Vocal Voices

Black lives matter. This man nails it. Warning, extensive use of the f word.

https://twitter.com/andrewlawrence/stat ... 9015521284

Not quite how I would have phrased it, but ....

We look to be entering a dangerous period. Some of the richest dynasties on the planet originally made their money out of the abuse and maltreatment of colonials. Will there be marches on palaces, mansions, chateaus, schlosses and villas? And what about the modern day versions, the cobalt mines, the phone manufacturers, the fast fashion houses all based on child labour?

Oh, hang on, many of the 'peaceful' protesters all either work for them or benefit from their products or both, so that's OK then.

I can see a great deal of hypocrisy coming over the horizon regarding the Chinese and how they are treating the Tibetans, the Uigars, and shortly the Hong Kong residents.

Will the rent-a-mobs be demonstrating against Huawei smart phones or lobbying to stop their involvement in 5G? Somehow, I doubt it ....

The hypocrisy is already with us.

Imagine if Apple made phones using pre-teens in San Jose, or Nike made expensive trainers using similar labour in Georgia, or rare earth metals came from mines in Colorado dug up by minors. There would be uproar and the companies would be closed down.

However, these things happen far away and out of sight in Shenzen, China or in Pakistan and Bangladesh or in the Congo and CAR in Africa so it's fine, carry on.

Where are the "Young Lives Matter" protests?

Workingman wrote:Not quite how I would have phrased it, but ....

There is one phrase that sticks in the mind. "If the biggest problem in your life is a statue of a man who died 300 years ago... you are using the crimes of the past to justify your victim hood today".

This is true. So now we hear that they are drawing up a list of statues around the country which they can attack next.

I hope the Police are putting together riot task forces to drag them off to jail and charge them the following day. Then I hope the justice system is fast tracking trials for these people.

They should all be jailed for 3 months, no time off, no early release. It would stop this DEAD in its tracks.

Doubt it will happen but it should.

There is a process for this. If they don't like the statues, petition their local council. If the council won't accept their 0.1% representation, then they can petition parliament. If they don't listen then they can just suck it up.

If they don't like that and want to cause malicious damage, they can go to jail. Just like anyone else would.

Are they pulling down Mandela??

That was my thought as well, Vic - all the Nelson Mandela Houses, all the Nelson Mandela Primary Schools, all the Nelson Mandela Ways .... But he's a saint and a role-model in the eyes of the modern generation, so perhaps not.

Also I don't know if the Colston legacy in Bristol still exists in the form of a charitable trust, (as I think might exist in Oxford for granting Rhodes scholarships for the underprivileged students etc.), but if I were one of the trustees of such, I'd be seriously advocating pulling funds or grants from the universities / arts / whatever. On the grounds that the protestors can't have their cake and eat it.

I wonder if a solution to this statue problem can be found by adopting the Russian model. I think I am correct in saying this. All the statues of the discredited dictators - Lenin, Stalin, so on - were removed from public places but re-erected in specially designed historical theme parks - the one in Moscow is called the Muzeon Park of Arts, according to Wiki. It seems there is a similar park in Delhi, India, for British colonial statues.

The statue are part of our history no matter what they do to pull them down
Won't change there lives
Or the colour of our skin

And now they want Captain Cook's statue taken down. What I want is to see the police get stuck into this shower.