Denbigh’s Henry Morton Stanley statue ‘celebrates racism’, academics claim
26th August 2010
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.
Which tells you everything you need to know about ‘academics’ these days.
Stanley’s supporters in Denbigh have raised the £31,000 needed to pay for the bronze monument, after a vote among residents found that a clear majority wanted to commemorate the town’s most famous son.
Whatever Stanley’s personal character flaws, it is an undoubted fact that he was a classic Victorian-era globetrotting British adventurer, who was famous during his lifetime and who would have a guaranteed position in any unbiased history of the period.
The people of the area have decided to erect a monument to this legitimate historical figure. What fargin business is it of ’60 academics, authors, and campaigners’ — i.e. useless people, not one of whom lives in the area — whether they do it or not?
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.”
Oh, those are names that inspire confidence. The distinguishing characteristic of this degenerate modern age is the prevalence of self-righteous assholes who think they have a natural right to stick their noses in other people’s business. (Of course, they’d be the first to scream if someone else tried to do it to them.)