One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets – anything that might throw light upon the past had been systematically altered
George Orwell, “1984”
Boris Johnson’s “conservative” government has almost uniformly been about as useful as a vegan at a barbecue, and twice as annoying. But, finally, they’ve done something right, it seems.
When the philistine left launched the Cultural Revolution with an orgy of destruction of public monuments not seen since the Red Guards destroyed some two-thirds of China’s cultural heritage, institutions and local authorities either looked on helplessly dumbstruck, or gutlessly joined in the barbarity.
The Johnson government has finally moved to protect Britain’s statues.
The statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University will not fall after a change in government policy to protect contested monuments prompted a U-turn by officials at Oriel College.
Not that Oxford officials have done anything so remarkable as to grow a pair in the face of the mobs of indignant illiterates currently hooting and throwing their faeces around inn what was formerly one of the great centres of learning.
The decision to keep the statue of the Victorian mining magnate and empire builder on the college’s facade came despite the decision by an independent commission yesterday to back the college authorities’ intention to remove it.
The governing body said the volte-face was down to “regulatory and financial challenges” and the government’s recently introduced “retain and explain policy”, which will be backed by legislation and says that statues can only be removed in the most exceptional circumstances.
In other words, the governing body are a bunch of spineless cowards hiding behind the law in order to do the right thing that they were too weak to do themselves.
The decision was welcomed yesterday by Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, who tweeted: “We should learn from our past, rather than censoring history, and continue focusing on reducing inequality”[…]
Oriel College indicated that its decision was final, though it reaffirmed its preference for removal.
It committed itself to implementing other recommendations by the commission geared to providing contextual information on Rhodes, and increasing diversity.
“Diversity”, of course, meaning no white people, East Asians or Jews.
In a ten-month inquiry, the commission received evidence from experts and reviewed more than a thousand written contributions from students, alumni and the public. Most favoured keeping the statue. The commission nevertheless supported the college’s wish for removal, saying this was its majority view.
The Australian
Cowards, barbarians and Philistines now rule the academy. Whatever his sins against modern political correctness and his undoubted faults were, Rhodes at least built things: things of lasting value. His modern-day detractors are in too many ways intellectual heirs of the Nazi propagandists who likewise vilified Rhodes.
The woke have built nothing and can only spitefully destroy and denigrate the achievements of people vastly superior to them.
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