Pull down a few statues

Years ago, I was absolutely delighted with a statue that my grandma's town had installed in the town's center.  A statue of Vanchi.  The freedom fighter from the village who shot dead the British administrator for that region.  As I noted in this post a while ago, "The old teenage emotions on colonialism and anti-Britain have never gone away inside me."

Of course, the Raj ended more than seven decades ago.  But, the scars are always there.  Our lives today are not independent of the historical events. In fact, in many instances, our lives today are very much a result of historical events.  The contemporary lives of Native Americans and African-Americans today, or the lives of the Dalit, are continuations of an unbearable past, how much ever some might want to pretend, or even believe, that looking back does not do any good.

Even universities are not exempt from this.  The older the university, more the skeletons that it most likely has in its closet. Some, like Georgetown, have systematically gone about atoning for the past and are trying to make things right--symbolically, because the literal is impossible.

In the colonial countries, things are barely beginning.  I came across an essay from 2016, by Amia Srinivasan.  The last name is a dead giveaway--from my part of the old country.  But, Amia Srinivasan is not from the old country--she has origins back there.  She is a philosopher playing at the topmost tiers:

I am an associate professor of philosophy at St John’s College, Oxford. From January 2020 I will be the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford. Previously I was a lecturer in philosophy at University College London.

She earned her BA at Yale.  Yep, that Yale!  In 2007.  Supposing that she were a traditional student means that now as a 34-year old, Srinivasan will be a chair-professor at Oxford. Holy shit!

Now, Oxford is in the old colonial capital.  Which means that there is plenty that they need to apologize for and make amends.  One of them is a highly visible reminder--a statue of Cecil Rhodes, who is not new to this blog.  Amia Srinivasan's essay from three years ago was about Oxford's controversial decision to retain the statue despite the student protests.

A big time philosopher who also writes for publications that even us non-philosophers can read and understand.  We need more like her.  She says:

Scholarly, specialist work is important, and we should defend it fiercely, not just in philosophy, but in all disciplines. And a lot of what goes under the name of “public” philosophy is simplistic and condescending. What we need isn't so much more philosophy that tries to speak to a non-philosophical audience, as more philosophy that comes from a place of engagement with the non-philosophical world.

Yes, I too hate that condescending tone that academics take when they climb down from their ivory towers in order to tell the masses what they think. Good for her. And good for us too.