An anti-racist organisation is proposing that controversial statues – potentially including the iconic Duke of Wellington memorial – should be consigned to a new “statue graveyard”.
The Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), believes a monument park could combine with a Museum of Slavery, Empire and Migration and be used as an educational resource to teach Scotland about the shameful elements its past.
Other parts of the world, including Moscow and Budapest have successfully used monument parks to house statues of fallen “heroes” of former despicable regimes on a par with colonialist Britain.
The debate over statues in Scotland which lionise imperial villains and slave traders has been reignited as anger has spread across the globe following the US murder of black man George Floyd by white police officers.
But anti-racist campaigners say it is also vital to face up to modern and historic racism in the Scotland.
CRER said which statues to be placed in a Scottish monument park should be part of a wider public discussion – but the Duke of Wellington memorial belied the truth of the murderous campaigns he led in the name of empire.
The statue, erected in 1844, has become a tourist attraction in the city and adorns everything from postcards to tea towels and in 2011 the Lonely Planet guide included it in its list of the “top 10 most bizarre monuments on Earth”.
But as a military leader, the former autocratic Tory PM led mass killings and razed the villages of those who dared rise against the Empire in India.
The statue sits outside the Gallery of Modern Art, the former mansion built by slave trader, Lord William Cunninghame of Lainshaw.
Zandra Yeaman, communities and campaigns officer for CRER, said people walked by the statue every day with no concept of what Wellington stood for.
She said: “The Wellington Statue is an iconic image in Glasgow with the cone on its head that people are so proud of. On the friezes around the statue are images of him slaughtering South Asians, sacking Indian cities and it sits outside a slaver’s house built off the back of enslaved African people.
“But hardly anyone knows this about Wellington or the Cunninghame Mansion, despite most people seeing the building and statue on a daily or weekly basis.
“CRER’s concern about just changing names or removing statues is, it would be an easy way to erase the history and the legacy of racial hierarchy and racism these people used to justify their greed. We already have a problem with ‘amnesia’ on Scotland’s role in empire and slavery without helping it develop further.
“Maybe we could move them to a statue graveyard, a place that tells about state-sanctioned violence towards people from around the globe and how this legacy plays out today.”
Proposals are now in consideration for a museum in Glasgow which tells the truth of how the city was founded on the back of slavery and exploitation and oppression of the people of Britain’s “colonies”.
With the fall of the USSR, thousands of Soviet statues were destroyed but some ended in a Fallen Monument Park which is now a major tourist attraction. Budapest’s Memento Park holds towering edifices of a bygone age including statues of Vladimir Lenin and oppressive Hungarian communist leaders.
But Glasgow SNP Councillor Graham Campbell, believes the statue symbolises anti-establishment protest and should stay. Last week, the traditional orange cone was replaced with a black one featuring the characteristic symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement.
He said: “I think people have already shown how much respect they have for the Duke of Wellington by placing a cone on his head.”
Historian Dr Christine Whyte of Glasgow University, believes the Duke of Wellington statue should remain but be contextualised with additional information on the truth of his legacy.
She said one option would be to commission Scottish BAME artists to depict appropriate friezes countering the glorification of empire.
