I am a republican with little interest in the pharmaceutical industry. This summer will therefore be a testing time for me, what with London hosting the Olympic Games and the British monarch celebrating her diamond jubilee.

Fortunately these two events are only temporary. They will, however, leave lasting legacies. One such is the 175,000 m2 Westfield Stratford City shopping centre. Britain’s gold medal haul would really rocket if the "Retail Relay" were to become an Olympic event.

Heaven on earth is now a reality for the shoppers of London.

Meanwhile, another legacy project has yet to be accomplished. And, in an effort to help ensure that it remains that way, I have rushed to my keyboard with the same zeal as a drug-fuelled athlete reacting to the boom of the starting pistol.

For it grieves me to report that a group of cretinous politicians are proposing to turn the Houses of Parliament's "Big Ben" into the "Elizabeth Tower" in honour of our dear old queen.(1)

Now, a number of arguments can be deployed to support this obsequious suggestion.

Firstly, the name change wouldn't really matter. The vast majority of locals and visitors would continue to mistakenly refer to it as "Big Ben". Its proper – and far more mundane title – is simply "the Clock Tower". Big Ben alludes to its great bell, which in turn is probably a reference to the politician and engineer, Sir Benjamin Hall (1802-67).

Secondly, the re-christening would bring this iconic symbol in line with the Victoria Tower on the other side of the building. This erection takes its name from Queen Victoria, Britain's erstwhile longest-serving monarch.

Ditching Ben in favour of Liz would add yet another royal epithet to the Houses of Parliament – or, to give it its formal designation: the New Palace at Westminster. This title reflects the fact that Sir Charles Barry's architectural fantasy arose from the ashes of the old palace. Only Westminster Hall survived the inferno that engulfed this ancient edifice in 1834.

The centuries-old Westminster Hall is skilfully integrated into Barry's neo-gothic design. Earlier this month the queen paid it a visit in order to witness the unveiling of a stained-glass window to mark her jubilee.(2)

As she looked up at this glittering tribute, I wonder if she spared a thought for Charles I? For it was in that very same building way back in January 1649 that this soon-to-be-beheaded monarch was put on trial – and sentenced to death.

Charles's nemesis was Oliver Cromwell.

Cromwell was still causing a right royal rumpus two centuries later. This was in relation to the decorative scheme planned for the New Palace at Westminster. If you look carefully you'll see that parliament's façade is festooned with statues of the various kings and queens that have ruled England and Britain through the ages.

This carved history posed a dilemma to its designers: what should be done about Cromwell?

For the sake of historical accuracy and completeness he ought to have been slotted in between Charles I (executed in 1649) and his son, Charles II (restored to the throne in 1660).

But placing a regicide in a royalist pantheon proved to be a commemorative step too far.(3) Cromwell was sculpturally excised from British history. Not until the very end of the 19th century was the Lord Protector rewarded with a statue. He stands there to this day: at one remove, deep in thought and with his back turned to parliament.(4)

So, whether you like it or not, Cromwell is part of Britain's political and monarchical history. If "Big Ben" must have new nomenclature, then it should from this year on be known as "Cromwell Tower".

What better way to mark Queen Elizabeth's jubilee? A silent admonition not only to this monarch but to all her heirs: they occupy positions of privilege and power not by right but by accidents of birth.

Other, far less anachronistic and slightly more democratic systems are possible.

The Cromwell Tower will remind the House of Windsor and all their subjects that we should not take the status quo for granted.

God Save the Queen!

____
Notes
(1) James Chapman, "Bong! Will Big Ben tower be renamed after the Queen? MPs call for the London landmark to be renamed for the Diamond Jubilee", Daily Mail, 23/03/2012, accessed 25/03/2012 at, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118999/Big-Ben-renamed-Elizabeth-Tower-Queen.html.
(2) Jon Craig, "Westminster To Honour Queen's Diamond Jubilee", Sky News, 20/03/2012, accessed 25/03/2012 at, http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16192187.
(3) The phrase "A regicide in a royalist pantheon" appears in the fifth chapter of my PhD, which concerned the commemorative history and symbolism of parliament and the adjacent square. See Stuart Burch, On Stage at the Theatre of State: The Monuments and Memorials in Parliament Square, London (Nottingham Trent University, 2003).
(4) The stupendous statue of Cromwell - with bible in one hand and sword in the other - was made by Sir William Hamo Thornycroft RA (1850-1925) and completed (without an unveiling ceremony) in 1899. Ever since 1950 he has stood face-to-face with a lead bust of Charles I inserted into a niche on the façade of St. Margaret's Church opposite...
     ... as can be seen below:

