25 Nov Support our men in… Lucknow?

Arts activist and New Democrat Andrew Terris questions the province’s decision to rename the Hantsport Connector after William Hall, VC, the first African Canadian, and the first Canadian sailor, to receive the Victoria Cross. The son of slaves who escaped the American south during the War of 1812, Hall earned the honor for his exceptional bravery during the Siege of Lucknow in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

On Monday, Terris wrote Premier Darrell Dexter:

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was also known as India’s First War of Independence, so in essence Nova Scotia’s social democrats are memorializing a black man who helped white imperialists subjugate the brown men of India. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to exactly what is being celebrated here.

Here Terris is making a mistake more often encountered among those on the opposite end of the political spectrum: that of conflating support for the young men and women who fight our wars with support for the political decision to go to war. How often have we heard right-wing demagogues invoke the rallying cry, “Support our boys” as a way to bully opponents of war into silence?

Terris also has the advantage of a sesquicentennial lens through which to view the morality of Britain’s efforts to retain her empire. If he wishes to redress these historic wrongs, perhaps he could start with a campaign to remove the Spring Garden Road statue of Sir Winston Churchill, who committed all manner of atrocities in pursuit of colonial control over South Africa and Ireland, instead of picking on a remarkable Black Nova Scotia farmer-shipbuilder-able seaman whose life played out in the age of sail.