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The thing is you don't need a statue to learn about a historical figure. There's no need to keep it for any reason. Statues are about reverence and respect.
Sumo-
I dunno. If what I understand as the originally proposed rewording had been added and it had been taken off the plinth I think it would have been a powerful statement and felt less revisionist.
In the US context my understanding is quite a few of the statues were recent and erected during periods of African American advancement.
“As a high official of the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, Edward Colston played an active role in the enslavement of over 84,000 Africans (including 12,000 children) of whom over 19,000 died en route to the Caribbean and America. Colston also invested in the Spanish slave trade and in slave-produced sugar. As Tory MP for Bristol (1710-1713), he defended the city’s ‘right’ to trade in enslaved Africans. Bristolians who did not subscribe to his religious and political beliefs were not allowed to benefit from his charities
hugo7
The statue is probably best off in a museum where it can be studied for what it is, a sad reflection on how attitudes change over centuries and things that were legally acceptable (or at least the authorities turned a blind eye to the atrocities that were so obviously going on) hundreds of years ago are now (and have been for many years) considered abhorrent.
In the future people may be looking back at the behaviour of the mega-wealthy and wondering how the fuck society/Governments let them take so much of the pie.
Anyway, there are much better underwater memorials/statues regarding the slave trade (and immigration).
Just do a google image search for: underwater slave statue
Colston's statue being invisible at the bottom of a river doesn't really help people learn from the mistakes of those times.