Honorable Chair, Honorable Members of the House,

Today, we stand at a crossroads of memory and morality, contemplating the figures we

choose to immortalize in our public spaces. The proposer would like to argue that statues of
colonizers should never have been elevated in the first place, and that for many reasons, they
should be removed.
Firstly, these statues often present a glorified version of colonial history that omits the
narratives of resilience, and the true extend of the pre-colonial cultures. By elevating
colonizers to heroic statuses, we are implicitly adopting a selective memory of history. Take,
for example, the statues of Christopher Columbus that permeate landscapes from the
Americas to Europe. They celebrate the so-called discovery of the New World, concealing the
cultures and civilizations that thrived long before Columbus set sail. In this way, these
monuments fail to tell the story of the indigenous peoples whose lives were irrevocably
changed by colonialism.
Moreover, the very act of raising statues for colonizers is a continuation of colonial
ideologies. Ideologies that weren’t just about direct exploitation but also about asserting
cultural superiority and rewriting the narratives of the colonized to justify colonial rule. The
monuments of Cecil Rhodes in South Africa, for instance, were not just symbols of an
individual, but of a belief system that considered African societies as needing to be
dominated and enlightened by European civilization. Yet this issue does not only involve past
oppression; it chiefly involves the present moment, and how we continue to give space to
these ideologies in our public squares and parks.
Public spaces should reflect the values and the diversity of the societies they serve, and
statues of colonizers often fail to do this. The debate over the statue of Edward Colston in
Bristol highlighted how public monuments can become focal points for community division
when they fail to represent shared values of justice, and can even cause profound trauma.
Finally, critics may argue that removing these statues erases history. On the contrary, we
advocate for engaging with our past in a manner that educates and enlightens. Museums and
memorials designed to provoke thought and discussion can replace statues. They can tell the
full story of colonialism, including the voices of those who were overshadowed by the
towering figures of colonizers. The Berlin Wall Memorial in Germany serves as a powerful
example of how societies can confront and learn from complex histories without glorifying
the architects of oppression.
In conclusion, such statues of colonizers should never have been brought up in the first place,
as their instauration was based on completely unethical roots. We therefore call for a more
human recognition of our past mistakes as we strive to establish a more equal and just
community.