Opinion | Outside the US, Black Lives Matter movement is devoid of context and perspective

The protests after the death of George Floyd in the US rightly raised attention to the high rate of police killings of blacks compared to whites. The copycat protests elsewhere, however, require greater attention to the specific historical context

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Protesters at a Black Lives Matter rally gather around the statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill at Parliament Square on June 21. While Churchill is remembered for leading the country through World War II, critics have highlighted some of his disturbing comments on race and decisions that had devastating consequences in British colonies. Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Published: 3:00am, 28 Jun 2020Updated: 3:22am, 28 Jun 2020

The world is seeing a dramatic boom in myopia, according to the World Health Organisation. Myopia has, however, already overwhelmed the world’s media and the politicians who respond to it.

Otherwise, how could the world be turned upside down by a virus which has so far killed just one-third of the number of those who die annually from tuberculosis – another lung infection, which affects the young as much as the old?

How could prevention and treatment of other killer scourges be neglected to focus on just one? How could the futures of billions of mostly younger people in poor countries be sacrificed for much smaller numbers of older people in rich ones?

Then we have the myopic, copycat foreign response to Black Lives Matter, a legitimate movement in the United States, with earnest white people elsewhere proclaiming themselves morally superior to their ancestors and helping tear down statues, forgetting that in 100 years they may well be viewed as barbarians for eating meat.

It is obviously progress that slavery is no long acceptable, but it is gross hypocrisy to generalise about individuals who lived in earlier times, slave owners from Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson who contributed much to human improvement. Monuments and place names are markers of history.

Progress lies in understanding history and why certain people now being viewed as evil were admired in their time. If history needs more balance, put up more statues.