This cockerel is nothing to do with Tottenham Hotspur. Ok, it looks like our cockerel but its not. Probably a cousin. Great-grandfather. From Nigeria. But as any cockerel will undoubtedly and immediately catch my eye in that ‘conditioned stimulus’ kind of way that dogs react to slabs of meat, I read the tale of the ‘Okuko’, this bronze statue thingy which for for a century and more sat in Jesus College, Cambridge. In the dining room. Which is a bit sad in an ironic way, but they never thought of that.

What they thought was, I’m an imperialist warmongering Brit, doing Queen Vic’s work on the savages, barbarians and ungodly natives in faraway lands, I’m gonna nick this chicken and give it to Cambridge University. The Nigerians don’t need it no more, we’ll give them religion instead. Ok, and a bit of rape and pillage, but we mean well.

So inevitably, there was outrage when students found out this was originally from Benin City and demanded its return to ‘its people’. As if this little unspectacular chicken held the meaning of life for the entire African continent.

They complained that said cockadoodle glorified Britain’s colonial past. And demanding the removal of such items of our nation’s former ‘glories’ is all the vogue at Oxbridge. At Oxford they demanded the removal of Cecil Rhodes statue because of his links to slavery. Even though the legacy of the man is still there, providing bursaries and scholarships for brilliant kids who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend such an incredible seat of learning. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar so you obviously don’t have to be that bright. But Cecil Rhodes!!! BASTARD FACIST IMPERIALIST SLAVE-MASTER!!!!

In Scotland they’re making ‘reparations’ because the governors who set up some university there in 1700-and something were bankers who had links to slavery. As did virtually all banks back then.

Everywhere has a past. Everywhere has a history. Judging that history by today’s quite often ridiculous standards of political correctness is wrong on every level. Even vile things like slavery and the brutality of imperial invasion happened. You can’t deny it and you can’t undo it. It’s a past we’ve hopefully learned from. So why try and erase it from our present? That represents just so much bollocks. In my simple mind.

So they want to return everything stolen in every war, battle and invasion. Good luck with that. How about also removing the horrendous ‘Christianity’ that was so often forced down the throats of the ‘unenlightened’? Oooooh, that’s controversial.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx