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Statues such as the one of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, are actually important as physical memorials to the acts that were perpetrated (¡°Oxford college agrees to remove Cecil Rhodes plaque¡±, 18 December). If it takes an additional explanatory plaque to make this clear then so be it. I think that what is being objected to is the appearance of ¡°straight¡±, unqualified commemoration, which the visual language of the statue originally performed. So long as it is made clear that the original uncritical commemorative sense no longer obtains, then I think that people ought to be satisfied. Evil occurs; its memory should not always be expunged.

Jonathan Meldrum
Via timeshighereducation.com

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