Dan Snow's History Hit - Nelson's Statue

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Afua Hirsch is a writer, broadcaster, barrister and human rights development worker. She has previously worked as Social Affairs and Education Editor for Sky News and was also a correspondent for The Guardian. In this podcast we discussed Nelson's famous statue in Trafalgar Square and what place it has in central London. Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is how my lockdown's going everyone. I decided that I was going to take a special forces fitness test this morning. So I did that. Now I don't want to boast. 41 years old, very little preparation in terms of training and fairly high alcohol intake and chocolate intake during lockdown. Like I said, I don't want to boast and the good news is I don't have to boast because I completely failed to complete any of the exercises and the tasks in the allotted time. So that's how my lockdown is going. Staring the reality of my journey through life in the face. My entry into middle age, saying goodbye to that long cherished dream of kicking down

someone's door during a special forces raid and arresting them anyway this podcast has nothing to do with that at all this podcast is a repeat of one that we recorded a couple years ago in simpler times i got told of the wonderful broadcaster author tv, TV presenter Afua Hirsch. She wrote a provocative article in The Guardian in which she suggested that maybe we should look at pulling down statues here in the UK in response to the statue debate that was going on across the US at the time. She mentioned that Admiral Horatio Nelson had views on slavery that today we regard as completely unacceptable. So why is he up there on that column in the middle of Trafalgar Square? I'm obsessed with the career of Horatio Nelson.

I quite like Nelson's column. I quite like the vibe. I like the fact he's standing up there. He's looking south towards Portsmouth, towards his fleet, the place where he last set foot on British soil before going and fighting a battle of annihilation against the French in October 1805 at Trafalgar. And yet, it's hard to argue with Afua because she's right. His views on the slave trade are abhorrent.

Is he the kind of guy that we want in pride of place in the public space? She came on, we had a long chat about it, and it was great. As ever with these things, it's always good to step off the old twitter.com and have an actual in-person conversation. And obviously, with the spate of statue removals that are going on in Europe and the US at the moment, it's time to up this podcast and have another listen to it. We are going to be doing more on the topic. We've got other historians coming on over the next few weeks. We are going to do more on this topic. We've got other historians coming on

over the next few weeks. A lot of history being generated at the moment, everyone. I'm struggling to keep up. If you want to watch some history history if you want to listen to any of these back episodes of the podcast they're all available at history hit tv we are offering listeners this podcast a special deal get it 30 days for free and then you get your first month just one pound euro or dollar so you know get through those long summer months watch some history content learn about the past Work out what the heck's going on. Lots of people writing in to say it's been a real help for the homeschooling and that is just a, you couldn't have said a nicer thing. The team and I are absolutely thrilled to hear that. It means so much to us. It's actually not just interesting and fun to watch for people but

actually it might be useful and important for exams and coursework and things like that. So it's a huge honour. Thank you very much indeed. We've got more documentaries underway. I am in Portsmouth tomorrow making a documentary about naval history. You'll be very surprised to learn. But in the meantime, enjoy this podcast with Afua Hirsch. Go and check out History at TV. Stay well. And don't attempt any special forces challenges unless you've done a bit of training before. any special forces challenges unless you've done a bit of training before. Afa, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me.

I mean, what is going on in your life? Are you suggested tearing down Nelson's tattoo? Are you living with private security in an unidentified location? Maybe I should be. I have to say. How bad has it been? No, it's been pretty brutal, I have to say. Day one was okay. Day two was fine.

It was day three when I was on the front page of some of the tabloids. No, you weren't. I was. And I was also on the front page of Britain First and the BNP. It's like the BNP, but worse, if you can imagine that. Do they tweet? I'm sure they do. I haven't followed them on Twitter.

Well, okay. Well, that's something to talk about later. We shouldn't really be laughing about that. Let's first of all come to your thesis. Why did you suggest pulling down the most iconic statue in the UK? I wanted to provoke people to think differently about our history. I think I feel very strongly that we have a very intellectually lazy approach to our past in this country. I think that we've avoided in quite a British way, some of the more difficult and problematic elements of our past. I don't feel

like we've ever dealt properly with the end of the empire, what the legacy is and how it affects our generation, you know, people from all different backgrounds who have, who are living with that legacy in ways that aren't spoken about in the public space. And when I've been writing a book and I've been looking into figures that connect to me. So I live in Wimbledon. I've grown up in Wimbledon, which is where Nelson lived with Emma Hamilton. And I had no idea until I started looking into him properly that he was quite heavily embedded in the West India lobby, which was the movement that was countering the abolitionist movement at the end of the 18th century. And the more I learned about that, the more puzzling I found it that he's commemorated in all these public spaces, you know, not just Trafalgar Square. I mean, the whole of Norfolk, I've subsequently learned, is kind of devoted to Nelson's memory.

