Jumping on the bandwagon

What is the point of history if we don’t learn from it? The Archbishop is completely misguided by declaring that some statues linked to slavery in our churches, including Canterbury Cathedral, “will have to come down” [Gazette, July 2]. As Bob Britnell says [Letters, July 2], he is “out of touch” and purely demonstrating his “woke credentials” by jumping on the current bandwagon. Surely the Archbishop should be using examples from the past to highlight modern-day slavery, human-trafficking and accompanying misery which is happening right here and right now.

Seize the moment Archbishop. Explanatory plaques are needed, but removal of a nation’s historical and cultural past? No! As Brian Butler points out, the subjugation of people has characterised world empires since time immemorial. So come on Archbishop, speak up and speak out for all lives: for all lives in the here and now are what matter.

Penny Morgan

Church Lane, Kingston

■ Archbishop Justin Welby has been reported as saying that some of the statues and memorials in Canterbury Cathedral ‘will have to come down’. It’s an easy thing to say. Words are cheap. The difficulty comes when we have to decide the principles upon which a modern iconoclastic purge should proceed. In very few cases the decision may be overwhelmingly obvious. If, for example, there were statues anywhere in Britain of, say, Stalin, Mao, Hitler or Pol Pot, the matter would be clearcut. They would have to go. Indeed, they would never have been erected in the first place. But behind such obvious and incontestable cases is a misty hinterland of gradations and contradictions. Very little is black or white. All of us, including those who have been deemed worthy enough to have statues erected in their memory, are a mixture of good and bad; and unless the cull of statues and monuments is blind and unthinking, human virtue will have to be balanced against human vice in a sort of moral audit. Who will do this? What ethical or moral criteria will be invoked? What permissions will be needed? Would it even be legal?

The one thing upon which most people would probably agree is that we should not tolerate the despoliation of public monuments by unaccountable gangs who arbitrarily decide for themselves what is and is not acceptable. That way lies

‘Surely The Archbishop should be using examples from the past to highlight modern-day slavery, human-trafficking and accompanying misery which is happening right here and right now’

anarchy.

Away from this, however, there lies a minefield of choice and action. We must hope that the Archbishop has a well thought-out plan to navigate his way through it, otherwise irredeemable harm might be done to our glorious Cathedral.

John Butler

Leycroft Close, Canterbury

■ The proposal by Dr Ben Marsh that the Cathedral’s statue of Richard Hooker should be ‘recurated’ is hard to fathom. He will know that Bishopsbourne’s most eminent Rector was in some ways the father of Anglican theology, and was an early master of English prose writing.

The fact that ‘planters’ may have read his writings (all eight volumes?) is beside the point, as they are still read today. Teaching was not a major part of Hooker’s life, and the idea that he chose to mentor only those students who later went on to minister to slaveowners seems implausible.

To make his case, D. Marsh needs to show that this unassuming scholar, whose religious outlook was more tolerant than that of most Elizabethans, was an advocate for racial injustice. Incidentally, it is not clear how a statue can be recurated when it has not been curated: hardly anyone knows who it depicts. Brian Hogben King Street, Canterbury

■ Before jumping on the ideological bandwagon that removes statues, destroys reputations and rewrites “unacceptable” history, the Archbishop ought to bear in mind the not-inconceivable possibility of a “green” government which, in 2100, while struggling to deal with apparent climate change, strongly condemns the businessmen who, like the Archbishop, occupied senior positions in oil companies in the 20th or 21st centuries. During a degree in German 20 years ago, and while studying Germany’s relationship with eastern Europe, I read a thoughtprovoking comment attributed to the Russian politician Alexander Lebed: “You should not fire pistols at the past, as cannon fire might come back at you.”

The Archbishop would be sensible to think about Lebed’s observation, just in case firing pistols at the past embeds itself as a mode of behaviour in 21st century Britain. David Topple Churchill Road, Canterbury