Read on Twitter
Another defense of racist statues. An honest question: if people can't tear down racist statues because they perpetuate dangerous historical myths, what right does anyone have to demand changes in govt. textbooks perpetuating dangerous historical myths? https://www.dawn.com/news/1565493
Dr. Hoodbhoy has written numerous articles (the title is not to be taken literally, he says) demanding such changes. https://www.dawn.com/news/1225815
Most of us would agree that not only science textbooks but Pakistan studies texts should be changed because they perpetuate dangerous myths. Why is this so hard to see when it comes to public spaces/statues, which are designed to perpetuate racist-nationalist myths?
Hoodbhoy claims that people tearing down statues want a "pure, authentic past untainted by sin" and
"are chasing a phantom." This is preposterous. Nobody wants a past untainted by sin. They want recognition in the present of a past tainted by racial violence and exploitation.
"are chasing a phantom." This is preposterous. Nobody wants a past untainted by sin. They want recognition in the present of a past tainted by racial violence and exploitation.
They want this recognition because such racial violence and inequality persist and the statues serve to glorify the past and mystify reality.
Racist statues, in the U.S. at least, were mostly built to prop up white supremacy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They are are so damn flimsy because they are a mass produced commodity: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues-were-built-to-further-a-white-supremacist-future
To conflate these statues with the Babri Masjid and the Taj Mahal is beyond ridiculous. The equivalent of the Taj Mahal would be trying to tear down Monticello! Nobody is demanding that.
So my original question was a genuine one. What is it about statues/monuments that needs to be protected when we are perfectly willing to revise other forms of history-making. These objects are not that old, many mass produced, explicitly designed to perpetuate myths.
People are comparing them to great works of architecture like the Taj Mahal or major religious monuments like Babri masjid. But these are nothing like such historical monuments. Their historic value is practically nothing unless you believe in the greatness of such figures.
