Queen Victoria's statue
Editorial
On Sunday, May 2, this newspaper carried a letter from a correspondent who maintained that Queen Victoria's statue should not have been returned to the high court. The argument was that we should have removed "every object that represented imperial domination." Victoria's statue, which had been banished to the back of the Botanic Gardens in the Burnham era where it had sustained a certain amount of damage, was reinstated in its traditional spot some years ago. The writer compared this action with that of Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados, who has now indicated his government's intention of renaming Trafalgar Square in the island's capital, and of moving out the statue of Admiral Nelson which is located there in order to accommodate Barbadian "heroes". Mr Arthur was reported as having stated, among other things, that Trafalgar Square had no relevance to an independent Barbados, and that Barbadians were now claiming their own history and birthright long buried in the archives of countries which had founded their prosperity on imperialism and colonization. The admiral was not, he was reported as saying, the kind of person to hold up before the young of the island as representing Barbadian excellence. It is, of course, for the Barbadians to decide what they will rename and not rename, and which statues they will banish or not banish. However, it is worth remarking in relation to Guyana that reclaiming history does not mean, as Mr Owen might seem to imply, ignoring the distasteful bits and glorifying the rest. It is a process of understanding all of the past, although it has to be said that each generation will bring its own perspective and conception of the priorities to that process. It might be noted in passing, that Mr Arthur does the historians of his island a great disservice; it is not now that Barbadians are claiming their historical birthright. Along with the Jamaicans they were in the forefront of the movement many, many years ago to rewrite Caribbean history from the bottom up. And as for the fact that Admiral Nelson is hardly a role model of Barbadian excellence, that is really not why statues are preserved by posterity. They stand as evidence of a past, not as examples for emulation. The Old World is littered with statues and busts representing all kinds of twits, vagabonds and ex-heroes - men who were once held in high regard, but whom a subsequent generation re-classified as thugs. Yet for the most part, they still sit undisturbed on their plinths in countless city squares, their representations acknowledged as part of a nation's material heritage, even if their names do not find inscription on its honours roll. Pass through some of the major Latin American cities, and there will be conquistadors like Pizarro, Cortez or Quesada alongside 'heroes' of the class of Bolivar. As an editorial in our edition of Wednesday, April 28, pointed out, there are, of course, limits to everything. Public monuments to recent mass murderers like Pol Pot or Hitler, for example, do not exist. And for very good reason. However, records of their deeds, and images of their likenesses are preserved for posterity; a past of horror is still a past, which has to be analysed and from which we must learn. Were we to erase every "object that represented imperial domination," we would be destroying the substance of our material inheritance, like the Dutch forts, colonial houses and artefacts, and books and records of every description. These things are part of the local culture, and however painful the circumstances under which they were generated, they belong to the Guyanese people. The reinstatement of Victoria's statue is not a manifestation of this nation's lack of insight; it is a manifestation of its maturity. 
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