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Falling Statues,
Symbols under scrutiny
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do we honor someone's memory in the family?
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Whose pictures do we keep and show?
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What might we do to show respect for an ancestor?
Statues of historical characters have been dishonored or toppled down in several countries between 2020-2021
Can you guess who, for instance?
Kings & queens, Slave traffickers, European Adventurers (Los Conquistadores), Colonial representatives, Heads of State.
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Why do you think these people toppled down the Queen Victoria and Elizabeth I statues in Winnipeg in July 2021?
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Do you recognize this guy?
Sebastián de Benalcázar
Why?
Other causes:
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inequality among social and ethnic groups (Latin America / Indigenous peoples).
What does this stand for?
Linked theories
Memorialization, linked to colonialism and its supremacist symbols above other cultures and peoples.
De-memorialization, as a reaction to a sort of old narrative.
Horizontal inequality (Gudrun). “Polarization, Horizontal Inequalities and Violent Civil Conflict”
Historic revisionism, not in the sense of re-writing past events but as an approach to strip offensive characters from public honor.
Image Rethoric (Barthes), denotation and connotation as two ways monuments can be read and interpreted
Personal position?
This essay might be the base to propose further interdisciplinary research related to new ways to define public spaces through democratic and inclusive debates as well as a Human Rights approach.
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Theory: Encounter theory as a non-violent engagement of difference (encontering the otherness to build something new)
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