Yeah, I've got a lot of new fans in Norfolk now. Without ever giving the counter, you know, the counter to his legacy. giving the counter, you know, the counter to his legacy. And because he is literally and physically elevated 52 metres above the ground, it isn't just a kind of neutral act of marking history. It is a kind of glorification. At his funeral, people said that he was more to us than the God who made him. That's how iconic he is, I think, in Britain's national memory. And I think it's very important that we look at these figures in a more rounded context. And I don't think that's being done. And when I saw what's happening with Charlottesville, and many British people feeling very secure in their critique of America's relationship with its history, which I think most people acknowledge is difficult.

I wanted to say, look, don't get so comfortable. We've got our own skeletons in our closet here, and we're not dealing with them at all. most people in the past were totally hideous by modern standards you're absolutely right i mean there's no no doubt about that so how should we think about here should we jettison here should we pull down or start i mean what is the i think lots of people start to get a bit scared and a bit nervous about ripping things down because it feels quite revolutionary and it feels quite unstable which okay a is that a good thing do we need that revolution that instability that kind of that year zero sense of like throwing off our past we got richard the bloody lionheart as some lunatic outside the house of lords or not to mention cromwell or do you understand that fear that people have is that they might not think that

nelson embodies values that we really want to move on into the 21st century with or Richland or someone. But they also are just nervous about this idea of just ripping our fabric, our heritage, our physical and our mental fabric apart. I completely understand that. And I think now more than ever, people want continuity and a sense of security. And I think that British identity, and this is what my book is about, is actually in quite a fragile place. And that is one of the reasons I think I've had such a backlash, because people don't feel secure enough, actually, in their Britishness and what Britain means to be able to challenge some of our heroes. And I think that's a bigger thing. But just in terms of pulling down statues, I'm not literally sitting at home with a bulldozer ready to go. OK, with my hard hat on. I'm not saying let's just march Trafalgar Square tomorrow and rip it to shreds.

I'm saying let's look at these people again and let's not take anyone off the table. So this isn't a race thing. It's interesting. My mother's from Ghana. In Ghana, at the main university of Lagon, they've had the statue of Gandhi pulled down because they felt that he represented racist values because of his views in apartheid South Africa, because of his views on the caste system. So this is a complex thing. It works in different directions. On the whole thing that tearing down statues is a terrible sin. Well, we were quite comfortable doing it in Iraq when we pulled down Saddam Hussein. I haven't had anybody want to revisit the question of whether Hitler should have been left in place after the Second World War. I think that there are instances in which we are quite comfortable in ripping down statues. So when people present that as a kind of untouchable thing to tamper with the historical record, actually, I think it's just a question of how bad you think someone is.

And that's why I want to probe it, because I think that we're just not willing to look critically enough at some of our own figures. And I think we should. I don't think that tearing them down is necessarily the solution, but I think it should be considered. And also, it's not about smashing them up. Maybe there's a way we could contextualise them so that you can look at these people

in a more balanced way, because at the moment, they're just elevated. There is no counter-narrative. There's no context. There's no balance. They're just up there in kind of lofty glory do we need to talk about sort of race and migration status things but is it different for me as a white guy most of whose family come from the UK or yeah to walk past Nelson and not be made to feel uncomfortable just to do I have a blindness when I walk past Nelson or any of these other dead white men in London? Is your individuality, your experience of walking past

those different to mine, do you think? I think maybe. I think that if you've got a personal connection with the darker side of this history, so my family kind of were caught up in the fall of the empire in Ghana, which was the Gold Coast. And that's very much part of my family's trauma, the events that happened as Britain was very reluctantly letting go of its African colonies. So it's something that I live with. And so probably I noticed more than others, a sense of the hypocrisy in the way we remember the empire as a great thing, a kind of Edwardian benevolent NGO that went around building schools and hospitals when I know personally, that it was a much more mixed picture and that there's a very sinister side to empire and empires never exist for the benefit of the

