My Objections to the Removal of the African Statue on Stroud’s Town Clock

More iconoclasm driven by current sensitivities over historic slavery and contemporary racism. The local news for the Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire area, Points West, reported that Stroud council was expected to vote for the removal of the statue of an African from the town clock. I’m not surprised, as there were demands last year from a local anti-racist group, Stroud Against Racism, demanding its removal, and I really thought it had been taken down already. Stroud’s a small town in Gloucestershire, whose historic economy I always thought was based on the Cotswold wool trade rather than something more sinister. Stroud Against Racism seems to be a group of mainly young Black people, led by a local artist, who’ve had terrible personal experiences of racism in the town. In an interview on BBC local news, it seemed that they particularly resented the figure as representation of the racist attitudes they’d experienced. They assumed it was a slave and demanded its removal, with one young Black woman complaining about the statue’s grotesque features which she obviously felt were an insulting caricature.

The African ‘Slave’ Figure on Stroud Town Clock

While I entirely sympathise with them for the abuse they suffered as victims of racism and appreciate why they would want the statue removed, I believe it is profoundly mistaken. Firstly, while the local news has been describing the statue as a slave, there’s no evidence that connects it directly to slavery and the slave trade. They know the name of the clockmaker, and that’s it. No evidence has been presented to suggest he had any connection with the slave trade or slavery at all. Further more, there are no marks on the statue to suggest slavery. There are no chains or manacles, as seen in this image of Black African slaves captured by a group of Arab slavers below.

Arab Slave Coffle

Nor does the figure look like the poor souls on sale in this 19th century picture of an American slave market.

American Slave Market

It looks far more like African chief and his people, shown making a treaty with British officers in this painting from 1815, following the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807.

British Officer Meeting African Chiefs to Make a treaty, 1815

As Europe expanded to colonise and establish trading links with the outside world from the 15th century onwards, so Blacks and other indigenous peoples began to enter European art. Sometimes they were depicted as servants and slaves, but at other times simply as symbols of the exotic. See this picture of the 17th century painting, Vanitas, by Jaques de Gheyn.

Jacques de Gheyn, Vanitas, 17th century

The statue also looks somewhat like the depictions of a Black Brazilian family by the `17th century Dutch artist, Albert Eckhout, between 1641-3. These are part of a series of 8 paintings commissioned by the Dutch governor of Nassau, intended to be anthropological studies of Brazil’s non-White peoples.

Blacks also appear as decorations on the musical instruments of the time. For example, negro heads often adorned the pegboxes of citterns, a 17th century ancestor of the guitar. It therefore seems to me that the statue of the Black African on Stroud’s clock is not that of a slave, but simply of the sculptor’s idea of an indigenous Black African. The modelling isn’t very good, but I suspect this is less due to any animosity on the part of the sculptor than simple lack of artistic training or skill. It’s more an example of folk art, rather than that of someone with a proper academic artistic education.

I therefore think that it’s wrong to assume that the Stroud figure is a slave. The assumption that it is seems to be a result of the general attack on anything vaguely connected to historic slavery and the slave trade following the mass protests in support of Black Lives Matter. It also seems to be directly influenced by the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, further to the south.

In fact, I believe that rather than suggesting Black degradation and slavery, the statue could be seen in a far more positive light as showing Stroud proudly embracing Blacks as trading partners as well as symbols of exoticism and prosperity.

A Warning to the Left: Blacks United with Whites against Grooming Gangs behind Tommy Robinson

