Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Building bridges in the wrong places


Dead celebrities are not coming back any more than dead slave traders. Dead kings and politicians, dead rock stars and footballers, they held the limelight briefly. Perhaps they are the lucky ones, the lived enough of a life to be famous, maybe rich, even leaving their mark. They did bad things and good things. Their stories are clear and exact in some places, dim and not easily understood in others. But they are gone and any trace they left diminishes every day - or maybe not. Fortunes may be a stake. If they shaped our world, if their deeds, policies, actions and their omissions are still echoing today then that has to be dealt with. Their history should be exposed, taught and explained as necessary and not covered up. 

This country has a sick, greedy, cruel colonial past that still has the power to influence and control. Landowners, country estates, great swathes of privilege and snobbery, snouts in the trough, as red faced as those awful maps of the "Empire" in it's heyday. The great churches and institutions, too big to fail some say. The children's children, the "royal" families, the old money v the new money and then those with no money. Guttersnipes in rat trap flats and terraces. We owe you nothing but you owe us an explanation, an education and compensation.

You may say it's all none of anybody's business anymore. Here's a black hole to shout into:

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