colonised throughout history. They always exist for the benefit of the coloniser. So I think there's a whole question about the way we think about our empire. But I also think if you are a black British person, you walk around and you see the people that you know played a morally very questionable role in your ancestral past elevated. And then you don't see anyone who looks like you in a similar position. And I do think it kind of it's one of those things that adds up and gives you a sense that this isn't really your country. You don't really belong here. You don't really have a past here. And that, I think, feeds into this idea that immigration is basically something that happened after the war, when all these people came to sponge off the welfare state and kind of change our culture. That's how a lot

of people think about immigration now. And politicians have said that, when actually we've had British communities here for hundreds of years taking part in, you know, Peterloo and the Spensians, you know, all the movements that gave us the rights we value in abolition, you know, Peterloo and the Spensians, you know, all the movements that gave us the rights we value in abolition, you know, not just William Wilberforce, who is remembered, but all of these freed slaves who played an incredible role overcoming being born illiterate and in slavery to become writers and influencers and activists. So it's the fact that the people who are glorified are glorified. And then it's the invisibility of the people who are forgotten. that the people who are glorified are glorified and then it's the invisibility of the people who have forgotten and the combination I think makes someone like me feel that we don't really have

a right to be here. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer.

Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. If you had said get George IV out of Trafalgar Square, I'd have been donning my hard hat and my high viz. That guy was totally useless, and he's got one of the best spots in London.

Let's pick up that last point, because that's really interesting. Do you think we should be... When and why statuettes are put up is so interesting, and we're learning this now. I mean, as growing up, I just thought, you know, you became a great journalist, take a statue up. But it's such a political and interesting decision, isn't it? And putting Haig right there on Whitehall, despite the criticisms of his command in the First World War.

And we learn about in America, what's particularly egregious about these statues of Confederate heroes, they all put up much later than the Confederacy. And so it was done for very particular reasons, but not connected with, you know, if Robert E. Lee had been put up immediately after one of his victories over the army of the Potomac, you could have seen that that would have made sense. But they were all put up in 1980s or 1950s and 60s and stuff. So what do you think we should have a statue policy today? I mean, do you think we should be actively trying to change our heritage cityscape? I think on a number of levels, I've learned a lot about statues since getting involved in this whole

row. And I think a lot of people feel getting involved in this whole route. And I think a lot of people feel quite apart from the race and colonialism and slavery legacy that we've tended to elevate military figures, these very kind of, you know, warlike men, basically. And we haven't remembered people who were innovators and scientists and creative geniuses of all sexes and races, they kind of tend to be more invisible. There are very few statues of women. There are very few statues of black people. So I think statues are inherently kind of phallic things, aren't they? And then they tend to work quite well with these very kind of aggressive men.

And that's not, I think, on any reading of what we are as modern Britain, how we necessarily like to see ourselves. And again, I don't think that means just erase it and pretend we didn't have a point where that's who we elevated. But I do wonder why we haven't made more progress in kind of renewing the built environment and erecting new statues or other ways of commemorating different people who we do value. And actually, and this is all interlinked. So if you speak to black and Asian artists who make pieces of public art, they'll say it's so difficult for them to ever get their work commissioned or displayed because the arts industry is still

very, very biased in favour of public school educated white men. And so ironically, these are the same issues that relate to someone like Nelson, you know, that the legacy of empire and slavery and institutional racism is still operating in determining who gets space today. So these things are all bound up. And that's why when people say, look, that was the past and we should leave it alone and it's not relevant anyway. I don't think that's true. Yes, that's interesting. So I can't quite bring myself to say pull down Nelson's car. So it just makes me a bit nervous, tight in the chest. So no, OK, so you've got Havelock, you've got other people in Trafalgar Square. Let's imagine we get rid of all those guys.

I don't think anyone can play. So do you think it would really make a difference to people in this country if they could walk through Trafalgar Square and see women and people of colour alongside all the white men statues? I think it would. I think on a subtle level it gives the impression that people who look like that are established here. And there are so many problems with the way we talk about these things.

For example, I have got a lot of issues with Black History Month because I think that we have one month of the year where we kind of say, oh, look, there was a black woman who did something great 100 years ago. Let's learn all about her. And then we go back to history, which is white history. And, you know, the idea that you just cram a few people into four weeks and then go back to business as usual, I find almost more problematic than just ignoring them altogether.

