Iconoclasm (2)

Iconoclasm is an enduring feature of political life. Christian and Islamic zealots were not the first – the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs often chipped away at their predecessors portraits – and nor are they the last. In the twentieth century Russian communists under Stalin altered photographs to pretend that former colleagues (those with dissenting ideas) had never existed. In Maoist China the Red Guards viciously attacked people who expressed ’old ideas’, others were imprisoned simply because of their inability to echo the prevailing dogma. Nowadays in Britain and elsewhere we are faced with a new wave of iconoclasts who remove or deface statues and pictures, remove objects from museums or attach political messages criticising the people who collected the objects. What do these thousands of years of history tell us? Iconoclasm exists in many and varied historical contexts – the only common factor is human nature. For some reason otherwise intelligent people allow themselves to become grossly intolerant of others who look at life differently. In the UK and elsewhere the state is being used to enforce conformity with a particular critique of our collective past – the only difference between it and medieval religion, Stalinism and Maoism being that nobody has been tortured or killed for their stubborn refusal to conform. Yet.