Kate Maltby: Statues of old ‘heroes’ mask real debate about fascism

Two years ago I spent a lot of time worrying about statues. In Oxford, students under the banner “Rhodes Must Fall” campaigned to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from an alcove at Oriel College.

Rhodes was an unabashed white supremacist, responsible for uncountable deaths in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Yet I fretted — as did half the British media with me — should we really start smashing the statues of those who saw the world differently? Is this a slippery slope? Would Queen Victoria be ripped down from the front of Buckingham Palace? (Would she bounce?)

Turns out someone else has been worrying about statues for me. Donald Trump is gravely concerned. Faced with neo-Nazis marching through Charlottesville, a counter-protester killed as mosques and synagogues speak of their fear, the US President has been worrying this week about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

“Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E Lee,” said the Donald of a march attended by former KKK leader David Duke and alt-Right leader Richard Spencer. (I’ve met Spencer. He’s not “alt-right”, he’s a Nazi.)

“I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?” Trump is correct that many on the Left would like to remove statues of the Founding Fathers from public places. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves; unlike Lee, they didn’t take up arms to defend the South’s right to own slaves.

It’s easier to condemn young men carrying Nazi banners in Virginia. It’s harder to confront men like Trump when they appropriate arguments that thoughtful, mainstream conservatives have used to address serious debates.

There are good arguments to contextualise disturbing memorials rather than destroy them. (Jefferson’s home at Monticello, Virginia includes an honest exhibition on his slave population.)

There are also reasons to fear that none of our contemporary heroes will be considered politically pure by future generations. None of that changes the fact that Trump is appropriating a raging culture war to make Nazis sound reasonable.

One solution is for all of us to stop using every contemporary issue as a marker of allegiance in a broader political war.

The American Left won’t unify in opposition to Trump if it rejects everyone who has ever played cowboys and Indians; meanwhile, cultural conservatives need to swallow their dislike of iconoclasts and show up in opposition next time armed Nazis “defend” a white man’s statue.

That moderation is much needed in Britain, too. Wars about statues — or blue passports — are a waste of time when global fascism is on the march.