“History is rectified”

LW Comment

“History is rectified”

Famously, a jury at Bristol Crown Court acquitted the

Colston Four of criminal damage for tearing down the Edward Colston statue in Bristol.

The prosecution argued that criminal damage had been committed and that Colston was “irrelevant”. The Barristers for the defence argued collectively that the legacy of Colston was “vital to deciding the case”. Edward Colston was a seventeenth century slave trader who left a legacy of circa £70,000 to the city of Bristol. It was argued that the existence of the statue in situ was in itself criminal. Sage Willoughby, one of the defendants, declared that the not-guilty outcome had ‘rectified’ history.

This reappraisal of events or ‘rectifying’ history has also been evident on our screens, first with the series Impeachment, about the corridors of power and palaces of justice of 1998 America. The drama unfolds from the perspective of the women involved in what was unjustly called, ‘the Monika Lewinsky scandal’. Lewinsky herself is a producer of the film, and in some sense is no doubt seeking redress for the unforgiving global spotlight on her at a moment when, as one character puts it “the internet has been invented”.

Credit: Poster for ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ (FX Networks) https://www.showbizjunkies.com/tv/impeachmentamerican-crime-story-official-trailer/

“Where were the feminists?” asks one commentator on the BBC Women’s Hour programme reviewing the drama – possibly in the knowledge that Gloria Steiner, editor of feminist magazine Ms and spokesperson for what is often referred to as ‘second wave feminism’ movement, made a statement at the time in support of Bill Clinton, whose policy on women’s issues was ‘progressive’ compared with his counterpart in the republican party.

This perceived wrong that Monika Lewinski was exposed to without support from feminists, reflects a current day sensibility. Our experience of ‘naming and shaming’ of ‘hate mail’ and the ‘global spotlight’ is linked to our experience of a 21st century worldwide impact and the inability to remove items from the internet; it is historically specific to our time. The complex discourse of power-relations that now circulates like common sense, has emerged over the past 40 years or so, in relation to a Foucualdiani 1 notion, further theorised by feminists, of how power works and how it diffuses in the everyday.

Another perceived wrong is the drama A Very British Scandal featuring the famous Edinburgh divorce Argyle v Argyle in 1963. The unhappy marriage of Heiress Margaret Sweeny and the Duke of Argyle, with the ‘spouse on spouse’ spite of an aristocrat couple, is reminiscent of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for its dark marital angst.

What is different to the Albee play, is the emphasis on the woman as a victim of ‘slut shaming’, a term that has evolved with the advent of the internet, but which fits this account with sharp retroactive insight. This piece focuses on the way in which the woman (and only the woman), in a fairly well-matched battle between a couple, is subjected to public shaming after the verdict. As creator and writer Sarah Phelps informs us in a credit, “The following day intimate details of the case made headlines around the world. The first time a woman was publically shamed by the UK mass media”.

Credit: https://www.imdb. com/title/tt14220870/

The patriarchal character of the 1960’s justice system towards Margaret Sweeney is clear, and a brief interview with the Duchess of Argyl herself, 27 years later, gives her the last word. As with Impeachment, there is a sense in which a felt wrong committed against the women at the heart of these 20th century ‘scandals’, is being rectified by the female writers and directors, in the same way as the Colston Four claim their acquittal is History rectified.

Esteemed historian of slavery, David Olusoga, spoke at the Colston trial saying the statue “represents the most important artefact of the changing relationship in this country to our slavetrading history” 2 . Similarly, these dramas are artefacts of the changing relationship of this country to a patriarchal history. ■

Molly Bellamy

Molly Bellamy

Academic and visiting lecturer The University of Law

A longer version of this article is available online with full referencing.

1. Foucauldian notion of power: The main text for Foucault’s seminal essay on governmentality, where he talks about how power works, can be found in the 1991 edition of The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality : with two lectures by and an interview with Michel Foucault. University of Chicago Press.

2. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/davidolusoga-edward-colston-black-lives-matter-britain-georgefloyd-b1987625.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/ edward-colston-bristol-black-lives-matter-people-davidolusoga-b1987447.html