Let's talk about British history...Bristol has very strong links in its history with the UK's colonial past, having been an important port for the colonies in America and therefore a key point in the slave trade.
But so has Liverpool and of course London. Let's not forget it. Just like Nantes, Bordeaux and Paris...Massive Attack and their genius complex formula, doubled with an amazingly rich and diverse music have almost "forced" Bristol to get out of its illusion about its glorious maritime past and face the reality and ambivalence of the colonial era. And that's not a small achievement for artists!
In Bristol, activists are still campaigning for change in regard to their 'Black' community's right to equality. The case of the Colston Hall is almost an anecdote, but it has become a symbolic one.
Here's a straight-to-the-point column about it, in the Guardian:
Bristol’s Colston Hall is an affront to a multicultural city. Let’s rename it now
No city is more wilfully blind to its history. It should stop honouring the slave trader who gives the venue his name
The zombie
walks again. The same threadbare straw man has been clumsily wheeled out and
the same mantra repeated. The same song from the same hymn book once again
fills the air. Yet the rhetorical stance taken by those opposed to the renaming
of Bristol’s Colston Hall is less a cogent argument and more a tacit accusation
– attack camouflaged as a form of defence.
The
argument goes like this. To seek to rename the concert hall, or to want to
topple the statue of Edward Colston that overlooks the docks from which
Bristol’s slave ships once sailed is – somehow – to seek to erase a part of the
city’s history. It is a contemptibly disingenuous position and Colston’s
defenders know it. Buildings are not named in order to help us remember our
history, they are named to honour rich and powerful men; and sometimes they are
men whom we should revile rather than honour.
The
identical strategy was deployed last year by those determined to ensure that
the squat little statue of Cecil Rhodes, affixed to Oxford’s Oriel College, was
not permitted to fall. Rhodes was saved, not by the force of argument, but by
the same commodity that encouraged his 19th-century defenders to tolerate his
crimes and turn blind eyes to his abuses – money. And money is what for
centuries has persuaded Bristol’s civic leaders to focus monomaniacally on the
undoubted philanthropy of Edward Colston. Those who want to rename Colston
Hall, like the students who want to topple Cecil Rhodes (not that I
agree completely with them or their tactics), are campaigners for a fuller,
more honest remembrance of history, not its erasure.
The true
erasure of Bristol’s critical role in slavery and the slave trade began
centuries ago, when slavery was intentionally re-imagined as a “respectable
trade”. In the 18th century, a nationwide propaganda campaign attempted to
methodically wipe out the truth and convince an increasingly morally queasy
nation that slavery was essentially benign. Slavery’s propagandists argued in
pamphlets and books that the hundreds of thousands of Africans who toiled on
Britain’s Caribbean plantations had better diets, better homes and more free time
than the poor of England. Africans, they suggested, actively preferred slavery
over freedom and were a people naturally suited to bondage and the whip.
No British
city is more wilfully blind to its history than Bristol. Having lived in
Liverpool and London, two cities whose connections to slavery run deep, I can
say that Bristol stands head and shoulders above the competition in its
capacity to obscure its past and obfuscate its history. For three centuries,
slavery has been hidden behind that wall of lies and denial, but the biggest
lie of all was given literal solidity when it was cast into bronze and affixed
to the pedestal upon which stands the statue of Edward Colston. The
unctuous dedication on the plaque describes Colston as “one of the most virtuous
and wise sons of the city”.
Those words
were written in 1895, by which time Edward Colston had been in his
grave for 174 years, and Bristol was perhaps two thirds of the way through her
long age of denial about the centrality of slavery and the slave trade to its
past and its wealth. Edward Colston was neither virtuous nor wise. Amoral and
avaricious, he was also – let us not forget – a killer. Thousands of Africans
died to generate the wealth he later lavished on his home city. The real
victims of forgetting are the men, women and children who were enslaved by
Colston, a deputy governor of the Royal African Company – the entity
that transported more Africans into slavery than any in British history.
The
current refurbishment of Colston Hall, due to be completed in 2020, is, of
course, the perfect opportunity and the right moment for the venue to be
renamed.
I
know black Bristolians who refuse to set foot in Colston Hall while it carries
the name of a slave trader and to their enormous credit, Massive Attack,
Bristol’s most innovative and successful band, have for years refused to play
there.
Those
opposed to renaming the hall need to consider exactly what it says about the
city each time we ask a black musician to perform under Colston’s name. What
message does that send out about us and our respect for others? Names matter,
gestures matter and uncomfortable histories do not simply go away. But there
are other pressing reasons why Bristol needs to take this step.
Bristol’s
record on racial equality is the worst of any major British city.
A report jointly written by Manchester’s Centre on Dynamics of
Ethnicity and the Runnymede Trust, concluded that the 16% of Bristol’s population
who are BAME – black, Asian and minority ethnic – are subject to what it calls
an “ethical penalty”. Non-white Bristolians gain fewer academic qualifications
in the city’s schools, they find fewer opportunities in the local job market
and suffer inequalities in health provision, compared to the city’s white
communities. Dr Nissa Finney, of the CDE, noted that the extent of Bristol’s
“ethnic inequalities is striking and it has not improved in the last 15 years”.
Colston is
an issue that has deeply divided Bristol, which is perhaps appropriate as
few cities are as divided as this one. Clifton, the Georgian quarter
overlooking the Avon Gorge, is almost a city in itself – a middle-class citadel
high on the hill, towering over the largely white, working class and
comparatively deprived areas of Bedminster, Ashton and Southville. To the east
is St Pauls – run down but being rapidly gentrified, it is the
long-established centre of the city’s West Indian population.
The
socioeconomic and racial zoning of Bristol is worthy of the Deep South, and
that geographic distance is the enabler of profound differences of perspective.
From the Georgian squares of Clifton, Edward Colston might seem like merely a
feature of the city’s rich heritage. From St Pauls, Bristol’s seemingly
undimmed determination to honour his memory and marginalise his crimes appears
insensitive, even callous.
We need to
be honouring our commitments to the life chances of the thousands of minority
children currently in Bristol schools, not a long dead purveyor of human flesh.
We
are better than this. I look forward to 2020 when, as part of a mixed-race,
multicultural Bristolian crowd, I hope to finally watch Massive
Attack perform in their home city – in the venue formerly known as Colston
Hall.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/26/colston-hall-bristol-should-look-honestly-at-its-history
--
This is what Robert Del Naja had to say about it in 2009:
"They've spent £18m on it, and our point was, if you're going to rebrand Colston Hall, don't you want to think about changing its name so it's not named after a slave-ship builder? You could just alter it, so it's called the Colston Hall and the Sierra Leone Centre, or the Freetown Centre. You don't have to erase Colston, you just add something about West Africa to the equation, so when people come to Bristol, it's not hidden. We're just trying to address some of these things, un-Tippex them, so that it changes the way people look at the city."
(In The Guardian, on Sept. 10, 2009)
--
This artwork was created by Robert Del Naja in 2009 as part of the impressive series for the band's fifth album, Heligoland, totally inspired by the theme of 'minstrels' and 'blackface' colonial and post-colonial entertainment, as a means to remind us of our soft-under-the-carpet history...
--
In The Bristol Post:
Bristol's Colston Hall 'an affront to a multicultural city' and must be renamed, says David Olusoga
| Posted: February 26, 2017
A prominent historian says Bristol's Colston Hall is "an affront to a multicultutral city" and should be renamed.
British-Nigerian historian David Olusoga said Bristol was "blind" to its historical connections with slavery and and "has socioeconomic and racial zoning of Bristol worthy of the Deep South".
Colston Hall is currently undergoing a £45 million refurbished and has asked people in Bristol what new features they would like to see inside.
In response, some campaigners have used the public consultation to demand that the name of the 17th century slave trader be dropped.
Mr Olusoga, who grew up in Newcastle after arriving to the UK as a 14-year-old boy from Nigeria, said he supports the campaign to drop the Colston name from the venue.
Writing in The Guardian today (Sunday, February 26, 2017) he said: "No British city is more wilfully blind to its history than Bristol. Having lived in Liverpool and London, two cities whose connections to slavery run deep, I can say that Bristol stands head and shoulders above the competition in its capacity to obscure its past and obfuscate its history."
The Colston Hall name debate has been running for years, and Bristol's most famous band Massive Attack have long refused to perform at the venue.
We reported last week how the Bristol Music Trust has said that the new £45 million refurbishment may result in a name-change if a sponsor decides to invest heavily in return for naming rights.
In a Bristol Post poll, readers voted two to one in favour of keeping the name.
But Mr Olusoga said: "[Their argument is that] to seek to rename the concert hall, or to want to topple the statue of Edward Colston that overlooks the docks from which Bristol's slave ships once sailed is – somehow – to seek to erase a part of the city's history.
"It is a contemptibly disingenuous position and Colston's defenders know it.
"Buildings are not named in order to help us remember our history, they are named to honour rich and powerful men; and sometimes they are men whom we should revile rather than honour."
The current refurbishment of Colston Hall, which first opened as a concert venue in 1867, is timed to coincide with its 150th birthday.
Mr Olusoga, who is also a TV presenter, said: "The current refurbishment of Colston Hall is, of course, the perfect opportunity and the right moment for the venue to be renamed.
"I know black Bristolians who refuse to set foot in Colston Hall while it carries the name of a slave trader and to their enormous credit, Massive Attack, Bristol's most innovative and successful band, have for years refused to play there.
"We need to be honouring our commitments to the life chances of the thousands of minority children currently in Bristol schools, not a long dead purveyor of human flesh.
"We are better than this. As part of a mixed-race, multicultural Bristolian crowd, I hope to finally watch Massive Attack perform in their home city – in the venue formerly known as Colston Hall."
