EXTRA RAMBLES WITH DAVID Is the world as we know it changing? I would say possibly, or to be more accurate, definitely. During this last year events have taken place which are most foreboding for a happy and successful future. Our present methods of speedy media transfer reaching the whole world is partially to blame for this. And now for something completely different, I would like to comment here on the act of demolishing statues which is becoming a recent occurrence in our changing world. Many of these statues are really a “book” of history. In 2013, a statue of Lenin in Kiev’s central plaza - once known as October Revolution Square and now known as Euromaidan - was smashed by protesters using sledgehammers. After Stalin’s death in 1953, successor Nikita Khrushchev launched a period of “de-Stalinisation”. As part of this, numerous cities and landmarks named after Stalin had their names changed, the most famous of which was the renaming of World War II battleground Stalingrad to Volgograd. Mention of Stalin was also purged from the Soviet National Anthem, and several statues of the dictator were pulled down. The statue of Saddam Hussein was one of the symbols of his rule over Iraq and it came down in April 2003, as US Marines backed an armoured M88 tank recovery vehicle up to the monument and attached a chain to the statue. Cecil Rhodes was one of the most committed imperialists of the 19th century. Protesters in South Africa’s Cape Town University demanded the removal of the 1930s statue of this British colonial minister, for whom the white settlement of Rhodesia was named and who many believed was an inveterate racist. After weeks of protests, the University pulled the statue down. Ireland of course started this idea of demolishing statues over fifty years ago. I would like to remind you
here of two statues in Ireland which were ‘removed’ some time ago. The story begins about eight years ago. Around this time, I was playing golf at a certain club and was listed to play with a member I had not heard of before. His name was Ricky Bxxxxxx but for the sake of simplicity here, I will call him Stan, similar to a certain television broadcasting company. We hit off at the first hole having found that our other two players had cried off. The rain was coming and it did... at the second hole! Stan and I took shelter under a rather twiggy looking tree and started to chat. Well what else can a golfer do sheltering under a tree with so few leaves on its branches? There was no Guinness in sight, never mind a pub. We were both amazed at how similar our lives had been at an early age. He had attended a top school in Dublin and me in Belfast. We both played rugby and it appeared we may even have played against each other when my school played his before the International match at Lansdowne Road. We both liked and played music. He had played in a rock band in Dublin and I had played in a dance trio in Belfast. “We were gigging in Cats, a small downstairs place in Middle Abbey St, off O’Connell St where Nelsons Pillar was,” he told me later in the conversation. It was still raining. “It was 1966,” he continued, “the year Mustang Sally was written and sung by Wilson Pickett, and we were doing a top job on that song. We were half way through the song, actually on the line... One of these early mornings, oh, you gonna be wiping your weeping eyes I bought you a brand new mustang ‘bout nineteen sixty five
THE IRISH SCENE | 70
