Rhodes statue students now turn protest to Victoria
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/u...cle4707033.ece
Rhodes statue students now turn protest to Victoria
Students are now demanding the removal of a statue inscription of Britain's second-longest serving Queen-Empress Victoria
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Originally Posted by Daily Mail
Student groups demanding the removal of a statue of Queen Victoria as part of the “decolonisation” of British universities are preparing to descend on Oxford. The groups are claiming the inscription on the statue "Empress of India" is racist.
Hundreds of students from campaigns across Britain are expected to converge on Oriel College in Oxford where protesters are calling for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the 19th-century imperialist who left £100,000 to the college in his will, funding the building that bears his name. The University has stated it will now not remove the statue due to donors threatening to end multi-million pound donations to the College if the University caved in to the students.
Oriel College has become the target of student campaigners who say the 19th century colonialist and founder of Rhodesia was racist. The Times reports the 'Mass March for Decolonisation' will be part protest, part 'imperial tour of racist Oxford'. Among those present will be supporters of the campaign at Royal Holloway which focuses on a statue of Queen Victoria at the Founder's Building in Egham, Surrey.
It comes after the BME network at Royal Holloway decided to start a poster campaign documenting the daily racist encounters and 'micro-aggressions' they faced. The pictures showed them holding up signs with some examples of racist remarks they face written in pen alongside the hashtag #itooamroyalholloway. In one such photograph, students are seen gathered around the statue of Queen Victoria, criticising her title of 'Empress of India'. The campaign uploaded it as a show of solidarity to the Rhodes Must Fall Oxford campaign.
Grace Almond, of the college's women of colour feminism society, wrote of the campaign: 'That some white students are so defensive over a statue of Queen Victoria, someone who sanctioned so many colonial exploits, shows you just how far white supremacy and racism is ingrained in our university.'
She added: 'Queen Victoria was implicitly involved in colonial exploits. She gave Cecil Rhodes a Royal Charter to lead an imperial conquest in Southern Africa. If she hadn't have given him this charter, he would not have been able to further colonisation of that region of the continent on behalf of the monarchy.' The march has been officially backed by the National Union of Students' black students campaign.
The lunatic Guardian newspaper even ran an article in favour of the movement asking whether a statue of the late Queen is offensive.
Can you believe this? Now in the article the Guardian ran they did at least include a poll of what Britons thought of the legacy of the British Empire.
Ready for a shock to conventional wisdom?
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A poll in January found that 43% of Britons think the British empire was a good thing – only 19% dissented, while 25% opted for neither – while 44% believed we should be proud of colonialism, with just 21% arguing we should regret it.
Now often with these controversies we'll shy away from defending the Empire but it is high time we did and let me put it bluntly.
Without the British Empire most of Africa would still be backwards tribes (or more so than it is still today). Without the Empire the Arabs would still be standing atop of all that oil not having a clue it was beneath them or having any idea of how to extract or make use of it. Without the Empire slavery would very much likely still exist as it was Britain which abolished slavery and forced others to abolish it too. Without the Empire there would be no trial by jury, common law or individual liberty in the likes of India, Bangladesh and the Carribean. Without the Empire India would still be practicing the disgusting genuinely racist caste system (which it still does to an extent) as well as carrying out awful practices such as having the wives of men who had died burn themselves alive atop of their husbands funeral pyre. I could go on but you get the picture.
So not only should we tell these nutter students to get lost (as they were told over Cecil Rhodes) but we should EDUCATE these idiots on the huge benefits the British Empire brought to the world. I am very very proud of our colonial and imperial past and you should be too.
How I would love to have the money to piss off these students and erect more imperial/colonial statues in our towns/cities.
Thoughts?
