London – British government proposes controversial new law to protect historic monuments in England after statues of slave traders were overthrown or removed by local authorities during Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
Currently, in England, local governments have to approve any major building changes, but the same rules do not apply to statues. The new legislation would extend the requirements for buildings to cover statues and add an option for the national government to veto local council decisions.
“There was an attempt to impose a single narrative, often negative, which is not so much reminiscent of our national story as it seeks to erase some of it. This was done by the hand of the flash mob or by the decree of a “cultural committee” of the militants of the mayor’s office and woke up worthy “, wrote the secretary of the communities Robert Jenrick in an article from the British newspaper Sunday Telegraph
The proposed legislation must be approved by Parliament to become law.
“What has been left for generations should be considered carefully, not removed on a whim or on the orders of a paying crowd,” Jenrick continued.
In June, a statue of slave trader Edward Colston, who died 300 years ago, was overturned and thrown into a river by Black Lives Matter protesters in the English city of Bristol, triggering a heritage and inclusion debate. Local officials, after consulting with various parties, decided that the statue of Colston would be placed in a museum next to the protest signs.
“It’s up to us to make sure we record this moment so that future generations can understand the journey Bristol has made,” Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees told the BBC at the time.
Shortly thereafter, London Mayor Sidiq Khan set up a new Commission for Diversity in the Public Domain to review public landmarks, art and street names in the capital so that they reflect the city’s diversity and “promote the discussion of what heritage should be to be celebrated “.
“There are some slaves who should come down, and the commission will advise this,” Khan told BBC News. Under the proposed legislation, the national government will be able to veto decisions taken by local authorities on the advice of the Commission.
Members of the art community, historians and racial equality activists rushed to criticize the government’s plan, accusing it of trying to divert attention from more pressing issues, including the widely criticized response to the pandemic that left Britain with the most. bad person per capita. COVID-19 mortality rate of any nation.
“(It’s) smoke and mirrors,” Dr. Halima Begum, director of the racial equality think tank Runnymede Trust, told the Guardian. “With an eye on the next election, Jenrick used this article to precipitate an invented war of culture, to stir up the conservative base, and to divert attention from the terrible failures of this government around Covid.”
“I wish we could get rid of the language of censorship and erasure and understand that it’s about broadening, deepening and creating honest and inclusive narratives,” Sharon Heal, director of the Museum Association’s advocacy group, wrote on Twitter.