As protests emerged across the western hemisphere following the death of George Floyd, countries are removing various symbols including statues that allegedly represent racial oppression.

As supports grows for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement many societies are being forced to reassess the role and contribution of many legendary figures.

From Hamilton in New Zealand where authorities removed a bronze statue of the British naval officer for whom it is named – a man who is accused of killing indigenous Maori people in the 1860s to targeted vandalism against Confederate monuments in the US, questions are being asked about how we view our past.

No other region is feeling the heat of the present circumstances as Europe which dominated the world in the past via colonialism and imperialism. Demands are growing across the continent to rewrite history and remove the statues and names of slave traders, imperialists, conquerors and explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Cecil Rhodes and Belgium’s King Leopold II.

Even some of the universities have become a stage for the ongoing protests. At the University of Oxford, protesters have demanded the removal of a statue of Rhodes, the Victorian imperialist who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony in southern Africa.

In the US demands have been raised for the removal of hundreds of Confederate monuments and renaming of military bases currently named in honour of Confederate heroes.

While the movement is gaining momentum it has raised mixed reactions among academicians. “How far is too far, in scrubbing away a history so that we won’t remember it wrong – or, indeed, have occasion to remember it at all?” asked Mark Summers, a University of Kentucky professor, while another said that removal of memorial does not erase history but in fact creates a new one.

While the demands of erasing the past may be new in the West it has long gained momentum in countries that had been under the colonial yoke. The best example for this could be India where several cities and places where renamed by giving them local names by replacing the names given by the erstwhile rulers.

The practice, however, doesn't come without its own set of controversies: critics have labelled them as attempts to augment political power through populist tactics, or worse, rewrite history by robbing it of nuance.

-with agency inputs