Or at least one Black man did, though he may well be the only one. A couple of weeks ago Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon, held a rally against the Muslim grooming gangs and particularly their depredations on Telford’s White girls. During this he showed his film, which included testimony from the abused girls themselves. He was met by counter protestors from the trades union and Stand Up to Racism, who in my opinion showed themselves so utterly incompetent and unable to tackle Robinson on his own ground that they actually made him look good. Callum, one of the wretched Lotus Eaters alongside Carl ‘Sargon of Akkad’ Benjamin and their frequent guest, right-wing Scots comedian Leo Kearse, went there to film it all. Stand Up To Racism said and did nothing against the grooming gangs. Instead they shouted the usual anti-Nazi slogans down a megaphone: ‘Off the streets, Fascist scum’ and ‘Refugees welcome’. As I said in a previous blog post about this, these slogans would have been absolutely fine and appropriate if it was the usual kind of right-wing, anti-immigrant racist rally. But it wasn’t. Robinson was ostensibly protesting against real racist abuse of White girls by men who were largely, but not wholly, Pakistani Muslims. If Stand Up to Racism had been serious about tackling Lennon, they would or should have found a way to address the racism that caused these men to attack the girls in what looks very much like racist sexual assault without supporting Lennon and his followers. But they didn’t. Indeed they turned their backs and marched off when the film came to the girls themselves speaking about their assaults. Callum had walked over to the counter protesters and asked them if they supported the grooming gangs. ‘Of course not’, they replied. So he raised the question why they weren’t over there with Robinson. No answer.

Of course they shouldn’t march with Robinson, because Robinson is a genuine Islamophobic thug, as well as a convicted criminal. He’s been sent down for assault, convicted of mortgage fraud and has spent the last few weeks trying to hide his financial assets so that he doesn’t have to pay the tens of thousands he owes in libel damages to a Syrian lad. This poor kid was the victim of racist bullying at his school, but Danny Tommo sided with the bully, who claimed to be the victim and that the Syrian lad was the aggressor. Robinson also has form for turning up at his critics’ homes, or those of their parents and relatives, at night with his followers demanding a word. He’ll also post their addresses, but say that he doesn’t want them touched, before taking the addresses down. But not before his followers have been able to make good note. One of his opponents, the teacher and vlogger Mike Stuchbery, he libelled as a child molester. Hence Stuchbery has lost his job and moved to Germany. Stand Up To Racism are entirely right not to want to give an inch of support to Robinson. But they should have made it clear that they also supported the grooming gangs’ victims.

Instead they demonstrated the complete opposite, that they were unable to tackle the issue because they were White, and that to them, White victims of racist abuse don’t count.

Earlier today I found on YouTube a video Robinson’s supporters made of the proceedings, or part of it. It was produced by Free Man Media and Voice Of Wales, and with a title about the ‘Rape of Telford’. I’m not putting it up because I don’t want to give Robinson publicity, but you’re free to Google for it. And I have to say it’s well done. Robinson and his followers claim they’re not racists, because Islam is a religion, not a race. True, but in this country it’s strongly linked with Asians and other non-Whites. Robinson’s video shows the crowds marching behind him coming to join his rally. Most of them are White. There are a few people at the front giving their views. These are also mostly White, but the second person to speak on the video is young Black guy or mixed race guy, hair in dreadlocks, wearing a sweatshirt with the slogan ‘Black and White Unite’.

And I salute him, even though I think he’s made a poor choice in following Robinson.

He’s doing what the Left should be doing, but isn’t. Racism and Fascism aren’t confined to any one colour, creed, nation, or race. Blacks, Whites and Asians should be uniting behind all racism, including that against Whites. This was the case in the 90s and in the first years of this century. The CRE published a report, authored by Independent columnist and liberal Muslim, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, attacking anti-White racism at the time when it was revealed that 60 per cent of all racist assaults and incidents were against Whites. Birmingham police also talked about this as a problem in their city. There was an anti-White racist incident in Bristol, which was reported on Points West, the local BBC News programme. The anti-racist organisation responded to the incident with a statement that they were there for all victims of racism, regardless of colour. And in 2006 a Muslim journalist wrote a piece in one of the left-wing papers stating that Blacks and Asians should united with the White working class against Islamist extremism and racism in the form of Hizb ut-Tahrir. That’s a proscribed group that wants an Islamic caliphate in Pakistan or somewhere. Ed Hussein used to belong to it before he saw sense and broke away.

But it seems that, in the age of Black Lives Matter, the Left is completely unable to cope with anti-White racism.

I think much of this is because the anti-racism movement emerged to tackle the threat of White racism and Fascism and this is so much the ingrained attitude, that they cannot conceive of, let alone tackle, organised anti-White racism. This is shown at its most extreme in the attempts by Black activists to change the definition of racism to ‘persecution + institutional oppression’, so that only Whites and White society are guilty of it. But it’s also shown in the way the grooming gangs were able to get away with it for so long. The police, social services and local authorities knew about it and did nothing, absolutely nothing.

