Mitchel must go

Good to see that along with the protests over George Floyd's death, there's a rising focus on slavery and demands that statues of famous slave traders should be removed.

As well as the recently toppled statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, the statue of Robert Milligan has been removed in London's docklands. Now I discover there are calls for removal of a statue of slave trader John Mitchel in Newry in Northern Ireland. He lived in Newry for most of his life.

Queens University student Patrick Hughes and the former head of Anti-Slavery International, Aidan McQuade, are demanding the removal of the statue. They also want John Mitchel Place to be renamed.

John Mitchel (1815-1875) was a contradictory character. Although he was an Irish revolutionary famous for his paper The United Irishman, he was also fiercely racist. He supported enforced slavery and white supremacy and wanted to resume the transatlantic slave trade that was abolished in 1807.

Aidan McQuade first wrote to the local council about the statue in 2007. The council still refuses to remove it on the grounds that "19th century figures can't be held to 21st century views".

But he points out that there were radical abolitionists in the mid 19th century who found Mitchel's views repulsive at the time.

He thinks a more informative plaque isn't enough. The statue should be moved to a museum and set in an explanatory anti-slavery context.

The council has now decided that an Equality and Good Relations Forum later in June will discuss the matter.

I know there's an ongoing debate about whether such statues should be disposed of or left as relics of an earlier time, maybe with updated plaques. Personally I think statues of public figures are totally unnecessary and I'm happy to see controversial ones pulled down. Why should a statue that offends hundreds of local people stay put?

Pic: Patrick Hughes and the statue

PS: The University of Liverpool is to rename a building named after former prime minister William Gladstone due to his support of slavery

Getting it in the neck

The UK news coverage is still overwhelm-ingly virus updates, with little "ordinary" news emerging. Even floods, droughts, famines and earthquakes are barely mentioned. Other countries exist only as examples of how well or badly they're controlling the virus.

But one event that's getting massive coverage is the apparent murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, who knelt on his neck. Chauvin has since been sacked and charged with murder and manslaughter.

The death has led to four nights of clashes between police and protesters, buildings being burnt, including Minneapolis police station, deployment of the National Guard, four Californian freeways shut down, and violent protests in numerous cities.

As we all know, such brutal police tactics, especially against black people, are nothing new. But the authorities are incapable of stopping the brutality, which goes on year after year. And it's not the first time Chauvin has been in trouble; he has had 17 complaints against him during his 19-year service.

One reason I'm interested in this story is that I've seen some heavy-handed police behaviour myself. Over the years I've been to dozens of rallies and protests and some of them got pretty nasty. I especially remember a rally against the far-right National Front, where there were some very ugly battles between police and demonstrators, and I fled, frightened for my own safety.

Another reason is that usually the police and the authorities concoct some fictitious version of what happened, and make out the victim was committing a crime, provoking the police, appeared to have a weapon, or was resisting arrest. In this case he allegedly offered a fake $20 note at a convenience store. However the shop's owner said "most of the times when patrons give us a counterfeit bill they don't even know it's fake."

It's certainly a riveting diversion from virus this and virus that. But it's an utter tragedy it centres on a totally pointless death.

PS: I wrote "apparent murder" before the two autopsies that concluded it was homicide.

Pic: George Floyd