{"id":8050,"date":"2020-06-15T03:51:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T00:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-statue-smashers-wont-stop-there-unless-we-stop-them-now\/"},"modified":"2020-06-15T03:51:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T00:51:00","slug":"the-statue-smashers-wont-stop-there-unless-we-stop-them-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-statue-smashers-wont-stop-there-unless-we-stop-them-now\/","title":{"rendered":"#The statue-smashers won\u2019t stop there \u2014 unless we stop them now"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The statue-smashers won\u2019t stop there \u2014 unless we stop them now<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Columbus sailed the ocean blue \u2014 and then got beheaded in Boston\u2019s North End. Local governments should arrest and prosecute \u201cprotesters\u201d who are attacking statues all across the West. Otherwise, they\u2019re setting a precedent for the wanton destruction of art.<\/p>\n

From Boston to Bristol, England, latter-day vandals are decapitating, spray-painting, smashing and throwing into the sea statues of fallen idols. In the South, Confederate leaders are a target; in Britain, anyone to do with the slave trade. But Columbus is the commonest trophy, largely due to his likeness\u2019 ubiquity in town squares. The most famous, in Columbus Circle (or just plain Circle?), now has a heavy round-the-clock police guard.<\/p>\n

To be clear: We should continue to reconsider who gets pride of place in public spaces. When I lived in New Orleans 25 years ago, I thought it was strange to ride down highways named after Jeff Davis.<\/p>\n

All the monuments, though, had a double meaning: They were a reminder that the legacy of slavery still oppressed the country. Sure, rename the highway, but don\u2019t erase history. Confederate statues belong in museums, with explanation, not destroyed and graffitied.<\/p>\n

As for Columbus: Gov. Andrew Cuomo is right. Columbus was an imperfect man, to say the least. Anyone who went to elementary school in the past 40 years has heard the enlightened view. This isn\u2019t new. But as the governor said last week, Columbus statues are as much a symbol of 20th-century Italian-American heritage as they are of Columbus.<\/p>\n

Though, in hindsight, we\u2019d all like to rewrite elements of the last, say, 20,000 years of human development, we are where we are. We are all products and shapers of harsh history.<\/p>\n

Destruction of art is a common theme<\/a>. In the late 18th century, the Jacobins took hammers to the kingly statues that adorned Notre Dame; today, the original heads, buried by sympathizers with posterity, are in a museum. The pharaohs encouraged the defacement of monuments to their predecessors (which is why many Egyptian artifacts are literally defaced).<\/p>\n

Moving ahead a few years, the Taliban, 20 years ago, blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, which had stood for more than 1,000 years. ISIS destroyed Syrian edifices and artworks that had outlasted millennia. Al Qaeda attacked our architecture and what it stood for (inaccurately, since the World Trade Center was a symbol of central planning, not capital).<\/p>\n

You would think our pluralistic society would be more sophisticated. Nope: In the past decade, Yale has removed stained-glass windows depicting slavery, after an employee smashed one. Better to forget slavery?<\/p>\n

\"Should<\/img>
Should children stop reading \u201cHarry Potter\u201d because of J. K. Rowling\u2019s comments on the trans movement?<\/span>AFP via Getty Images <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In San Francisco, the school board last year voted to cover up murals showing slavery and colonialism, even though the Depression-era artist, Victor Arnautoff, wanted to remind people of the brutality of these eras, not glorify them.<\/p>\n

Movies<\/a>? You can\u2019t watch \u201cGone With the Wind.\u201d Nobody should watch this movie and think, \u201cGee, those were the days.\u201d But a properly educated audience can understand that the movie shows the stark horror of failure, because the cause was wrong, and doomed.<\/p>\n

We probably ought not watch \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life,\u201d as it glosses over black servitude, and so we should just miss its lessons about capitalism. J.K. Rowling has \u201cincorrect\u201d thoughts about the trans movement \u2014 so kids shouldn\u2019t read \u201cHarry Potter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where will we draw the line? Over two weeks, we\u2019ve raised \u2014 or lowered \u2014 the bar for protest. With so many supposedly reasonable people saying that it\u2019s OK to loot Soho to get your message out, peaceable marchers risk looking like they just don\u2019t care enough about their causes. If they really cared about the environment, they\u2019d burn stuff, too.<\/p>\n

Will we see \u201cprotesters\u201d march through a reopened Met, slapping red paint on Renaissance canvases that aren\u2019t diverse, or that illustrate rape? We have seen this before; in 1914, a suffragette slashed a painting of Thomas Carlyle in the National Portrait Gallery in London.<\/p>\n

If something doesn\u2019t speak to you, find something \u2014 or make something \u2014 that does. Work through the political process, to get something replaced or put into context.<\/p>\n

In a functional society, no one feels threatened by a statue \u2014 and prosecutors must make clear: You can\u2019t conduct art criticism with axes. Vandals aren\u2019t protesters \u00adexercising speech, and should pay for damage.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor of City Journal. Twitter<\/a>: @NicoleGelinas<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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“#The statue-smashers won\u2019t stop there \u2014 unless we stop them now” Columbus sailed the ocean blue \u2014 and then got beheaded in Boston\u2019s North End. Local governments should arrest and prosecute \u201cprotesters\u201d who are attacking statues all across the West. Otherwise, they\u2019re setting a precedent for the wanton destruction of art. From Boston to Bristol,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16491,16493,16494,16496,16495,16490,16492],"class_list":["post-8050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-columbus-sailed-the-ocean-blue-and-then-got-beheaded-in-bostons-north-end-local-governments-should-arrest-and-prosecute-protesters-who-are-attacking-statues-all-a","tag-england","tag-latter-day-vandals-are-decapitating","tag-smashing-and-throwing-into-the","tag-spray-painting","tag-the-statue-smashers-wont-stop-there-unless-we-stop-them-now","tag-theyre-setting-a-precedent-for-the-wanton-destruction-of-art-from-boston-to-bristol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}