Because they were afraid of being called racist.

And because the left identities racism almost wholly with Whites, they haven’t a clue how to handle it or protest against it. And thus Tommy Robinson and his wretched crew end up looking much better than them.

I’ve said again and again that Black and Asian people would join Whites in marching against anti-White racism. Just as Whites have marched alongside their Black brothers and sisters against anti-Black and Asian racism, violence and discrimination. Liberal Muslims have marched against the Islamists, really nasty types like Kalim Saddiqui. This bigot was filmed by the Beeb declaring that British society was a monstrous killing machine and killing Muslims comes very easily to them. But the Muslims who marched against him complained that they got no support or publicity from the mainstream.

The left’s blind spot when it comes to BAME racism is part of the problem, not that of the Black or Asian communities. It is itself catastrophically bigoted and incompetent. I therefore believe that if it is serious about tackling Robinson, it has to recognise the existence of anti-White racism and show that it can tackle this with impartiality, just as it combats racism against Blacks and Asians.

Because if the left doesn’t unite Blacks and Whites against predators like the grooming gangs, Robinson will.

Respect! Bristol Labour MP Tangram Debonnaire Outclasses Beeb Interviewer

The Bristol Labour MP Tangram Debonnaire was being interviewed this morning by BBC Points West’s David Garmston. Garmston’s a solid, older man with white hair, who looks to my mind like the newsreader Kent Brockman from the Simpsons. I didn’t watch all of the interview, just the bit where he came a cropper asking about her support for Jeremy Corbyn. I always got the impression that Tangram was a member of the Labour right, like Karen Smyth. However, she was the only local Labour MP for the city who turned out to greet Corbyn when he campaigned here in Bristol a year or so ago. Garmston challenged her, saying, ‘But you supported Jeremy Corbyn’. ‘No,’ replied Debonnaire, ‘I( said I wanted a Labour victory. Because any Labour government would be better than a Conservative. Check your videos.’ At which point she got a grim look from Garmston, who then said, ‘Moving swiftly on.’

Ho ho! I’m not sure I agree with everything Debonnaire stands for, but she certainly outmatched the Beeb and their anti-Corbyn angle, although I noticed that she didn’t exactly support him either. But her reply was good enough for me.

Unfortunately, though, I don’t believe that under Starmer a Labour government would be better than a Conservative. It’d just be more of the same, only the people doing it would change.

Bristol Announces Education Report about the Contribution of Different Communities to City

Yesterday a couple of bods from Bristol city council appeared on the news to announce the imminent public of two reports, both dealing with race and community issues. At lunchtime it was reported that there was a report coming out about how the city should educate people about city’s history as a major centre of the slave trade. Then on the 6.30 local news, deputy mayor and head of equalities Asher Craig appeared to tell viewers about another report coming out about another education initiative, this time about the contribution different communities had made to the city. She thought it might perhaps form the basis for a new museum. The report was hailed as bringing communities together.

Bristol’s a port city and so people of different races and nationalities have been living in the city since the Middle Ages. It had a Jewish community, complete with a miqveh or ritual bath, on Jacob’s Wells Road before Edward I’s expulsion of them from England. it also had strong links with Ireland, and it’s possible that there was a community of Bristol merchants in Dublin before Henry IIs invasion of 1169. It also had strong links to Wales, and so there’s always been people from Ireland and Wales here in the city. There were a few Icelandic merchants resident in Bristol in the 15th century. As the city also traded in wine from France and Spain, I’m fairly certain there were also French people and Spaniards here. There were also Black people in Bristol from the 16th century onwards following the emergence of the transatlantic slave trade. However, the bulk of the modern Black population probably really only dates from the Windrush migration. Other immigrants to Bristol include Poles, Russians – there’s a Russian Orthodox church on University Road by the museum in Clifton, Chinese and peeps from India and Pakistan. A few years ago a book was published about Bristol’s diverse immigrant population.

