IS THE STATUE TO BE MOVED OR NOT?

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National Heroes Day passed on Monday 11 October last week. Some 16 Bahamians were honoured for their contributions to the country.  The highest award this year went to Algernon Allen, the former Minister, who is now to be styled Right Honourable.  He got the Order of The Bahamas.

Meanwhile, there was a raging battle outside in the mainly intellectual community about the statue of Columbus which was put there in front of Government House in 1830 during the British governorship of Sir Carmichael Smith.  Now we add also that Columbus Day before 2016 would have been 11 October.

Columbus is known as a murderer and plunderer by the present generation of Bahamians, not the conquering hero and founder of the new world that the traditional narrative has been painting and as we were taught in the 1960s as children.  So the current thinking is the statue of Columbus does not belong in front of the modern day Government House.  The National Heroes Day Committee was fighting  for it to be moved. That did not move the needle.

Then you had in the midst of the Black lives matter movement, some would be politicians in this generation appear at press conferences calling for its removal. That didn’t move the needle.

Then a fellow Shervandaze Smith last week went with hammer and smashed the  Columbus statue, leaving it without a leg to stand on.  The event went viral.  The incident became the butt of many jokes.  But there was a serious discussion about whether it should be moved or not and some other symbol there,

People remember that earlier in the century, someone smashed the Queen Victoria statue in the public square as well. These are all symbols of our  past.  Some would say racist past and these symbols need to be replaced,

The history some says that Carmichael Smith, the governor was an anti-slaverer  The legislature refused to  put up the statue which he commissioned and it was the black population that raised money to have the statue erected in front of Government House.  The white population then put Queen Victoria’s statue up in the public square as a counter point.

So who will win the day? What we like is the debate.  History is important after all.

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