Statues & remembering the past

(BTW:  As a lover of history and a writer of all-kinds of apocalyptic, utopian, and alternative history stories, I'm loving reading through this thread! You go, guys!)

As Steve mentioned Italy in his above post (with which I find myself in agreement), we do have plenty of reminders of the Fascist era - which, however, happen to have quite a bit of artistic value. Three years ago, this article was published on The New Yorker, urging Italians to tear down those buildings, and showing very little understanding of the country as a whole: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/why-are-so-many-fascist-monuments-still-standing-in-italy

Two articles were published in response to this on the Italian paper to which I subscribe. I have both of them saved, but you would need to understand Italian (or take your chances with online translators) to read them.

I agree that whitewashing history and/or removing things from the past that make you ashamed of the past isn't the way to go. That said, that isn't what is happening here. There are many ways to preserve history, such as museums and books and teaching/learning (albeit those last two seem to be out of vogue in at least America today), that can actually help people understand what happened, why it happened, and ideally how to stop it from happening again. If you want whitewashing, check out Brazil's new president confiscating books and materials from colleges. That's how you erase history (or at least the history  you want erased). 

Easy Money wrote: Guldbamsen wrote: I am not at all saying that they’re the same. I’m merely talking about history and how we continue to whitewash what we don’t particularly like about our past. Removing a statue does not change history. The Germans got rid of their nazi statues, did anyone forget about the nazis, of course not.

 

^ Basically, this.

Guldbamsen wrote: Nahh these statues, the Auschwitz camp as well as all the other grim reminders of our past need to be preserved in order to combat the same evil from happening all over again.

No offense, but this comparison doesn't make any sense. Auschwitz's status as a grim reminder to humanity is uncontested because it is unambiguous in its meaning: it shows the modus operandi of the Nazis without filter and serves as very clear evidence of the horrendous crimes that took place there. A statue, as many people in this thread have stated, is a tribute; it wasn't erected to remind people of the crimes committed by the people it depicts, in fact it doesn't usually do anything to specifically remind people of them and could just as easily be construed by evil men as a statement of support for them.

There is no reason why the few with actual historical or artistic value can't be relocated to a museum or some other place where the context is completely different. If you really want to make the comparison with Nazi Germany, there's a reason why Germany also no longer has statues commemmorating its own leaders from the Nazi era.

I agree. But what happens now from my point of view is nothing but madness.

Initially it's a tribute, then it becomes history.

Breaking 300 years old (or so) statues is vandalism.

Personally the world should ban statues of humans. Only dog statues should be allowed