_

JULIUS LUCIUS BRENCHLEY,
BENEFACTOR,
BORN at KINGSLEY HOUSE, MAIDSTONE, 30th NOVEMBER, 1816,
DIED at FOLKESTONE, 24th FEBRUARY, 1873.
After many years of travel, returning to England, he bought,
laid out, and transferred to the Maidstone Local Board the
adjacent Public Garden, and at his death bequeathed his
collections of Natural History, Books, and Works of Art to
Trustees, with an Endowment for their preservation and
exhibition in this Museum.


Alternative plaque:

Next month the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds will open an exhibition entitled, "United Enemies". It aims to explore "the problem of sculpture in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s".

The slogan emblazoned on the institute's facade resonates with the war memorial outside. One of the allegorical groups at its base features a sculpture of St George conquering the dragon. The saint and the serpent are "united enemies" – frozen forever in a brutal bronze embrace and "symbolical... of the everlasting struggle between good and evil."(1)

But all is not as it seems. The Carrara marble obelisk, plinth and steps were executed by Carlo Domenico Magnoni (c.1871-1961). Henry Charles Fehr (1867-1940) was responsible for the bronze sculptures. The ensemble once stood in the City Square just outside the main railway station. Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood unveiled it there in 1922.(2) Fifteen years later it was shifted to Victoria Gardens on The Headrow, where it still stands. Originally Fehr's "Winged Victory" hovered triumphantly over St George. This was removed in 1967. Since 1991 the more pacific "Angel of Peace" by Ian Jubb (born 1947) has surmounted the dragon slayer. This chimes with Fehr's allegory of "Peace" which, like St George, stands at the base of the obelisk.(3)

So, whilst this memorial looks fixed and unchanging, appearances can be deceptive. The Leeds War Memorial does all it can to convince us that it speaks for everyone, forever - a truly public pronouncement. The patina of time adds to its nostalgic allure. But compare present-day attitudes with this newspaper article published in 1922:

    After something like three years of procrastination, mainly due to a lack of
    monetary support, the Leeds War Memorial has become an accomplished
    fact with the fixing of the date for the unveiling ceremony, which will be on
    October 14. The project has been attended by criticism and scarcely-veiled
    hostility since its inception. By the time Sir Reginald Blomfield's plans had
    been provisionally accepted by the War Memorial Committee most of the
    parishes and districts had their individual memorials, either erected or in
    hand. No doubt this was one of the reasons the subscription-list for the fund
    of £70,000 never reached £7,000; others lay in objections to the memorial
    design; in objections to the Cookridge Street site; in a contention more than
    once urged that a war memorial ought to afford benefit to the living disabled,
    for instance, rather than a memorialising of the dead; and also in the
    unemployment and distress then becoming acute.(4)

The temporary carpet of poppies at the feet of St George; the metamorphosis from victory to peace; and a knowledge of the memorial's deeply contested origins remind us that objects are forever being "perceived and uttered in different ways".(5) A monument's meaning is not stable but is instead "in suspense... and... indeterminate". The Leeds memorial has at various points in its history attracted suffragists, pacifists, war veterans and fairtraders.(6) Its potential significance, it seems, is infinitely malleable. A commemorative memorial such as this is thus "tailored to the needs of the present... and especially the future". Those that gather at symbols of remembrance do so in an effort "to determine, delimit and define the always open meaning of the present." Objects are, in short, subject to all manner of "cognitive 'filling-in' strategies".

One such "cognitive 'filling-in' strategy" is this very blog posting. I began writing it on the eve of my talk to delegates of the "Sculpture and Comic Art" conference taking place in the art gallery directly behind St George and his foe. My talk uses the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu to explore Estonia's Bronze Soldier. This Soviet-era war memorial is simultaneously interpreted as a symbol of liberation and occupation. Opposing camps have clashed at the foot of the statue in a futile effort "to determine, delimit and define the always open meaning of the present." In April 2007 a riot erupted on the streets of Tallinn when the authorities moved the monument from the city centre to a military cemetery. The Bronze Soldier obliged these "united enemies" to realise an uncomfortable truth, namely that objects are "perceived and uttered in different ways".

