News / Arts
‘A calumny not worthy of column inches’
A senior Tory councillor has accused a respected historian of “a total distortion of fact” following an article in The Guardian in which he said that the name of the Colston Hall was “an affront to a multicultural city”.
Richard Eddy (above right, top) has reacted angrily to what he calls David Olusoga’s “simplistic” analysis of Bristol’s relationship with the past and to Edward Colston.
British-Nigerian historian and broadcaster Olusoga (above right, bottom), who lives in Bristol, wrote that no city is more wilfully blind to its history than Bristol and should stop honouring the slave trader who gives the venue his name.
Bishopsworth councillor Eddy, who in 2001 was forced to resign as deputy leader of his council group after he was accused of racial insensitivity for keeping a golliwog as his office mascot, said: “This latest contribution on the place of Edward Colston in our city’s history is particularly unhelpful, simplistic and contradictory in content. It is based on and a total distortion of fact.
“Moreover, I find it highly insulting and a gross misrepresentation to suggest that Bristol is ‘wilfully blind’ about its own history or that we have racial zoning ‘worthy of the Deep South’.
“These assertions are absurd and I can only imagine have been made as a piece of self-promotion, political posturing or to make the author of these claims feel good about themselves.
“This is a classic ‘hollow-man’ argument. We have regular-to-semi-permanent exhibitions on the transatlantic slave trade at the M Shed, our newest museum; the council has successfully poured millions into raising education attainment in BME groups; there is an iconic bridge in the city harbour named after an African slave; and formal expressions of regret over the city’s involvement in this trade have been made most notably around the commemoration of its abolition in 2007.
“I do not support the renaming proposal. To do so panders to a tiny minority who conveniently remain silent over such outrages as protesters harassing school children for simply attending Colston Girls School (which is a hugely successful academic institution catering for children of all racial and religious backgrounds).
“Indeed, arguably, a change of name would only motivate others to suggest that Bristol was attempting to hide a shameful past by trying to expunge Colston from its history books.
“One cannot change the past, nor should we seek to re-write or forget it. It has been rightly said that those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
“To hail Bristol as a multicultural city and then in the same breadth portray it as racially riven is a calumny not worthy of the column inches it has already enjoyed or reflected in most people’s experience.”
The latest row over the name of the Colston Hall has erupted as the venue enters its 150th birthday year and a public consultation has been launched on plans for a multi-million pound transformation.
Venue bosses have stressed from the start of their campaign to raise funding to transform the hall that they have listened to concerns regarding negative associations with Colston and that they would be reviewing the name as part of the redevelopment.
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