Quick to raise their voices and slow to think, right wing reactionaries have been clamouring for a platform where they can exclaim that the recent tearing down of undeserving racists immortalised in stone is nothing more than the covering up of British history. How will we ever remember such characters as Colston or Churchill without a hunk of stone that glorifies their character whilst offering no information on their actual history? It may be seen as Ironic that in decrying the removal of history, the right wing commentariat have offered a glimpse into just how moronic and lacking in historical education the average champion of free speech is. However, irony is a worthless tool to have in ones arsenal, as it rarely serves to draw an enlightening conclusion. In reality, we can see that the nebulae of ideas that make up Britain’s whitewashed history stems from a complete failure of education, combined with the active encroachment of propaganda. The most obvious examples sometimes slip under our noses undetected – so let’s pay a visit to the nation state’s most prevalent form of propaganda. The bank note.
£5
“I hate Indians, they are a beastly people, with a beastly religion”
That is the quote that should be on the five pound note under Churchill’s pig like face. Churchill was known for being racist, and even for his day, conservative members raised their concerns about Winston’s contempt toward colonised peoples. When commenting on the famine in Bengal, the cause of which has since been heavily attributed to Churchill’s economic and agricultural policy in the area, our hero Winston commented that it was the Bengal’s fault for “breeding like rabbits”. If we were serious about trying to understand the history of Churchill in our monuments and bank note dedicated to him, next to St. Winston we should have a starving Bengali family, and a black and tan beating a starving Irish pauper.
When we look at the five pound note however, what we see is Churchill staring back stoically – the sole hero of World War II, the great defender of the British people. But, if we look a little closer, perhaps we can see behind the veneer of heroism – and make out what is hidden beneath. The grim truth of Churchill’s paternalistic spirit is that it stemmed not from a great love of the British public – Churchill despised the British working class, aka British people on ordinary incomes – but stemmed from Churchill’s role as a British Aristocracy, defending Britain’s ruthless colonial empire.
It seems obvious that there is a sense of national pride in World War II, and rightly so. So what might be place of St. Winston instead? Perhaps we could immortalise the British working class soldiers who fought and died in the war itself – rather than the racist that they voted out immediately after they got home. Perhaps we could champion what Britain achieved as a direct result of the terror of World War II and the temporary defeat of European Fascism: the establishment of the welfare state and national healthcare for all, a direct contradiction to the reactionary and exclusionary fascist project.
Perhaps we should question why Elizabeth Fry was removed from the £5 note in the first place. A champion of women’s rights, an activist for the abolition of slavery, a prison reformer, and a founder of homeless shelters – perhaps we should ask the question why our conservative government would choose the opportunity of changing the currency from paper to plastic not to renew and celebrate this British character, instead of the glorification of a racist that distils Britain’s efforts against Fascism into the pure spirit of a notorious racist who oversaw and amplified the starvation of 3 million Bengals.
£10
It is interesting it was Jane Austin that was chosen to spearhead the thrust of British art and culture in to the psyche of the British public over anyone other figure. Your average illiterate might say that it is to champion how women have been at the forefront of British literature. No doubt this sentiment exists in some twisted format; but this is only half of the story. We should be asking ourselves, why is it that this petite bourgeois author who’s novels depict and glorify the aristocratic family and gender relations of the early modern period was chosen over someone who actually championed women’s rights. Perhaps instead of Austin we should have Emeline Pankhurst, a genuine radical feminist. No points will be awarded for guessing why a conservative government may not be in favour of championing anyone who advocated for radical and direct action, however.
£20
Here we see an image chosen to depict Britain’s national zeitgeist. The Fighting Tameraire is an oil painting by William Turner that depicts the British 98-gun ship, the HMS Tameraire, returning to England being tugged along by a steam powered tugboat. It is plain to see the symbolism: the transition of the British Empire from the Colonial naval power it was, into the modern era of industrial capitalism. The transition of - in effect - the military dominance of colonised peoples and the extraction of their wealth as Britain’s primary role of securing wealth, and the new domination of the working classes as bodies to man the industrial machinery of the modern era.
Again, for the average idiot – read, conservative – the idea is a rather simple continuation of British Empire and national spirit. However, dig a little deeper and we might ask the question why has this image been chosen of all of Turner’s works – and not say, The Slave Ship, which depicts the British slavers dumping the husks of bodies that could no longer be considered profitable into the sea. This is Britain’s history – what is interesting (if one could articulate sheer disgust as interest), is that in all of these cases, the British National Spirit is focused through the lens of the aristocratic masters that have dominated the ordinary working people of Britain, and the colonised and brutalised people that Britain dominated through it’s empire.
£50
The elusive £50 note is perhaps the most interesting of the new propaganda pieces. For one, it is very rare for your average joe, who is 1) highly in debt and living from paycheque to paycheque, and 2) pays on a card like a normal person, will be in possession of a £50 note in the first place. The note is on one level perfunctory, and on a simply economic level, designed to be used by the rich.
Lastly, and perhaps most sadly is the depiction of Alan Turing – perhaps the most deserving figure depicted on the British bank notes. It is fitting for the conservative government to place Turing on the least used bank note. Hidden away in the back, we find Alan Turing, perhaps to hide the shame of how the British government sentenced Turing to chemical castration for the crime of being gay. Soon after, Turning committed suicide after gaining weight from the procedure, and becoming clinically depressed. This sentence was only recently removed, posthumously. Again, we see no mention of this gross crime against humanity in the form of a dedication or acknowledgment of the horror that was placed upon Alan Turing by the British state. Rightfully, Turing was a hero of World War II, but we might ask ourselves what parts of Turning’s life were deemed acceptable by the British ruling class. What we see glorified were Turing’s war efforts, his private education, his Blitz Spirit. Perhaps more unmentionable was his sexuality, the way he was treated for it, and his subsequent suicide driven to by the British state.
------------------
On all of our bank notes we see not one depiction of the working class. Not one acknowledgement of the disgusting British Empire. Not one admission of guilt, or Britain’s disgusting history. Just a thinly plastered white wash that covers up any true understanding of what this country was built upon.
コメント