If you're in any doubt about this, just ask the poor old "Winged Victory". After her removal from the Leeds war memorial she was, like Estonia's Bronze Soldier, moved to a burial place, namely Cottingley Crematorium. However, in 1988 the metal maiden was deemed to be in such a poor state of repair that she was melted down. The only part that escaped this authorised vandalism was the head. It is now in the collections of Leeds City Art Gallery. This decapitated angel of victory looks anything but victorious. What better example could there be of the indeterminacy of meaning and of an object's infinite capacity for being "perceived and uttered in different ways"?

And who knows, perhaps one day St George will also be sent back to the furnace from whence he came? He and the dragon would cease to be "united enemies". The severed serpent might then be set free to embark on an exciting new life full of unanticipated meanings...

____
Notes
(1) Unveiling of the War Memorial by the Right Hon. Viscount Lascelles K.G., D.S.O. Saturday, 14th October, 1922, at 3:30 (Leeds: Jowett & Sowry), p.2.
(2) The Yorkshire Evening News felt it was "appropriate the Viscount Lascelles should perform the duty, as he [had] a distinguished war record and was thrice wounded while serving on the Western front." (6/10/1922).
(3) Information about the monument is derived from interpretation panels in the sculpture galleries of Leeds City Art Gallery (15/11/2011).
(4) "The Leeds War Memorial", The Yorkshire Observer, 6/10/1922.
(5) This and all subsequent quotations are derived from Pierre Bourdieu's "The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups", Theory and Society, Vol. 14, No. 6, 1985, pp. 723-744 (p. 728).
(6) See http://www.visitleeds.co.uk/thedms.aspx?dms=13&feature=1&venue=2193653.

The sound of silence...

"Today We Remember Martin Luther King
 – Tomorrow We Don't"

The quotation above doesn't come from some highbrow History book or academic article exploring collective memory. Instead it's from a newspaper. The New York Times, perhaps? Or the Sydney Herald? No, the actual source was The Springfield Shopper.(1) Homer Simpson's local paper is an odd place to study history. Yet this fleeting, one-line gag in The Simpsons is in fact a witty and perceptive appreciation of how societies remember and forget.

The annals of past events are limitless. This gives rise to whole calendars of commemorations – like Martin Luther King Day. An event such as this is one of the mechanisms necessary to filter, rank and arrange the past; to make it manageable and to put it to use. To turn the past into History.

Anniversaries help supply the present with their historical fix. No matter how insatiable we are, there is always a ready supply of past pleasures and pains for us to use and abuse. One anniversary leads to another and another in a bulimic spewing up of the past.(2) And by comparing multiple commemorations of the same event we get an insight into the ways in which the past is put into the service of the present.(3)

Take today, for example. It is Armistice Day. Ninety-three years have passed since the end of the "Great War". This gives rise to the intoning of that familiar mantra:

        On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918,
        the guns fell silent and the First World War came to an end. Today on
        11th November, we remember, in silence, all those who have given
        their lives in war in the cause of peace and freedom.(4)

This moment is marked by repetition. The observing of silences; the laying of wreaths; the tolling of bells; the playing of music. These recurring performances have been re-enacted following a score set down by the Royal British Legion exactly 90 years ago.

Such rituals are intended to interrupt the haphazard unfolding of day-to-day events by inserting a familiar pause – a link in time connecting our present with our past, secure in the knowledge that this will happen again in our future. This is how the chain of history is constructed. Shared memory is deployed to forge collectivities.

Repetition and sameness are emphasised. But, if we look carefully, what they actually highlight is that which is different or new. Thus, whilst we are remembering past wars, we are also encouraged to reflect on current conflicts. Those that observe silences or gather around memorials in the UK are made aware that British soldiers in Afghanistan are doing just what their forebears did, namely giving "their lives in war in the cause of peace and freedom."

Not everyone agrees with this, of course. Certain members of the now-illegal "Muslims Against Crusades" were planning a counter demonstration today. They too wished to observe this memorial occasion and its associated symbolism. Yet they would prefer to burn a plastic poppy rather than place it at the foot of an old war memorial. Such behaviour is distasteful and disrespectful – but should it be punishable by imprisonment?

