One thing, in the context of the culture wars and the woke movement, is to throw the statue of the slave trader Edward Coulson into the port of Bristol, or to deface the one of Winston Churchill in front of the Palace of Westminster, or to try to have the one of Cecil Rhodes removed from the University of Oxford. And another to denounce as imperialist and racist none other than Dr. Livingstone, one of the great figures in Scottish history (after William Wallace and Robert the Bruce).
Although David Livingstone was an abolitionist who campaigned to end the slave trade, his support for the creation of a British empire in Africa, and the fact that he worked as a child in a cotton factory, have constituted for a City Council commission of Glasgow sins grave enough to "cancel" him and propose that his statue in the city center, in Cathedral Square, be destroyed or sent to a museum.
But the reaction has been furious, in this new chapter of the terrible battle between those who seek to reinterpret the history of Great Britain and send to the stake those who consider racist or colonialists according to current standards, and those who say that the empire It is a glorious page of history, and its "heroes" must be seen in the political, religious and cultural context of the time, without being ashamed of anything. David Livingstone has found himself, without eating or drinking it, in the middle of the shrapnel.
The Protestant doctor, explorer, missionary and priest was born in Blantyre (20 miles southeast of Glasgow) in 1813, and much of his life was spent in some of Africa's most beautiful and uncharted territory. For three decades he traveled the south of the continent, discovered Victoria Falls and the Zambezi River, unsuccessfully searched for the sources of the Nile and became an institution and a legendary figure.
He belonged to a family of humble origins, whose economic situation was so precarious that at the age of ten his parents put him to work in a cotton factory (a trade that favored the slave trade, as well as sugar cane and tobacco). His critics in the commission that he proposed to "cancel" it, regardless of his age, accused him of being a "collaborator" with the exploitation of blacks. But this gave rise to a campaign in defense of the figure of the explorer (and his statue) that, at least for the moment, has prevailed.
“It is right that Scotland, whose aristocrats, businessmen and merchant classes enthusiastically supported and grew rich from the empire, confronts its own history in a critical way. But another is to include in the pack of racists and colonialists a man who fought for the abolition of slavery when it meant going against the current. It is absurd to hold a ten-year-old child responsible for the global economic implications of working in a textile factory,” says Stephen Tomkins, Livingstone's biographer. "His only sin of his," historian Tom Devine points out, "is having been famous, and now every celebrity from the past is suspect of something."
After graduating in Medicine from the University of Glasgow, the doctor enrolled in the London Missionary Society moved by religious feelings. His first expedition to China was canceled by the outbreak of the Opium War in 1839, but he was sent to South Africa the following year. He entered what is now Botswana, preaching the Christian religion and discovering unknown territories in the midst of grave danger. Between 1852 and 1854 he crossed the Kalahari desert to connect Cape Town with the Portuguese colony of Angola, and then with Mozambique through the Zambezi River. The Royal Geographical Society sponsored an exploration of Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa.
His writings and conferences aroused interest in the mysterious African continent throughout the world, contributing to the subsequent colonial race for the division of its territory among the European powers. His defenders claim that he always had peaceful intentions, promoting scientific knowledge of Africa, the eradication of slavery and the establishment of friendly relations with the indigenous people.
He died in Zambia of dysentery and malaria at the age of 60. And though he lies in Westminster Abbey, among kings and poets, his heart was buried at the foot of a mainland tree that was his life and made him famous.