And I think when we have tried to erect statues, for example, Nelson Mandela is now in Parliament Square, but Westminster Council opposed it at the time, said it wasn't in keeping with the character of the square. So that was in recent history. Mary Seacole, again, her statue was opposed and the idea that this was kind of political correctness gone mad. So we've changed pretty quickly. I think now it's hard to imagine that that doesn't belong where it is. But we do still have this inbuilt resistance to acknowledging that there are women and black people who are as deserving of a plinth as somebody like Nelson.

It's hard to express how much of a feminist I am having had two daughters because I take my daughter to a lot of museums and historical sites and her reaction to gender is unbelievable. She's five years old. So we went to an aircraft museum the other day and she loved it looking at Spitfires and I was really trying to get her excited. She kept saying to me, there's no women here. And I then Googled, because I knew that women

delivered Spitfires, they didn't fly them on the front line. I showed all these pictures I slightly lied to her and said, look at all these women flying Spitfires in the Second World War. And she just, it just, I mean, her level of engagement with that was just extraordinary. And so I do, and whenever three's amazed on television, whatever you think about our politics,

I always say to my daughter, oh, look, it's the person in charge of the country, that person right there. I do the same advice. Because it's really,, whenever I think about her politics, I always say to my daughter, oh, look, it's the person in charge of the country, that person right there. I do the same advice. Because it's really... And so I must say it is, when you walk through a very masculine landscape, something for me is a challenge to me

because I'm someone steeped in this history of empire and military history. And you've got articles like you do force one to look at it again. And it is interesting how much that matters to your kids and mine. Do you think it is important they're growing up? I do, I do. I mean, I've got a six-year-old daughter just a bit older than yours.

And when I take her, she just did at school, her last term was London Landmarks. I was actually pretty tempted to make her landmark Nelson's Column. I thought, school's not ready. School's not ready for me. They've already laid on extra security. Give them a chance.

But when we've been in Westminster Abbey and Trafalgar Square and all these places, and we're looking at the history and she's writing it down in her little notebook. And I do think she is getting this message that the people who did great things in our past are all these military white men. And I know that that does affect her. And like you, my daughter's really into space. So she's got lots of books about space and she'll be learning about the planets and she's fascinated by astronauts. And they're almost all men as well. And I think it does affect her ability to kind of imagine herself in that way in the future.

So that's something that I try to counter. And as a parent, I mean, there's loads of stuff you can. There are great books now about little brown girls in space. now about little brown girls in space. But I do think we already have an issue here about identity and belonging and accepting that someone like me, for example, who is British, in fact, one of the most surprising reactions to me to my column was this instinct,

which was just go back to where you came from and stop lecturing us about our history. And me trying to explain, well, it's my history too and I'm British. And they're like, well, no, you because you know you've got a Ghanaian parent and my mum was born a British citizen you know and you know and my dad's British and um just then resenting the fact I have to explain this to people because the idea that someone like me has to prove their Britishness just because of the colour of my skin is really problematic.

But I think it's something that many people experience, even if it's just people constantly saying, where are you from? And you having to say, I'm British, you know, every day. Where are you from? I'm Wimbledon. So I think I think that we've got a bigger problem in the way we see ourselves and we see Britain. in the way we see ourselves and we see Britain. And then these statues and these public works and artistic spaces, the whole thing just reinforces the same pattern. And I do think it sends the wrong messages to a new generation.

How should we think? If you had to write down the shit my family has done, right, my ancestors, I mean, of course, all our ancestors, but I mean, I just happen to unfortunately know about it all. It is pretty brutal. We're talking East India Company.

We're talking First World War General. We're talking, you know, I mean, all sorts. How should we, and you know, you're the same. You've got, we're all, after all, related to kind of Vikings and mad people.

I actually discovered that I'm descended partly from a Dutch slave trader who went to Ghana in the 1780s. So yeah, we've all got... So therefore, actually you and I shouldn't think differently about our past necessarily. We're letting our skin, differences

in our skin tone get in the way of accepting that our common humanity is all of our ancestors did some really bad shit. But how should we... How would you like us to think about our history? I mean, Nelson saved Britain from invasion. Well, actually, that's a whole separate podcast. I'm actually not convinced.