The potency of the poppy confirms the sense in which 'the flower has become an iconic symbol of remembrance and sacrifice.'(5) Its importance and that of the November ritual as a whole appears to be increasing rather than diminishing as the years go by. This explains the seemingly disproportionate amount of attention the media devotes to reports of a war memorial being vandalised or dishonoured. A steadily rising number of plaques listing the names of the dead have been stolen from such monuments. The high value of scrap metal makes an uncomfortable parallel with the high value of the sacrifice inscribed in each and every liquefied name.

The heat required to melt these metal sheets is matched by the temperature rising in commemorative terms. This is due to the imminent arrival of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. Will 2014 represent a high-water mark of remembrance? We can't know the answer to this because we simply don't know what the future holds or what future generations will choose to remember and forget.

So it seems fair to say that The Springfield Shopper headline got it right and wrong: "Today We Remember Armistice Day – Tomorrow We Don't". But the day after that we will: it's Remembrance Sunday. And the wreath-laying rituals will be repeated all over again – for some people at least.

_____
Notes

(1) 'The Springfield Shopper', The Simpsons 18/9 (2006).
(2) Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Vol. III: Symbols, New York, Columbia University Press, 1998, p. 609.
(3) Stuart Burch, 'The Texture of Heritage: A Reading of the 750th Anniversary of Stockholm', International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol. 11 (3), 2005, pp. 211-233.
(4) BBC Radio 4 News, 11:00, 11/11/2011.
(5) Angus Crawford, The World at One, BBC Radio 4, 11/11/2011.

__________
Supplemental
18/11/2011

One American citizen who does not observe Martin Luther King Day is George Orr, the principal protagonist in Ursula K. Le Guin's superb book, The Lathe of Heaven (1971). He is able to alter the world by having what he terms "effective" dreams (p.13). Orr's unconscious solution to racism is to dream into existence a globe populated solely by grey-skinned people. But in so doing he erases the woman he loves: Heather Lelache's "color of brown was an essential part of her, not an accident... She could not exist in the gray (sic) people's world. She had not been born." (p. 129) And that is not all: this is also now a world that "found in it no address that had been delivered on a battlefield in Gettysburg, nor any man known to history named Martin Luther King." (p. 129) All this might seem like "a small price to pay for the complete retroactive abolition of racial prejudice". But George Orr finds the situation "intolerable. That every soul on earth should have a body the color of a battleship: no!" (p. 129).

Source:
Le Guin, Ursula K. (1971/2001) The Lathe of Heaven (London: Orion)

Building Britain's Future was a policy initiative launched in 2009 by the then British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. It was his government's "radical vision for a fairer, stronger and more prosperous society". One of its goals was to invest in affordable housing of the sort being implemented by the Newlon Housing Trust. This "not for profit" association is developing 537 homes in Tottenham Hale, a district in the London Borough of Haringey. A large billboard at the building site on Ferry Lane advertises this fact. On it is the Building Britain's Future logo.

Directly opposite this sign are bunches of flowers tied to a railing. It was here on Thursday 4th August 2011 that a police officer shot and killed Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old resident of Tottenham's Broadwater Farm estate. It was his death that sparked off riots across London and in other parts of England.

The destruction and despair wrought by this sustained violence represents an enormous setback for all attempts to build Britain's future. The riots have not only caused physical damage. The international image of London (and with it Britain) has been tarnished by the media attention given to the aftermath of Mark Duggan's shooting exactly 27 miles from Stansted Airport.

Who was Mark Duggan? A loving father of four who had maintained a relationship with his childhood sweetheart from the age of 17? Or a drug-dealing gangster who carried a gun following the murder of his cousin last year?

Whoever he was, he has attained posthumous fame.

The site of his death has become a spontaneous shrine, a temporary memorial and a "fatal attraction". I chose to visit the spot on the day of his funeral. The flowers were dead or dying. The messages have become indistinct. Rubbish had begun to accumulate. Most revealing is the floral tribute that probably originally read: "N17". This is presumably intended to signify the postcode of the Broadwater Farm estate where Duggan was born and grew up. The number "7" has been damaged. Was this caused by thoughtless vandalism or a deliberate act? If it was the latter, it would imply that the perpetrator was a member of a rival gang and that the floral tribute was no innocent sign of remembrance but a token of an endemic turf war.