But I don’t think this is primarily about all of the city’s various ethnic communities. I think it’s really an attempt to promote Bristol’s Black community. Last year, when I contacted Craig criticising her for some of her comments about the city’s involvement in the slave trade, her reply talked about the ‘One Bristol’ educational project. This would promote Blacks, and be ‘diverse and inclusive’, which didn’t always happen with White men. I don’t know if that last comment is a deliberate sneer or putdown.

It’s fair to say that the majority Black areas of the Bristol have the same problems and reputation of inner cities elsewhere – drugs, crime, prostitution and violence. When I was growing up people from outside the area drove along Stapleton Road in St. Paul’s with their windows up and the door firmly locked. Nearly two decades ago in 2004 there were a series of murders in the area and it was reported on the news that there was a gun-related incident everyday. I can remember going along the road on the bus to a lecture at UWE and seeing armed policemen on the street. I’ve heard from friends that there are local people in the community collecting and blogging about the area and Bristol’s black history as way of combating the alienation and marginalisation many Black Bristolians feel. From Craig’s reply to me, it looks like the ‘One Bristol’ education project is intended to do something similar by giving a more positive image of the community.

As for educating Bristolians about the city’s role in the slave trade, I’ve grown up knowing about it although there is still the strong belief among some Blacks, repeated by Craig in her interview on Radio 4 last year, that the city authorities have covered it up. In the 1990s the City Museum and Art Gallery staged an exhibition about the city and the slave trade, ‘A Respectable Trade’, named after the costume drama then showing on the Beeb, adapted from a book by Philippa Gregory. The M Shed museum on the city docks also has a gallery about Bristol and the slave trade. There are articles about the city’s involvement in the slave trade on the museum’s website, a slave walk in Clifton and a plaque on one of the warehouses down by the M Shed commemorating the victims who were enslaved and sold by Bristol merchants. The official name for the very bizarre looking ‘horned bridge’ across the dock’s is Pero’s Bridge, after one of the few named slaves who was brought to Bristol itself.

I have to say I’m a bit sensitive about some of the demands for the proper commemoration of the slave trade in the city. It sometimes seems to me that’s it’s being used by angry members of the Black community to attack White Bristol because of the poverty and marginalisation that still plagues their community. Back in the 1990s, for example, when the city celebrated the 500th anniversary of John Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland, various Black spokesmen declared that it was a celebration of slavery. This followed American Blacks’ condemnation of the celebration of Columbus’ discovery of America a few years earlier. Indigenous Americans also attacked it as a celebration of their genocide. It wasn’t, of course, meant to be a celebration of slavery, but they had a point. Following Columbus discovery of the New World, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean were enslaved and worked, tortured and massacred until they died out. The Spanish then turned to Black African slaves to replace them. I don’t believe that the discovery of Newfoundland had any direct connection with slavery. That seems to have started in 1619 when Spanish merchants brought a consignment of them to Jamestown, and it seems that initially the English settlers didn’t know what to do with them. However, slavery and all the horrendous methods of repression soon followed. A Black artist produced a picture showing his feelings about the celebration of Cabot’s discovery. It shows the Matthew sailing up the Avon Gorge. watched by cameras from the Evening Post and the local news, while shadowy figures rampage across the suspension bridge. The painting’s now on display in the slavery gallery in the M Shed. To me it demonstrates a bitter mentality that automatically assumes any celebration like it must somehow be about the persecution or exploitation of Blacks, and it seems to me that a similar deep bitterness is driving the demands for proper education about the city’s slavery history. On the other hand, there have been a large influx of newcomers to the city from London and elsewhere, and it’s possible that, not being Bristolians, they really know little about the city and the slave trade. The education initiative could therefore be a response to them requiring to know more.

Points West stated that the report about educating Bristolians about the contributions of Bristol’s multiracial communities will make five recommendations, while the one about slavery will make fifteen. It’ll be interesting to see what they are.

I Condemn the Racist Abuse Against Labour Deputy Mayor Asher Craig

Last night the BBC local news programme for the Bristol area, Points West, reported that the city’s deputy mayor, Asher Craig, and the elected mayor himself, Marvin, had received 6,000 racially abusive messages. This followed the toppling of the statue of the slaver Edward Colston last summer, and the passage of the motion supporting reparations for slavery by the council. The motion was actually proposed by the Green councillor for Cotham, Cleo Lake, but seconded by Craig. Which was natural, as Craig is also the city’s head of equality.

