Statues, often situated in public venues and easily visible spaces, become focal points for demonstrations due to their accessibility and lack of protection. As marches, protests, and various forms of activism take place around them, these monuments find themselves at the heart of escalating tensions. When emotions peak —what could be termed a ‘moment of victory’— these statues become central to the most powerful symbolic gestures, representing either the fulfillment or opposition to the protest’s goals. It is essential that this moment contains the strongest proposition [or opposition] to convince the crowd that the objective of the action has been achieved.
In Turkey, attacks on statues stem from a regime–opposing, muslim–faith–based motivation, while in the West, similar attacks arise from the perception that foundational values of nations are intertwined with colonialism and slavery [short after this column was written, Islamist attacks began occurring in various Western countries toward statues/sculptures].
The rise in attacks on statues in recent years across the United States and Europe can be attributed to several factors:
1. Historical and Cultural Debates: Many statues in Western civilizations depict figures associated with colonialism, slavery, or oppressive regimes. These statues are targeted because they are seen as symbols of past injustices. Particularly during times when racial justice movements gain momentum, these symbols spark intense debates.
2. Social and Political Protests: Statues become targets as part of broader socio–political concerns. For instance, during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the U.S., statues of Confederate leaders were frequently targeted, symbolizing the fight for justice and equality.
3. Art and Cultural Change: There is a growing belief that art and public spaces should reflect society’s evolving values and norms. In this context, some argue that certain statues should be relocated or removed.
4. Vandalism and Anarchism: Some attacks are purely driven by vandalism and anarchistic movements, occurring without a specific ideological reason behind them. Motivation behind the attacks of muslims is that visual arts are forbidden [defined as haram] in Islam.
5. Desire for Symbolic Change: Societies sometimes wish to redefine themselves and move away from old values symbolically. Statues, as visible and tangible markers, become targets during this process of transformation.
These attacks often reflect broader societal and political debates, closely linked to the pursuit of justice, reckoning with the past, and demands for social change.
When we categorize the artworks as mainstream classical and modern/contemporary, classical statues often represent extensions of regime manifestos, while modern/contemporary statues reflect artistic movements or ideologies encountered in life.
Is there a difference in behavior when destroying an artwork, depending on the ideology it represented until the day of its destruction? Is there a behavioral inconsistency between demolishing a Nazi statue and destroying a Renaissance or Ancient Egyptian one? As the illusion of good and evil shifts with eras and motivations, can we claim that a person attacking a colonial statue acts differently from ISIS militants who destroyed Mesopotamian statues? If you argue there is a difference in motivation, who decides that this motivation serves a noble cause [think as if you’re out of the context or grow up in an unrelated country]? After all, wasn’t the decision to create and erect a statue of a colonial figure also made by former zeitgeists, dynamics of past eras? In this cycle, art becomes a puzzle piece manipulated by unstable centuries, as colonialism and geographic discoveries were integral to the political context of their times.
Looking beyond individual events to the bigger picture, the act of demolishing colonial statues in the West creates a neo–colonial narrative. It would be absurd to compare this to any other concept, if each new model overthrows its predecessor. This cycle, where the critique becomes the very thing it opposes, embodies a post–truth acceptance of today’s absolute truth—canceling the world built yesterday—under the influence of cancel culture.
The normalization of radical terrorist propaganda under the guise of ‘diversity’ during today’s anti–Israel protests in the West is evident in the ease with which a protester inscribed “Hamas is coming” on a monument in Washington, D.C., just last week. Societies that are not aware of extremist movements in the Middle East can be naive about belief–based–international–minority–rights but the only position societies drift away from is being oppressed by disrespectful others.
To frame this paradoxical issue as a thought experiment:
1. Global cancel culture seeks to erase Nazi Germany to the extent that it is no longer taught in history classes or featured in documentaries.
2. In the triangle of political correctness–cancel culture–post-truth, this desire is realized among the individuals’ fear of being ostracized.
3. Future generations, educated without this and similar example, will be unable to recognize impending autocratic dangers.
4. In societies that cannot perceive danger, the same processes will repeat. (See also the movie: Look Who’s Back, 2015)
Erhan Us
Be First to Comment