Soon the flowers and other items will be cleared away - and with it the memory of Mark Duggan. Will a plaque be erected there one day? A statue to the fallen "martyr"? A memorial to the riots of 2011?

No. Instead it will all be forgotten. What occurred on that spot will be erased, just like the vast majority of lifestories. But traces of the past will remain - such as this blog posting. It has been motivated by the belief that we need to remember Mark Duggan and what he stood for. In doing so we will be forced to ask some difficult and distasteful questions.

Many would, however, much prefer it if we could just sweep him aside as easily as removing the flowers on Ferry Lane.

But if we do that we will have learnt nothing from the violence that erupted in the summer of 2011. Our ignorance and forgetfulness will mean that the same things will happen again and again. For it should be recalled that Duggan was three years old when the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985 broke out. His own children are also growing up under the shadow of violence and disorder. If we choose to forget Mark Duggan then his death will count for nothing except despair.

The little boy with a paper crown that I spotted on Ferry Lane deserves so much more. It is our duty to see that he grows up in a Britain with a future.

Today's issue of the Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter features an article entitled, "Humans are like parasites" (Björling 2011). This interesting idea is derived from a statement made by the American artist Andrea Zittel at the opening of a new exhibition of her work.

Zittel's view on human behaviour resonated with an item on the previous page of the same newspaper (Söderling 2011). This concerned a dispute between two historians. One is Ulf Zander, the person with whom I collaborated on the article, "Preoccupied by the Past – The Case of Estonia's Museum of Occupations" (Burch & Zander 2008). The other is Tanja Schult. She attended a seminar I gave at Stockholm University earlier this year. After my talk she kindly gave me a copy of her book, A Hero's Many Faces: Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments (Schult 2009).

It is the existence of this publication that has given rise to claims of plagiarism. Zander stands accused of incorporating translated extracts into his own book, Hjälten: Raoul Wallenberg inför eftervärlden (Zander 2010). A panel responsible for investigating such cases has previously rejected this claim; but now the publisher of Zander's book has decided to withdraw it from sale.

Zander plans to reissue an amended version of his book under a new title. He dismisses the plagiarism claim, arguing that the extracts in question concern widely known facts rather than specifically attributable ideas. He also points out that Schult is mentioned both in his introduction and conclusion as well as being listed in the references. (One might add that a similar acknowledgement was not reciprocated in an extended article that Schult (2010) had published in the newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet.)

This affair is regrettable, not least because Zander and Schult were originally professional colleagues. Their partnership ended in acrimony, leading Zander to publish Hjälten (The Hero) on his own. Of wider interest is the sense in which this wrangle threatens to overshadow the importance of their research. Raoul Wallenberg's actions during the Second World War saved many Jews from the Holocaust. The commemoration of Wallenberg is therefore not only morally necessary, but also an excellent case to study from a public history perspective. Both Zander and Schult have done much to promote this cause and improve our understanding of the struggle for "ownership" of historical events and personalities. Such legacies of the past are negotiated and contested in the politics of the present. Ironically enough, there can be no better demonstration of this fact that the unfortunate conflict between the academics, Ulf Zander and Tanja Schult.

_________
References

Björling, Sanna Torén (2011) "Människor är som parasiter", Dagens Nyheter, 08/09, Kultur, p.3
Burch, Stuart & Ulf Zander (2008) "Preoccupied by the Past – The Case of Estonia's Museum of Occupations",
    Scandia: Tidskrift för Historisk Forskning, Vol. 74 (2), pp. 53-73
Schult, Tanja (2009) A Hero's Many Faces: Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments, Palgrave Macmillan
Schult, Tanja (2010) "Monument med mänskliga proportioner", Svenska Dagbladet, 27/01, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.svd.se/kultur/understrecket/monument-med-manskliga-proportioner_4157797.svd
Söderling, Fredrik (2011) "Känd historiker anklagad för fusk", Dagens Nyheter, 08/09, Kultur, p.2
Zander, Ulf (2010) Hjälten: Raoul Wallenberg inför eftervärlden, Forum för levande historia

The sculptor, Gustav Kraitz designed the memorial Hope (1998) on Raoul Wallenberg Walk adjacent to the United Nations building in New York. It features a bronze copy of Wallenberg's briefcase. This element is sited in other locations, including the Beth Shalom centre in Nottinghamshire (below).

