"We cannot rewrite history or pretend that it didn't happen."
But we can expose it for what it was and erecting statues to someone who laid Africa open to worldwide exploitation and the mass destruction of their culture is not the way to do that.
I wonder how many people would object to the fact that statues of Stalin were removed in the former Soviet Union when his crimes were exposed, because he was "part of history" - all hand up now!!
Maybe we should encourage Italy to erect statues to Mussolini because he made the trains run on time!!
He was certainly very much part of Italian history (won't even bother to mention that nice Mr Hilter!!)
Jim Carroll