{"id":58789,"date":"2023-09-28T00:30:24","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T15:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/sep\/27\/how-to-deal-with-offensive-statues"},"modified":"2023-09-28T00:30:24","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T15:30:24","slug":"how-to-deal-with-offensive-statues-brief-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=58789","title":{"rendered":"How to deal with offensive statues | Brief letters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lesson from India | Superficial self-care | On yer bike | Sunak Sunk<\/p>\n<p>Re commemorating slave traders (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/sep\/22\/why-are-slave-traders-still-being-commemorated\" title=\"\">Letters, 22 September<\/a>), wandering out the back of the Government Museum in Chennai, India, I chanced on a couple of abandoned statues of imperial majesties from the Raj. Covered in bird droppings and weathered by time, it was clear that no one had known what to do with them and they had been put out back to face the elements and solitude. No plaque, nothing \u2013 just the original, faded chiselled descriptor. It struck me as a marvellously grownup and pragmatic response to the statuary of the previous regime. I recommend a similar abandonment for our own unwanted.<br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><strong>Mark Doel<\/strong><br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><em>Emeritus professor, Sheffield Hallam University<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 I agree with Ellie Violet Bramley (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2023\/sep\/25\/just-take-a-bubble-bath-why-faux-self-care-wont-solve-our-problems\" title=\"\">\u2018Just take a bubble bath!\u2019 Why faux self-care won\u2019t solve our problems, 25 September<\/a>). Self-care looks very much like the superficial stopgap in a life overloaded by consumerism. I wonder if the growth of \u201cmindfulness\u201d was a result of austerity \u2013 a free solution for a cash-strapped world. People need freedom from poverty and sickness to heal instead of colouring books sold at the supermarket checkout.<br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><strong>Ian McKenzie <\/strong><br incopy-break-type=\"webbreak\"><em>Perth<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/sep\/27\/how-to-deal-with-offensive-statues\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lesson from India | Superficial self-care | On yer bike | Sunak SunkRe commemorating slave traders (Letters, 22 September), wandering out the back of the Government Museum in Chennai, India, I chanced on a couple of abandoned statues of imperial maje&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":327,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[749,983,676,62,2503,89,4,1158,58,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colonialism","category-crime","category-cycling","category-india","category-mindfulness","category-museums","category-politics","category-rishi-sunak","category-technology","category-uk-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58790,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789\/revisions\/58790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}