Our urban landscapes are saturated with symbolic meaning to such an extent that even a humdrum pedestrian crossing can become a significant place marker. This is the way with all street furniture. Yet their banal presence and utilitarian function effectively masks their potential meaningfulness.

This is arguably the case with the subject of this blog posting: a bus-stop in the unremarkable town of Royal Tunbridge Wells in the south east of England. Hovering over the waiting passengers is a bronze bayoneted rifle held in the iron grip of a soldier statue. This is the work of the sculptor, Stanley Nicholson Babb FRBS (c.1873-1957) and dates from 1922. It forms the centrepiece of a memorial to the First and Second World Wars. It in turn provides a name and a geographical anchor for the bus-stops that traverse the street in front. They are: War Memorial.

Questions    Do many travellers reflect on this fact or cast an eye up to the ever-present soldier? Of those that do, how many look at the panels listing the dead? As they read the names, do they concur with the sentiments inscribed beneath the bronze feet of the statue: OUR GLORIOUS DEAD?

This token of death seeps into the hurly-burly of the living. Those that fought and died so many years ago still exist, but they have taken on new forms: metamorphosed into stone and bronze; transfigured into bus-stops; inscribed into bus timetables.

___________
Supplemental

I have since discovered that, following a recommendation from English Heritage, the memorial has been granted Grade II listed status (BBC 2011). This should afford it some protection - something that might be necessary if plans go ahead to redevelop the civic centre complex (Pudelek 2011).

BBC (2011) "Tunbridge Wells war memorial given listed status", BBC News, 16/07, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-14173615
Pudelek, Jenna (2011) "Tunbridge Wells War Memorial achieves listed status", KOS Media, 16/07, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/tunbridge_wells_war_memorial_achieves_listed_status_1_970474

The Guardian newspaper has published a selection of the "UK's best sculptures of women". Its compiler, Laura Barton, enthuses that the "UK is alive with beautiful sculptures of women" (Barton 2011). Alas, her sweet selection of lovely ladies confirms observations made years ago by the likes of Janet Monk (1992) and Marina Warner (1987). They point out that our streets and squares are swamped with statues of men but hardly any women. Yes, the latter do appear, but almost always as abstract, moralising symbols which, according to Marina Warner, "hardly ever interact with real, individual women" (Warner 1987: 28).

With this in mind, Barton ought to have sought out real women who have distinguished themselves by their beautiful achievements rather than their beautiful breasts. Candidates might include the Emmeline Pankhurst memorial near the Houses of Parliament (Arthur George Walker, 1930). Or how about Mark Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant that once graced Trafalgar Square's "Fourth plinth" (Burch 2009)?

One positive outcome of The Guardian's bevy of beauties is the reactions of some online readers. They have used the list to promote statues of "missing" women. A case in point is crittero, who laments the lack of a public monument to Mary Wollstonecraft "'founder' of women's movement". Meanwhile, MissB1983 has provided a link to a very interesting article concerning "Women's erasure from women's memorials" (Dougherty 2011).

_________
References

Barton, Laura (2011) "Female forms", The Guardian, 25/08, accessed 27/08/2011 at,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/25/female-uk-sculptures-women
Burch, Stuart (2009) "Trafalgar Square: a public lecture", 09/08, talk given on Trafalgar Square's
    "fourth plinth" as part of Antony Gormley's One & Other (6th July - 14th October 2009). Transcript of talk.
Dougherty, Carolyn (2011) "Women's erasure from women's memorials", 16/06, the f word, accessed 27/08/2011 at,
    http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2011/06/womens_erasure_monuments
Monk, Janice (1992) "Gender in the landscape: expressions of power and meaning",
    in Kay Anderson and Fay Gale (eds.), Inventing Places: Studies in Cultural Geography,
    Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1992, pp. 123-138
Warner, Marina (1987) Monuments and Maidens. The Allegory of the Female Form, London, Pan Books

Question: What would be the most appropriate way to signal the end of a 42-year dictatorship?
Answer: By targeting those symbols most closely associated with the regime.

