THIS week as I watched Edward Colston’s bronze statue unceremoniously pulled off its plinth in Bristol, I experienced a rush of wildly oscillating emotions. The person of colour in me felt this was just deserts for the statue of a man who, it is believed, transported an estimated 84,000 slaves of whom some 19,000 died, whilst the history buff in me gasped at what seemed like an anarchic attack on our country’s past, and the radio producer in me tittered at the fact that, as the statue was rolled down Anchor Road it sounded so unimpressively hollow. More tin can than bronze monolith, it looked like a shrunken remnant of a bygone age.

Colston was a man of his time, a slaver, an entrepreneur, a benefactor doing what was normal in the 17th and 18th centuries. Like Dumfries-born Robert Milligan whose statue was removed this week in London, he traded in human misery but channelled some of the profits into buildings and amenities many of which are still used today. His goodness really must have outweighed the misery as his statue was not erected until 1895, nearly 90 years after the abolition of slavery when you would think folk would have seen the error of their ways.

And even though they were all men of their time they have hogged their spots in those big, wide open public spaces, without a backstory for long enough. Now Colston, Milligan and co should get with the times, and have adjacent explainer plaques or even better, a bar code or QR code attached to their plinths that, once scanned with a smartphone, start spewing out their stories. Pulling them down would seek to hide those histories from us and future generations.

These statues or those of apologists for the slave trade are dotted all over Britain in cities like London, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow. What does the fact that they proudly remain there say to those whose ancestors suffered horribly at the hands of these men? What do statues like that of Lord Roberts in Kelvingrove Park – a man who brutally suppressed Indians and Afghans in the 19th century – say to children and grandchildren of that empire like me who were born and who live here now? For me, it glorifies that suppression, and subjugates me all over again. If statues reflect what we value, celebrate and revere we should ask ourselves where the statues of the slavery abolitionists are. Scotland was at the forefront of the abolitionist movement (as most school children will tell you) but it seems we are not proud enough of that part of our history to immortalise those men and women. I wonder why.

The symbolism of Colston’s effigy being rolled into the harbour, near where his slaves would have stumbled blinking from the hulls of the ships where they had lain for months as they crossed the Atlantic, is not lost in this age of the camera phone but let’s not make the mistake of thinking once we’ve dismantled the signs of our slavery and empire past from our public spaces we can wipe away that part of our past, as many would like.

The whole point of history is to learn from the mistakes of the past. Slavery thrived and prospered because Africans were dehumanised to such a level that slavery was acceptable to slave traders, politicians and citizens alike. This created an ideological narrative that allowed us to think that black people were less intelligent and therefore deserve to be treated differently. Understanding our past is not about apportioning blame but recognising how and why historical phenomena happen, and how they can create a structural imbalance and an unfairness that can take generations to put right.

This week's discussion, ostensibly about statues, but actually about so much more, has served to lift a veil of ignorance. We can no longer say we didn’t know. We’ve been told the backstory to these men. We know some of our great buildings and streets have been built with the proceeds from slavery. We’ve made the link between slavery, ideology and imbalances that affect some people’s life chances. Some are taking action like the University of Glasgow with their plan for reparations for the slave trade of £20 million and the partnership with the University of the West Indies to fund a centre for research. Some are pushing for a Museum of Slavery to be established in Glasgow.

For the rest of us, armed with that knowledge we can make sense of our present state and influence a fairer and more equal future where every single citizen gets to show themselves at their most excellent and contribute to making society the best it can be. That, surely, would be worth a huge, stonking statue.

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