Denbigh's Henry Morton Stanley statue 'celebrates racism', academics claim
A planned statue of the colonial explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley in his home town should be scrapped because it wrongly romanticises his “racist” African adventures, a group of opponents have claimed in a letter to the Daily Telegraph.
Residents of Denbigh, North Wales have commissioned a bronze statue to celebrate the Victorian explorer’s legacy – but 60 academics, authors and campaigners have called for the plan to be abandoned.
But the campaigners claim his expeditions contributed to the “racist” ideas of the day which “led to hundreds of thousands of Africans being killed or mistreated”.
The letter, whose signatories include the Welsh transsexual author Jan Morris and Dr Bambi Ceuppens of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium, says: “It is impossible to disconnect Stanley, or any other imperialist of the period, from that suffering.”....
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Residents of Denbigh, North Wales have commissioned a bronze statue to celebrate the Victorian explorer’s legacy – but 60 academics, authors and campaigners have called for the plan to be abandoned.
But the campaigners claim his expeditions contributed to the “racist” ideas of the day which “led to hundreds of thousands of Africans being killed or mistreated”.
The letter, whose signatories include the Welsh transsexual author Jan Morris and Dr Bambi Ceuppens of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium, says: “It is impossible to disconnect Stanley, or any other imperialist of the period, from that suffering.”....