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| SCMP Magazine 16 April 2023. Click to enlarge. Online here |
What’s the point of toppling statues? To get rid of hated figures. I’m sure we all remember that statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled. In newly-liberated Russia they tore down statues of Stalin (though not so much of Lenin as we saw when we drove across Russia in 2017). Tyrants torn down, begone! (Save Mao and China. Where he was never toppled. Which is a disgrace, but another story).
But tearing down the statue of Edward Colston who died over 300 years ago? Because he was a “slave trader” in addition to his philanthropy? His work of setting up schools, donating housing for the poor and building hospitals? Who, like every other 18th century person of note, did good things but happened also to do bad things that were at the time legal (slavery, say). Then it surely becomes not only virtue signalling, but also, kind of, where do you stop?
In Hong Kong there’s an additional danger. Jason Wordie has a go at H.N. Mody. For the sin of dealing in opium. I know nothing of Mody -- save that it’s my favourite small street in Kowloon -- until Wordie’s article, and a foray into Wikipedia, where I learn that Mody "He spent his early days in the colony as an auctioneer of opium, then a legally respectable activity.” The rest of his life seems to have been blameless and fortunate, to the extent that he gave away his money to establish the University of Hong Kong, the Jockey Club and the Kowloon Cricket Club. No matter. He dealt in opium as a yute, so let’s cancel him a century later!
At least, that seems to be what Jason Wordie is inciting here. He may deny it, but it’s there in his final para and in the headline: For Manchester and the profits of slave-produced cotton, read opium trading and Hong Kong. Will its students be toppling an HKU founder’s statue?
If students tore down Mody’s statue, as suggested here, would it end there? No! Because all statues in Hong Kong have a colonial tint. And all colonial is bad. You don’t have to be an opium trader to be bad! And it’s not just statues -- all roads in HK are colonial, Connaught Road, Des Voeux Rd, Queen’s Road, Bowen Rd, etc. etc.... Every one of them would have to be renamed. Do we think Beijing would mind this? No, they would not. The only reason they’ve not done so already is they don’t want to bother with the blow back. But if the students started it? Go for it! Then Hong Kong becomes that little bit more — or great bit more — like any other Chinese city, with its “Liberation Roads” and “Lenin Parkways”, and “Anti-imperialism Avenues”. Groan.
Be careful what you wish for, Jason.
ADDED: I guess this the Guardian article Jason refers to in his article. It’s interesting.
Wordie says: “... profoundly defensive responses often arise among those who would prefer these inconvenient truths [about slavery] were simply brushed aside as unfortunate events in earlier centuries.” This is a rather large straw man! Many people -- including African Americans -- are not in favour of reparations for slavery, yet do not “brush aside” its history -- goodness me, it’s talked about non-stop on American MSM. No-one is trying to sweep this issue under the carpet; rather, as the Guardian article itself notes: Mancunians were early in support of president Lincoln’s push to end slavery. As was the UK, which had already abolished slavery across its empire, the first country in the world to do so. Britain spent huge blood and treasure to abolish slavery. But that’s rarely mentioned.
