What to do about controversial monuments?
Culture Montreal – which has a fairly spiffy website but I’m not sure what it exactly is – is trying to figure out what we should do with monuments of once honoured figures who have since become regarded as controversial. The item is illustrated with a photo of the Macdonald statue after one of its red-paint decorations.
Amusingly, this follows Andrew Scheer’s plan to do more for the memory of Sir John A.
(Frankly, they can have Macdonald, if they’ll let me light the fuse to blow the bust of Camille Laurin sky high at the corner of Sherbrooke and St-Urbain. No? Too soon?)
Faiz imam 20:39 on 2019-10-07 Permalink
Move them all to pointe à callière with documentation explaing their historical context.
They are important historical artifacts, but they don’t belong in positions of privilegeiin the centers of our public life.
Kate 21:14 on 2019-10-07 Permalink
The Macdonald statue is quite big. I don’t know who else is on the list. The Metro piece mentions the removal of a piece of sculpture dedicated to Claude Jutra (it was a nice piece but it had to go) and a couple of years ago this plaque was removed from where it had been on the west side of the Bay downtown, since time out of mind.
Chris 21:47 on 2019-10-07 Permalink
And which once-honoured figures are woke enough through today’s lens? Shall we rename Parc Mahatma Gandhi? They are tearing down his statues elsewhere: https://www.npr.org/2019/10/02/766083651/gandhi-is-deeply-revered-but-his-attitudes-on-race-and-sex-are-under-scrutiny
MarcG 09:16 on 2019-10-08 Permalink
Maybe Slipknot had it right that People=Shit?
qatzelok 10:05 on 2019-10-08 Permalink
But Kate, does Toronto have a statue of Camille Laurin in its most prominent public square? You know, because of all he did for francophones?
(Answer: it certainly does not!)
Why are fancophones forced to host, in the same honorable place, one of the prime racists who tried to destroy both francophone and First Nations culture?
Talk about NOT being woke.
Kate 10:10 on 2019-10-08 Permalink
Why are francophones the only ones being forced? All Montrealers have to look at the statue of Macdonald (the person to whom I assume you refer) in the square.
Also, don’t “woke” me, buddy.
qatzelok 12:56 on 2019-10-08 Permalink
Sorry, Kate. I wasn’t suggesting you were not woke, but that WE were not being woke (by hosting a John A MacGenoide statue in our public square).
Michael Black 13:21 on 2019-10-08 Permalink
I’d like to know if the cousins find John A. a big issue, or if they’d put some other things furst.
In February of 1869 Annie Bannantyne horsewhipped Charles Mair for writing thihgs about the mixed women of Red River. She’s a relative, and one place suggests her action got Louis Riel to act. We are about to hit the 150th anniversary of the start of tge “Rebellion” either on Louis’ birthday, Oct 22nd, or the day before. It wasn’t as black and white as popular history suggests. But my family was on the other side from Scott and MacDonald. I personally would prefer that popular history tell a more realistic story of the events than see a statue disappear. How could people be “traitors” to Canada when they had little attachment? My great great grandmother Henrietta (seen at the Museum of History’s website) wouldn’t even visit Canada. Someone torched her brother’s house after the expedition got to Red River. Like Louis, he got out of town because he expected the worst. That is real history.
Michael