Nelson, Narrative and National Identity a Contested History?
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ofJournal Education in Museums ISSN 0260-9126 40 Cover image: Sara Zagni, Artspace, Leeds Art Gallery © Copyright GEM 2020. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. Editor: Neil Herrington Deputy editor: Eirini Gkouskou Book Review editor: Lauren Mihaljek The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of GEM. Advertise with GEM Reach the tuned-in professionals GEM’s publications have a total worldwide and organisations that matter professional readership of about 5,000 who work across the heritage sector in a variety • Advertise in Case Studies and the Journal of positions and organisations. of Education in Museums from just £156. • Spread word of your activities or services For more information contact us at in a GEM update email to all GEM [email protected], members from £108. call 01634 816 280 or visit our website, • Place a recruitment ad on the GEM www.gem.org.uk website for £106. • Advertise your freelance services on the Special discounts for GEM members! website for £92. GEM Journal No 40 Neil Herrington GEM Journal No 40 1 Nelson, Narrative and National Identity A Contested History? Tanya Wilson The parameters are changing for whom we To begin with, it is first necessary to assess venerate and why. Monuments still stand to the accusation of ‘white supremacy’. Horatio historical figures whose actions, policies and Nelson, hero of the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) attitudes are condemnable by our contem- - a decisive naval victory against the threat porary standards. As part of a global protest of invasion from Napoleon Bonaparte - has movement to bring down statues that ‘reinforce been memorialised across the country with racism’, (Stiem, 2018) attention has turned to ‘quasi-religious veneration’ (Petley, 2018). The British monuments, among them Admiral Lord sentiments of national pride and British naval Nelson. In an article written for the Guardian prowess that surround his name have left in 2017, Afua Hirsch argues why, in light of the little room for any other interpretation of his confederate statues being pulled down in the legacy. And yet, a fact largely overlooked US, she believes Nelson’s column in Trafalgar in most accounts of his life, the Admiral Square in London should be next. Labelling used his power and influence within the the naval hero a ‘white supremacist’, she claims House of Lords to speak out against William that Nelson is just one part of a bigger prob- Wilberforce and the Abolitionist movement. lem Britain has with facing its colonial past. As In a letter to Samuel Taylor, an owner of the darker side of British colonialism within the Jamaican plantations and the lives of over heritage industry comes increasingly under 2000 slaves, Nelson wrote: the spotlight, the ways in which we interpret this heritage are being questioned and chal- I have ever been and shall die a firm friend lenged. In this article, using the British heritage to our colonial system. I was bred, as you surrounding Nelson as a point of focus, I know, in the good old school, and taught intend to examine how and why there are to appreciate the value of our West India calls upon the heritage sector to reconsider possessions; and neither in the field or the ways in which colonialism is interpreted. in the senate [House of Lords] shall their Upon a closer examination of heritage sites interest be infringed whilst I have an arm including Trafalgar Square and the National to fight in their defence or a tongue to Maritime Museum in Greenwich, we might launch my voice against the damnable then establish how, if at all, these issues are and cursed doctrine of Wilberforce and his being addressed. hypocritical allies. (Petley, 2018) 46 GEM Journal No 40 Tanya Wilson Taylor was a powerful voice among those when addressing the colonial past, and that who spoke out against the abolitionists Imperial legacy is still prevalent today (Snow, and was a close ally to those conservative 2017). That much would seem evident in the members of parliament who moved to block articles that criticise Hirsch, unwilling to give Wilberforce’s calls to end the slave trade. credence to evidence that would besmirch Although Nelson’s views were not in keeping a national hero. The trouble with this school with the rising humanitarianism of his time, he of thought is that, as a nation, by dismissing was not alone amongst his fellow British naval crimes of the past as ‘of its time’ that would officers in valuing ‘West Indian possessions’ otherwise contest this image of heroism and over human lives. In fact, at this time, the British greatness, we are shaping the narra- Royal Navy was intrinsically connected and tive to fit a national ideology, ignoring that dependent upon Britain’s ‘colonial