A 25m high obelisk to Sir Thomas Picton, a Napoleonic war 'hero', blemishes the skyline of Carmarthen, serving as a landmark to distant viewers of the town. However, given the current global focus on the Black Lives Matter movement, this memorial exists as a painful reminder of welsh ignorance to our colonial past. Thomas Picton served as the brutal governor of Trinidad for 5 years, torturing the islanders and using his position to profit from the sale of stolen land and heavily abused slaves, so notoriously, in fact, that the Wikipedia page for the punishment 'picket' lists Picton's name before any other - so why is this man worthy of a 25m memorial?
Picton was even found guilty of torture by picketing 14-year-old Louisa Calderon, who he punished for aspiring to steal from the man who was sexually abusing her, but was given no sentence, proving his actions so dire that even an 19th Century court, bound to be far more riddled with colonial racism than a contemporary one, viewed them as abhorrent enough to legally recognise. As a result, it is unthinkably inappropriate, ignorant and structurally racist to be honouring the achievements of an inexplicably evil individual, and implies that the Welsh state does not care enough about the importance of remembering the struggles of colonial subjects, but also black lives in general.
In order to secure this necessary change to show solidarity to the movement, as well as respect the lives of murdered colonial subjects, we are asking you to sign and share this petition on all platforms, and we will then proceed to take this petition to the Carmarthen Council in the hopes that they will facilitate an end to such repugnant celebrations of a racist murderer.
