I VERY MUCH LIKE ANTELOPE, the new installation on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth which sets the Malawian anti-colonial rebel John Chilembwe face-to-face with those full-blooded heroes of empire Nelson, Napier and Havelock. It echoes the tradition of conciliatory statue pairings found elsewhere in London, from Cromwell and Charles I to Churchill and Gandhi.
It is the work of Samson Kambalu, a professor of contemporary art at Oxford, and was chosen in the wake of Black Lives Matter and the toppling of Edward Colston as an obvious salvo in the culture wars. However, in a surprising gesture, Kambalu has actually set two statues on the plinth. The second is of a British missionary, John Chorley, who was Chilembwe’s friend, but here stands for more than that. Men like him eradicated slavery from Malawi, brought stability to the region, and then devoted their lives to its improvement. Antelope invites honest discussion of this complex period: there are two sides to every story, Chilembwe and Chorley together remind us.
Unfortunately, media commentary — perhaps taking a lead from the official guide to the statues — peddle the same clichés and misinformation that this is a story of black and white,