This is exactly what has occurred in Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's compound in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Its walls have been breached and its defences overrun. And the dictator's decapitated head lolls beneath the feet of jubilant rebel fighters. But this is not the real thing. It's a golden substitute, hacked from the body of an idolatrous statue. Once the symbol of a despot's supremacy, this obscene portrait is now a simple full stop: the final, clinching proof that the tyrant's rule is over.

___________
Supplemental
20/10/2011

Events have now reached their inevitable, bloody conclusion. Colonel Gaddafi never did face justice - just the butts of rifles and the barrel of the gun that appears to have ended his life. Yet "[k]illing him is not enough", insists Alaa al-Ameri writing in the Guardian:

    We have to forget him. To do that we have to expunge his
    influence from every aspect of our lives. Only then can we
    be free of him.(1)

The idea of Gaddafi being utterly erased seems remote, not least given the grisly appeal of death and disaster tourism.(2) And would it be sensible to totally forget this monster? Surely the best way of safeguarding against some future Gaddafi would be to remember the terror and despair that he brought both to the people of Libya and to the citizens of other countries, not least the United Kingdom and the United States. Moreover, we would be wise to remember the cancerous influence he exerted on foreign powers - as exemplified by the actions of the former British premier, Tony Blair.(3)

The people of Libya can be forgiven for wishing to forget Gaddafi. But the people of Britain would do well to keep him in mind.

____
Notes

(1) al-Ameri, Alaa (2011) "Gaddafi is dead. We must now forget him", The Guardian, 20/10, accessed 20/10/2011 at, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/gaddafi-dead-libya
(2) See my blog posting, "Sites of sickening sights", 26/08/2011.
(3) Brady, Brian (2011) "Evidence grows of Blair's links with Gaddafi", The Independent, 18/09, accessed 20/10/2011 at, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/evidence-grows-of-blairs-links-with-gaddafi-2356576.html.

"One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets – anything that might throw light upon the past had been systematically altered."

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (orig. pub. 1949), Penguin, 1969, p. 82

William Hazlitt's dismissal of statues and other tangible monuments echoes Charles Dickens's desire to avoid being turned into stone.

            "I conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any
            monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. I rest my claims
            to the remembrance of my country upon my published works..."

So stated Charles Dickens in his will dated 12 May 1869. But with the 200th anniversary of his birth rapidly approaching it would appear that his exhortations will be in vain. Portsmouth, the place of his birth, intends to erect a statue to be inaugurated in April next year.

If Dickens's express wishes are to be ignored, I suggest that a wall of books be erected around the monument. Only those who can demonstrate that they have read at least one of his stories should be allowed to creep between the covers to glimpse the great man of letters, "immovable as a statue" (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Macmillan, 1904 ed., p. 278).

This would at least ensure that Dickens's "claims to remembrance" remain based on his "published works".

I'm not a prophet or a stone age man
Just a mortal with potential of a superman
I'm living on

Bowie, David (1971) "Quicksand", Hunky Dory, Rykodisc, 05:03

Groups commemorate notable individuals in a variety of ways. This includes erecting tangible monuments (plaques, statues, obelisks and even whole buildings) as well as grave markers such as memorial headstones. But remembering also takes intangible or non-material form. An instance of this occurs every time the media reports the name of the latest recipient of a "Nobel prize". The award commemorates Alfred Nobel (1833-96), the person who initiated the scheme in his last will and testament. Of course, the fact that many people have never heard of Alfred Nobel is a reminder that forgetting is far more common than remembering.

Another important thing to remember (or forget) is that commemoration need not be a marker of praise. The word "quisling", for instance, means "a traitor to one's country" (OED 2007). It is derived from Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), the so-called Minister-President of Nazi-occupied Norway. During the war his surname became synonymous with treasonable behaviour. Its use as a noun occurred first in The Times newspaper’s article entitled "Quislings everywhere" (15 April 1940, p.5).

Quisling is a less familiar word today, but it still has currency. It could quite legitimately be used in reference to Anders Behring Breivik (born 1979), a Norwegian whose extreme right-wing beliefs led him to murder 77 of his fellow citizens on 22nd July 2011.

-----------
OED (2007) "quisling, n. and adj." Third edition, December 2007; online version June 2011. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/156777>; accessed 11 August 2011. An entry for this word was first included in A Supplement to the OED III, 1982.