Deputy Montfort Tadier, who has brought the proposition, is also asking the Chief Minister to commission a report into establishing a memorial acknowledging the Island’s links to the slave trade.
The proposition was lodged soon after the St Brelade Deputy was criticised online after he published a Facebook post linking Sir George Carteret, the 17th-century merchant whose statue in St Peter has been at the centre of the debate about slavery that followed recent #BlackLivesMatter protests, with Jimmy Savile. Deputy Tadier said it was a shame that the two men had not been contemporaries.
‘They would have been good friends,’ he said. ‘So why not post your favourite memories of Jimmy Savile on this [the Politics Jersey] wall?’
Although later removed by an administrator, the post was shared on other platforms and sparked a wave of comments, many expressing outrage at the link to the paedophile Savile, and several calls for Deputy Tadier to resign as an assistant minister.
Deputy Tadier said his post was designed to be provocative, but not offensive, with the intention being to highlight why some people would get offended by a picture of a child abuser – Savile – but not by a statue of someone who abused human rights in other ways by trafficking slaves.
He said: ‘There should be no need to add that I, like every rightminded person, thinks that Savile was a vile, manipulative man, who befriended the rich and powerful and ingratiated himself with authority so that he could abuse vulnerable children, often in plain sight.
‘We are rightly repulsed by this man, but I fear we have never and may never understand how or why it was that he came to be so friendly with many of the Jersey elites. Again, this point was made in my blog.
‘I make no apology for the posting, but where necessary, I have contacted people individually to explain where I was coming from and they have understood the points I was making. It was a shame that the posting was removed, not by me, but by the administrators.
‘I think respectful free speech is the cornerstone of debate. Sadly, this is very difficult in the increasingly polarised world of social media.’
In his proposition, Deputy Tadier calls for Trenton Square, named after the capital of New Jersey, which was itself named after slave trader William Trent, to be renamed Benin Square after the west African country which was the starting point for many slave ships heading across the Atlantic.
States Members have also been asked to support the commissioning of an audit of place names and memorials relating to former slave traders in Jersey.
