approach has appeared over the controversy surrounding Confederate statues. Ever since a campaign in South Africa two years ago succeeded in removing Cecil Rhodes’ statue from the University of Cape Town there have been similar movements across the globe. Let me just state that I am not comparing these campaigns to ISIS, one of the vilest scourges in recent history. I’m merely commenting on their approach to problematic art. And though not wishing to weigh in on the American debate, lacking the expertise to offer an opinion, I do sympathise with those wishing to remove statues erected with the primary intention of commemorating Antebellum racial inequality.

But this morning I was dismayed to read Afua Hirsch’s exasperating piece in the guardian calling for the removal of Lord Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar Square. After briefly dismissing him as a rabid racist for being friends with slave-owners, who were an unfortunate but not uncommon element in Georgian society, she calls for Nelson’s banishment. But as others have pointed out, Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square was erected in utterly different circumstances to statues of Confederate generals in the US. Nelson was commemorated by a grateful nation following the French wars, while the generals were used to refute Reconstruction and Civil-Rights America. But even if Nelson did have connections to the slave trade, is that sufficient reason for his damnatio memoriae? In the implacable perspective of those like Hirsch, contaminated individuals such as Lord Nelson should be banished from public space lest they further pollute it. But will this reverse history, preventing the Atlantic slave trade from occurring in the first place? I doubt it. Maybe they just read Ninety Eighty-Four’s ‘who controls the present controls the past’ too literally. Avoiding the uglier aspects of our history is irresponsible, and removing Nelson would be tantamount to sweeping the problems of the past under the rug.

I’ve personally never been a big fan of Henry VIII. When he wasn’t decapitating his wives he was outlawing homosexual acts between men. The Buggery Act of 1533 was used to persecute gay men until 1828 (when the even more repressive Offences against the Person Act was legislated), and though repealed in 1553 it was reinstated under Queen Elizabeth I a decade later. As a gay man I hardly find this endearing. Yet it's important not to ignore this part of British history. There is one statue of Henry in London, above the gate of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield, looking typically plump and scornful. And outside St Dunstan-in-the-West is a 16th century statue of his daughter Elizabeth, regally decked out as usual. Both monarchs ensured centuries of misery for gay men in England. Yet taking down their images won’t change that, if it did then I’d be the first to topple them. Simply covering up the crimes of the past won’t make them go away, but by acknowledging them we can ensure that the suffering of the past wasn't in vain.