I have to say that Craig is very far from my favourite politico, though I think that in general Marvin has been very good for the city. He’s much better than his predecessor, Ferguson, of red trousers fame. Ferguson cut funding for services to the bone, if not beyond, and turned down money from central government to which the city was entitled. And this is a very small, insignificant point, but it irritates nonetheless. Ferguson in his vanity changed the name of the city’s seat of government from the Council House to City Hall. Because the latter sounded better. But it always was the Council House, and, to me, always should be.

As I’ve made it very clear on my blog, I have strong criticisms of the reparations motion, which I’ve laid out in previous posts. While I believe very strongly that the motion is deeply flawed, I agree with its Tory opponents that it came from a good place. I do appreciate that she is trying her best for Bristol’s Black community, which is, in general, marginalised and disadvantaged.

And in any case, no-one should have to suffer abuse, whether racist or not, although the latter is particularly offensive and distasteful.

My Letter to BBC Local News Against the Anti-Semitism Smear Campaign Against David Miller

Last week the right-wing British press and the Zionist Jewish establishment launched another smear campaign against someone for criticising Israel. This was Dr David Miller, an academic at Bristol University, who had been one of the speakers at an event about defending free speech in the Labour party. Dr Miller committed the heinous crime of saying that Zionism needed to be ended. The Daily Heil, Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism and the Community Security Trust, as well as the university’s Jewish Society, all went bug-eyed with rage and accused him of anti-Semitism. The issue has been on the local BBC news programme here in Bristol, Points West. Various members of the Jewish establishment have appeared on the programme ranting about how this is somehow preparatory to demanding full scale anti-Semitic persecution, hinting at the holocaust. One very angry gent on Sunday morning’s edition said of it that ‘we all know where that goes’ – clearly implying that Miller’s comments about Zionism, not about Jews, were tantamount to a call for pogroms and another Holocaust. They also claimed that Jewish students no longer felt safe and comfortable at the university thanks to Dr Miller’s comments. Which is peculiar coming from the right, which likes to rant about left-wing snowflakes. Well, there’s more than a bit of snowflakery going on here.

I’ve discussed this latest controversy in a previous article. As usual with these witch hunts, it’s nothing to do with real, vicious Jew hatred, but simply the right-wing British press and the Zionists of the British Jewish establishment seeking to defend Israel and its horrendous persecution of the Palestinians. They do this by smearing any and all critics or simply respectable journalists, who accurately report atrocities committed by the Israelis and their allies, as anti-Semites. They did it to Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, including such principled, self-respecting Jews as Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein. They did it to Marc Wadsworth, a Black anti-racist activist, who had worked with the Board to combat real anti-Semitic attacks on Jews by the scumbags of the NF/BNP in the 1980s. They did and are doing it to more ordinary members of the Labour party like Mike Sivier and Martin Odoni. All the above are genuinely anti-racist with no sympathy whatsoever for Fascism, and Martin’s also Jewish. But this means nothing to these moral frauds, who are determined to vilify and demonise decent people in their zeal for defending the indefensible.

Other speakers at the conference including Dr Norman Finkelstein, a respected American academic and passionate opponent of the Israeli state, and Ronnie Kasrils, a former minister in Nelson Mandela’s cabinet in South Africa. Both of them are Jewish, which clearly demonstrates that whatever the British Jewish establishment claims, they do not speak for all of Britain’s diverse Jewish community. This is also a repeat of a campaign these organisations launched against another academic at Bristol Uni, Dr Rachel Gould. Dr Gould was also guilty of making anti-Israel comments, despite being Jewish herself.

