Naming Charlotte after Zelensky is myopic. We want to stick it to the Russians by forcing them to put his name on their letterhead. But really, what is the point? This is the diplomatic world and the long-term is more important. We are trying to build positive relations and understandings. In 10 or twenty years we may be dealing with a completely different regime in Moscow. We may actually have good relations with them. Why badger them like children?
This idea of renaming a street after zelensky based on a few weeks of news cycle mania pretty perfectly encapsulates how nutty our society is becoming. Imagine in the 80s if we started naming boulevards Osama Bin Laden Way; he was a western funded hero at the time fighting a Soviet juggernaut. My point isn’t that Zelensky will turn out to be a terrorist but that the world is chaotic and mired by the fog of war; people are too quick to tear down the fabric of our history based on the frenetic hype of the current fashion. This is not healthy and you don’t have to be some huge Edmund Burke fan to think so.
I’ll admit that I lived in Ottawa for years and didn’t really know anything about princess Charlotte and the history of Charlotte Street!
A happier counterexample in my neighbourhood in Montréal: in 2019 Amherst Street was renamed Atateken, and there was a great deal of attention to who General Amherst was and why it was considered inappropriate by many to retain a street named after him. I have no doubt that people learned about history in ways that they wouldn’t have without the name change and related public conversation. (There was even a great small exhibit by a local museum on Atateken Street: https://ecomusee.qc.ca/en/event/from-amherst-to-atateken/ )
Naming Charlotte after Zelensky is myopic. We want to stick it to the Russians by forcing them to put his name on their letterhead. But really, what is the point? This is the diplomatic world and the long-term is more important. We are trying to build positive relations and understandings. In 10 or twenty years we may be dealing with a completely different regime in Moscow. We may actually have good relations with them. Why badger them like children?
This idea of renaming a street after zelensky based on a few weeks of news cycle mania pretty perfectly encapsulates how nutty our society is becoming. Imagine in the 80s if we started naming boulevards Osama Bin Laden Way; he was a western funded hero at the time fighting a Soviet juggernaut. My point isn’t that Zelensky will turn out to be a terrorist but that the world is chaotic and mired by the fog of war; people are too quick to tear down the fabric of our history based on the frenetic hype of the current fashion. This is not healthy and you don’t have to be some huge Edmund Burke fan to think so.
I’ll admit that I lived in Ottawa for years and didn’t really know anything about princess Charlotte and the history of Charlotte Street!
A happier counterexample in my neighbourhood in Montréal: in 2019 Amherst Street was renamed Atateken, and there was a great deal of attention to who General Amherst was and why it was considered inappropriate by many to retain a street named after him. I have no doubt that people learned about history in ways that they wouldn’t have without the name change and related public conversation. (There was even a great small exhibit by a local museum on Atateken Street: https://ecomusee.qc.ca/en/event/from-amherst-to-atateken/ )