Nelson and Robert E Lee

Having written a post yesterday about the need for tolerance and respect for opposing views I have set myself the challenge to respond to the article from this year's "silly season" which I most disagree with and to do so in a polite and respectful way.

Over the pond they have been having fierce arguments about whether to tear down statues of people who fought for the Confederate States of America such as General Robert E Lee.

Not to be outdone, Afua Hirsch wrote in the Guardian that if Britain were not guilty of "inertia, arrogance and intellectual laziness" we would right past wrongs against black people by toppling Nelson's column.

She accused Nelson of having been a "defender of slavery" who "used his seat in the House of Lords and his position of huge influence to perpetuate the tyranny, serial rape and exploitation organised by West Indian planters, some of whom he counted among his closest friends."

While this depiction of the Hero of Trafalgar is rather oversimplified and should be taken with a bucketful of salt - for example, I don't think he made much use of his seat in the House of Lords to do anything since he spent the great majority of his adult life at sea - we can accept that Nelson wasn't awarded the statue because in his private life he was a candidate for sainthood.

During the generation after Nelson's death Britain took the most important first step possible by abolishing the slave trade - both the Atlantic slave trade and the North African slave trade.

The military force which largely stamped out these disgusting trades, which were crimes against the humanity whether the millions of victims were predominantly of African descent, as in the former case, or of all races including more than a million Europeans, in the latter case, was the British Royal Navy, including many commanders and men trained by Nelson.

It is important to put historical monuments in their proper context, and we should be careful about judging the people of former centuries by the standards of our own. This particularly applies when we are talking about issues or opinions which are at best peripheral to the main achievements for which an individual was remembered.

As Jerry White, professor of London history at Birkbeck College, told the Standard in response to Hirsch's article, “Almost any historical figure that we could think of, when tested, will come off looking like they had views that would be unacceptable to people living now."

The main thing for which confederate figures like Robert E Lee are remembered is for having fought for the rebel cause in the US Civil war, which they described as a war for Independence and "states rights" but was triggered because the states which formed the CSA suspected Abraham Lincoln of planning to abolish slavery.

Hence it is not entirely unjustified to accuse those who are remembered for having fought on the confederate side of having fought for slavery and it is not surprising that there is more than a little sensitivity to anything which appears to celebrate symbols of the Confederate cause.

Nelson, by contrast, spent thirty years at sea defending Britain against a wide variety of enemies, but he is most remembered for his battles against Emperor Napoleon, and he not only gave his life in that cause but was one of the pivotal figures in stopping that immensely talented but dangerous megalomaniac from remaking the world in his image.

Napoleon said "Let us be masters of the straits for six hours and we shall be masters of the world" and he was probably right: Nelson possibly did more than any other man to stop him from doing so.

If you are in Paris and want to get an idea of the sort of man Napoleon was, go to the Musee D'Orsai and look at the picture he commissioned Ingres to paint of him on his imperial throne:


The painting is powerful as an image on the screen but the impact of the real thing in it's full size is much stronger. I've stood in front of that painting and it scared me - by making me think about how close the man it depicts came to conquering the earth and what sort of world he would have created.

(Possibly not one in which Afua Hirsh would be publishing articles in The Guardian or anywhere else: Napoleon wasn't all that keen on women being allowed political opinions. He wasn't terribly big on other forms of minority rights either.)

Nelson not only helped stop Napoleon from conquering Britain and the world but he also helped build a tradition which later stopped Hitler's similar ambitions.

Unlike Robert E Lee, Admiral Nelson fought on the right side of history. By all means remember his flaws but let us continue to celebrate his achievements.

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