Courtesy of Mish.
Activists are up in arms over statues.
In the US, a statue of Robert E. Lee has to go. In the UK, activists want to take down a statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson. In the Mideast, ISIS toppled the 800 years old Grand Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul.
Let’s recap the events and work out a logical solution.
Robert Edward Lee Sculpture
Wikipedia on the Robert Edward Lee Sculpture
The Robert E. Lee Sculpture is an outdoor bronze equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller. Commissioned in 1917 and forged in 1924, it is located in Charlottesville, Virginia’s Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park) in the Charlottesville and Albemarle County Courthouse Historic District. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
in March 2016, Charlottesville’s vice mayor Wes Bellamy called on Charlottesville City Council to remove the statue and rename Lee Park. He claimed that the statue’s presence “disrespected” parts of the community and that he had “spoken with several different people who have said they have refused to step foot into that park because of what that statue and the name of that park represents. And we can’t have that in the city of Charlottesville”
Local NAACP head Rick Turner spoke in support of removal, calling Lee a “terrorist”. Others accused the city council and Bellamy of disregarding Lee’s historical significance and how important he was to Virginia, of sowing division, and of trying to rewrite history. A petition to remove the statue was initiated, with wording saying the statue represented “hate” and was a “subliminal message of racism.”
On July 8, 2017, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Charlottesville protesting the city’s plan to remove the statue. The approximately 50 Klansmen were met by several hundred counter-protesters. The police used tear gas to disperse the crowd, and made 23 arrests.
On August 12, 2017, during the Unite the Right rally, clashes broke out between supporters of the statue, who marched under Neo-Nazi flags and shouted slogans including “Jews will not replace us”, and counter protesters. During the rally, counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed and 19 injured by a car ramming attack.
Admiral Horatio Nelson
Guardian writer Afua Hirsch, a proven member of the politically correct crowd writes Toppling statues? Here’s why Nelson’s column should be next.
