Last Sunday, after protesters in Bristol, England decided to tear down the already defaced statue of a well-known slave trader, Edward Colston, and throw it into the harbor, a heated debate was sparked. While many people cheered as the statue of a man who, back in the day, was responsible for transporting about 100,000 slaves from Africa to the Americas was toppled and drowned, others had conflicting opinions. Some described the act as the erasure of history that is important to remember, while others condemned the protesters for the illegal actions they took part in.
Image credits: PA Media
The statue caused a bit of splash both literally and figuratively, as opinions both from political leaders and regular people started flowing. Clearly, some common ground needs to be found to resolve the matter.
Image credits: banksy
As it turns out, there’s a rather simple solution to end the controversy surrounding the toppling of the statue and it comes from the prominent street artist Banksy, who often uses his art to share commentary on politics and social issues. His pitch is rather simple: bring back the statue, put it back on its pedestal, but upgrade it with statues of protesters armed with ropes in the action of taking down the slave trader's statue. According to the artist, this would be the best way to have this “famous day commemorated.”
Some internet users really liked this idea
And some of them not as much...