I think the French fleet was in a bit of a shambles by then. But anyway, figures like Nelson, other 18th century admirals, and yet they were sexist. Many of them were having sex relations with people that weren't 16 yet. That was sort of common back then, and they were essentially Christian fundamentalists in many ways. How do you want your daughter and how shall our kids be thinking differently about British history? It's a big question.

It is a big question. The first thing to say is that I'm not political correctness gone mad. I don't think we should shy away from the context of the times and, you know, the full kind of like murky facts about the way people behave. But the thing is, listening to you speak about your own family background, I don't think a lot of British people look at figures like Nelson in that context. So another of the reactions I got to my column was he was a hero. He was glorious. There isn't that intellectual curiosity. And then people tell me as well, well, everybody was involved in slavery then.

But I don't hear us acknowledge as a nation that that was part of who we were then. I think we just shy away from all that and we focus on Wilberforce instead. So I think we should learn more about it. You know, I want more history. I want more of the dark. I want more of the light.

I want more of it all. And learning about my own family history, I was fascinated. You know, I'm not going to try and run away from the fact that I have this Dutch slave trader in my in my heritage. You know, it's not what I thought I would find. Dutch, I can't believe it. It's not what I thought I'd find. But there it is. Actually, there's loads of families in coastal Ghana who have Dutch and English names from that era. And, you know, these guys spread their genes

all over the place. So I think it's fascinating. It's part of who we are. And it's ironic to me when people accuse me of trying to erase history, because I think I'm trying to do the exact opposite. I think we've had a very selective version of history that's become popular. If you listen to Michael Gove and David Cameron and Gordon Brown, basically all of our recent leaders, they have said that they see history as a celebration of the accomplishments of these islands. That's Michael Gove's words. That to me is so problematic. That's something I expect to hear from a Soviet country or a dictatorship. The idea that history is a kind of act of propaganda is not a celebration. You know, there will be stuff that you're proud of and there'll be stuff

that you're not. And I think as soon as you have that attitude that it should be this great party, you're going to run into trouble. That's an interesting way of looking at it. You're not looking for heroes, well, you could look for heroes in the past, but more like you'd like to find heroic moments and impulses from people whilst accepting that their private life was completely distasteful. And you wouldn't, see, you can think, oh, Gladstone, what a great, but you don't want him to be Prime Minister today, but you can celebrate elements of him and be inspired by bits of what he was up to.

Just as people always say to me, what period would you like to go back to? I say, well, I'd like to see this and that, but I don't want to live in any other period. It would be a total nightmare. They were all terrible compared to now. It's interesting if you look at our period dramas, for example, they have become more dark. And I think people in fiction and drama are much more interested in the dark side of humanity and, you know, the kind of sinister elements to people's personal and public lives. So it's interesting to me that I feel like our attitude

toward the kind of historical record or Britain as a national identity hasn't kept up with that kind of modern... Yeah, because their statues are from an era of our island story. I mean, they're very old-fashioned thing, statues, aren't they? I mean, I don't know. We're not going to make a statue of anyone today. No, I can't see anyone making a modern-day Nelson's Corner. So in a way, whereas modern literature and drama and ideas have moved on and teaching,

we've still got these funny granite... Yeah, but we haven't... So teaching, I mean, we don't... As far as I'm aware, children don't learn about the empire in a very... in a detailed way. They don't learn about the kind of full picture of it. And I think it's incredibly important. It's the single thing that has shaped, I think, both our successes and our failures as a modern nation.

And yet it's something my generation, it was completely ignored. So my dad learned all about the Napoleonic Wars. He was born in 1950. He was taught kind of Nelson's glorious past. And by my generation, we only learned about the Holocaust and Maoist China. And we just kind of steered clear of that entire era, I think, because there was a sense that you can't really celebrate it. But at the same time, it's too painful to critique it. And now we have kids just like selectively learning about these various heroes from the past so I think I don't think that we have got there yet at all

in the way we look at you know it's not about taking down Nelson necessarily it's about looking at him with the same sophistication as we're willing to look at literary and dramatic figures and maybe augmenting Nelson with some other people that would be ideal there we go afua thank you so much indeed how people keep up with you on twitter or facebook whatever i'm on twitter afua hirsch um facebook afua hirsch instagram afua hirsch all very original nice

good to have a proper name that's i gave my kids unusual names because i want their social media profiles in the future to be very forward thinking of forward thinking of you. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.