Much of today's public discussion centres around the destruction of statues or monuments, particularly in the United States. At the same time, there are those in Canada who cannot make up their minds about the taking down of statues by rioting mobs south of the border. Is the act justified?
One thing for sure, whether they are toppled, destroyed, painted, or graffitied, these statues epitomize a new dimension of struggle: the connection between rights and memory. They highlight the contrast between the status of blacks and postcolonial subjects as stigmatized and brutalized minorities, and the symbolic place given in the public space to their oppressors — a space which also makes up the urban environment of everyday lives.
I read an article today pointing out that most political leaders, intellectuals, and journalists outraged by the current wave of “vandalism” never expressed a similar indignation for the repeated episodes of police violence, racism, injustice, and systemic inequality against which the current protest is directed. They have felt quite comfortable in such a situation.
ABOUT THE ICONOCLASTIC FURY: The Iconoclastic Fury, or Beeldenstorm in Dutch, was a short period of rioting and vandalism that took place in August 1566 and was one of the first periods of violence of The Dutch Revolt. Historical opinion differs between those who believe that the Iconoclasm was conducted by a small (around 300) group of hardcore extremists or whether it was a popular religious uprising led by the Calvinist hedge preachers.
Just like its ancestors did, the “iconoclastic fury” currently sweeping through cities on a global scale lays claim to new norms of tolerance and civil coexistence. Far from erasing the past, anti-racist iconoclasm carries a new historical consciousness that inevitably affects the urban landscape. The contested statues celebrate the past and its actors, a simple fact that legitimates their removal. Cities are living bodies that change according to the needs, values, and wishes of their inhabitants, and these transformations are always the outcome of political and cultural conflicts.
Toppling monuments that commemorate the less-than-perfect leaders of the past gives a historical dimension to the struggles against racism and oppression in the present. It means probably even more than that. It is another way to oppose the gentrification of cities that implies the metamorphosis of their historical districts into reified and fetishized sites.
According to a more sophistic and perverse argument, anti-racist iconoclasm expresses an unconscious desire to deny the past. As oppressive and unpleasant as the past was, the argument goes, it cannot be changed. This is certainly true. But working through the past — particularly a past made of racism, slavery, colonialism, and genocides — does not mean celebrating it, as most of the toppled statues do.
We know that architectural and artistic patrimony is burdened with the legacy of oppression. As a famous aphorism from Walter Benjamin put it, “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” Those who topple statues are not blind nihilists: they don’t wish to destroy the Colosseum or the pyramids. Rather, they would prefer not to forget that these remarkable monuments were built by slaves.
This wave of anti-racist iconoclasm is global and does not admit exceptions. Italians, for instance (including Italian-Americans) and Spaniards are proud of Christopher Columbus, but statues of the man who “discovered” the Americas do not have the same symbolic meaning for indigenous peoples. Their iconoclasm legitimately claims a public recognition and inscription of their own memory and perspective: a “discovery” that inaugurated four centuries of genocide.
Working through the past is not an abstract task or a purely intellectual exercise. Rather, it requires a collective effort and cannot be dissociated from political action. This is the meaning of the iconoclasm of recent days. Indeed, while it has erupted within a global anti-racist mobilization, the ground had already been prepared by years of counter-memorial commitment and historical investigation advanced by a multitude of associations and activists.
Like all collective action, iconoclasm deserves attention and constructive criticism. To contemptuously stigmatize it is merely to provide apologias for a history of oppression.
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