system’. which does not fit, essentially constructing a Slave-produced sugar from the colonies was national identity built upon a false narrative. Britain’s ‘most valuable import’, the import duties of which helped to fund the defence of Tyler Stiem, also writing for The Guardian in the realm and, by extension, the Navy’s war 2018, explores in some depth what he labels fleet. Additionally, trade depended on British ‘Statue Wars’, looking at the broader picture ships and British mariners who could be of the protest movement surrounding prob- pressed into the navy at times of war. (Petley, lematic statues that has spread from South 2018) What this tells us is that evidently, Africa to the United States and now to Britain. Nelson was pro-slavery, for it was the slave He would go so far as to argue that this false trade that upheld the colonial system that narrative - ‘that the moral failures of the past became the foundation of British greatness are, in fact, the triumphs we once thought that Nelson so patriotically defended. The they were’ - created the nostalgia that has issue then is that by celebrating Nelson, we influenced current affairs such as Brexit as are upholding sentiments of British greatness well as Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great that are now inextricably connected to colo- Again’ (Stiem, 2018). While we don’t have the nialism, and by extension, slavery. room here to explore the political nuances of such current affairs, it is certainly valuable to Considering this, the question arises: how consider the broader question of how such should we interpret this contentious herit- statues are not only reflective of the narra- age? Afua Hirsch would argue that Nelson’s tives and national identities from the time column must be pulled down. Surely there is that they were built, but can also shape and no question to bringing down a statue that influence contemporary thought and politics, elevates racist thought? The issue, however, and thus, why it is essential that this issue is is considerably more complex. Foremost addressed. is the backlash Hirsch faced following the publication of her article. Talking with Dan Stiem identifies three possible approaches Snow on his podcast History Hit Toppling to such statues. Firstly, ‘conservatism’; to Statues, Why Nelson’s Column Should be leave the statues alone. Secondly, ‘agonism’; Next with Afua Hirsch, (2017) Hirsch tells of modifying statues to ‘reflect contemporary how she came under attack by numerous sensibilities’. And finally, ‘antagonism’; the tabloids, criticising both her and her arti- removal of the offending statues. Ignoring cle. The ubiquitous sentiment was that ‘the the issue and leaving statues as they are is past is the past’, and that Nelson was ‘of his clearly no longer an option as statues are time’. However, Hirsch argues that the real- being defaced and protests turning violent, ity is quite the opposite. She argues that as was the case in Charlottesville, Virginia, there is an ‘intellectual laziness’ within Britain resulting in the death of a 32-year-old woman 46 GEM Journal No 40 Tanya Wilson Tanya Wilson GEM Journal No 40 47 (Black, 2018:27). The ‘antagonistic’ removal but that’s as far as agonism goes’ (Stiem, of statues is equally problematic. As we 2018). Though apologetic, it would appear have already seen, in Britain there is an to be a limited solution, even tokenistic, as evident reluctance to do so, not only with has been suggested by responses to the regards to Nelson’s column, but with other newly proposed plaque on Colston’s statue statues that have similarly come under fire, (Parkes, 2018). I would agree that the narra- including a statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford tive surrounding Nelson and the part that and Edward Colston in Bristol (Black, 2018). he played countering the Abolitionists must In such debates, phrases such as ‘cultural be ‘contextualised’, but in order to do so, we terrorism’ have been thrown around, with must go deeper than simply a plaque and comparisons being drawn to the cultural look to the bigger picture of the heritage cleansing undertaken by the Islamic State sector and its many platforms and how it can and earlier the Taliban on ancient sites in the offer a counter narrative. Middle East (McInkstry, 2017). While perhaps this is an extreme example, the essential To begin with, we must first look to museums, motives are comparable; the removal of and how they approach contested histo- heritage that does not conform with contem- ries and have themselves become contested porary values. Another issue that pulling heritage sites. The concept of contested down the column would present is that in history is deeply embedded within the doing so, we completely erase this conten- history of modern museums as we know tious history, thereby erasing both good and them.