I am heartily, heartily sick of this witch-hunt and demonisation of decent people. I therefore wrote to BBC Points West to express my outrage as a way to make my feelings about this whole sorry affair public. Normally I would have written to the paper, but as all of the papers are solidly behind the witch hunters and against their victims, BBC Points West looked like the best and only option available. Here’s the text of the letter:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for coverage over the current controversy about Dr David Miller of Bristol University and the accusations of anti-Semitism that have been levelled against him. I am writing to you to express my utter disgust at what I see as a campaign of vilification against him for making a legitimate criticism not of Jews or Judaism, but of a political ideology. I am an historian and archaeologist, who was educated at school and as an undergraduate at College by Christian teachers and professors, who had a profound respect and warm sympathy for the Jewish people. They were acutely aware of the horrors Jews have suffered down the centuries, and taught their students about the Holocaust long before it became government educational policy. I myself have had the good fortune to enjoy the friendship of many people of Jewish descent and heritage.  I have also studied the history of Fascism and its loathsome doctrines, and its racism and violence towards Jews and people of colour.

Dr Miller has been accused of anti-Semitism because he called for the end of Zionism at a recent conference on free speech in the Labour Party. This has provoked a campaign against him by the Daily Mail, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. This is profoundly and utterly wrong. Zionism is a political doctrine and is certainly not synonymous with the Jewish people or their faith. From what I understand, the Jewish people have never been the monolithic community claimed by anti-Semites. They have always held a variety of views on religious and political issues, including Zionism. Indeed, many Jews have strongly rejected Zionism because they viewed it as an internalisation of gentile anti-Semitism. Non-Jewish anti-Semites have claimed that a special state should be created for Jews, not out of sympathy for them, but simply in order to remove them their own countries. One example of this was the Fascist scheme to settle Jews in Madagascar. Jewish opposition to Zionism was famously expressed on the graffiti on a Jerusalem wall which stated ‘Zionism and Judaism are diametrically opposed.’ Several of the other speakers at the conference where Dr Miller made his comments were themselves Jewish, and also opponents of Zionism or critics of Israel. They included the noted American scholar, Dr Norman Finkelstein, and Ronnie Kasrils, a former minister in Nelson Mandela’s government.

I find it a matter of deep concern that the Daily Mail, the Board of Deputies and the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, as well as Bristol University’s Jewish Society, are accusing Dr Miller of anti-Semitism through confusing Jew-hatred with anti-Zionism, just as was done four years ago to another academic at Bristol University, Dr Rachel Gould. Dr Gould was also accused of anti-Semitism because of comments she had made about Israel, despite she herself being Jewish. But the real existential threat to Jews in my opinion comes not from decent people criticising Israel, but from real Nazis like the utterly repellent and extremely violent National Action.

I am also astonished by the claim that Jewish students do not feel they are welcome at Bristol University because of Dr Miller’s comments. These were, as I said, about Zionism, not about Jews. One of the most important aspects of a university education – what makes it education rather than mere instruction – is the exposure to different views, opinions and perspectives. This should be able to include criticism of Zionism as a political doctrine while excluding the real political doctrines that threaten Jews and other minorities, like Fascism. Yet not only is it claimed that criticism of Zionism is supposedly anti-Semitic, but that Jewish students are too sensitive and delicate to be allowed to hear arguments against it for fear of offending them. This belittles these students’ resilience and ability to engage in robust debate.

I am also utterly disgusted at the way the organisations leading the campaign against Dr Miller are invoking the spectre of real, vicious anti-Semitic persecution and the Holocaust. Dr Miller has certainly said nothing to support such persecution. I am acutely aware that very many British Jews lost family and friends to the Nazis’ appalling persecution, and that their descendants and relatives are still traumatised and haunted by its horrors. I therefore find the invocation of such persecution by the Mail, CAA, and the Board of Deputies to be nothing less than grossly repulsive scaremongering in order to turn decent people away from a person who is, as far as I can see, completely innocent of real Jew-hatred.

I feel very strongly that Dr Miller is innocent of the anti-Semitism of which he is accused, and that it is his accusers, who are behaving in a vile and disgraceful fashion. I have no issue with his opponents defending Israel and challenging his views on Zionism, but feel it is utterly contemptible to do this by confusing it with real anti-Semitism. At the very least, abusing the accusation of anti-Semitism in this way robs it of its power to shock and identify real Nazis and anti-Semites.

Yours faithfully,

I don’t know if this will do any good or even be read. After I sent it I got an automatic message back from the programme telling me that it had been received, but they were receiving so many messages that it was impossible for them to reply individually. But I felt it had to be done, and will let you know if I get a reply from the programme.