The War on Australia’s Statues is Real
First, they started coming after Australia Day. This year Australia Day was marred by Invasion Day protests in our major cities. Australia Day 2018 is still five months way yet it is already under siege. Two Melbourne council have already voted to cancel their Australia Day festivities with more considering following.
Now empowered by these victories and the removal of confederate statues in the United States they are now advocating for the removal or modification of statues of colonial Australians in our major cities.
This discussion was started by Stan Grant who appears to have stopped being a journalist and is instead now an indigenous activist. Although he stressed he wasn’t in favour of removing statues he wanted the inscription on the statue of Captain James Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park modified so it no longer stated he ‘DISCOVERED THIS TERRITORY 1770’ as it apparently makes indigenous Australians invisible.
His viewpoint has already caught the attention of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore who has ordered a review of the city’s statue of Governor Lachlan Macquarie to be conducted by the council’s Indigenous advisory panel.
Tony Abbott predicted that the war on Australia’s statues and history would soon be embraced by Bill Shorten and Labor “You can just imagine all the statues of Captain Cook being taken down, all the statues of Governor Phillip being taken down’’. Labor Member for Batman David Feeney also already stated he is comfortable with his electorate being renamed to cater to indigenous sensitives.
Thankfully this madness is not shared by all indigenous Australians, Warren Mundine has described this new move to remove or modify our statues as a “Stalinist approach” to create a “false history” and added “we cannot look back at history with our modern minds otherwise we would have to tear down the pyramids because they were built by slaves”.
The threat to Australia’s statues is certainly not some hysteria whipped up by reactionary conservatives. In fact, the yesterday the Guardian released a hit list of statues of colonial Australians we need to think about modifying.
The author of the article Paul Daley stated he was not in favour of removing the statues he listed, but wanted the statues to basically state that all these colonial Australians were mass murderers of indigenous people who contributed nothing to Australia. He basically wants to turn them from statues of commemoration to statues of shame.
Daley also wants no new statues of colonial Australians and wants all federal and state electorates named after them to be changed. He is also triggered by any location or venue around Australia named after them.
It is also worth noting that historians Keith Windshuttle disputes that there was a widespread slaughter of indigenous people during colonial Australia, but the left and media accept it as fact.
The most disturbing part of this type of movement is that we may have to consider increasing security around them to protect them from leftist vandals. You only had to look at what Antifa thugs did in Durham, North Carolina with their vigilante removal of a confederate statue. In fact, overnight in Sydney several statues of colonial Australians were vandalised with anti-Australia Day messages.
What is most astounding about both the anti-Australia Day movement which has now only after a week morphed into a movement to tear down statues does not have widespread support in the Australian community. 85% of Australians support Australia Day which commemorates the arrival of the first fleet in Sydney. This is just another example of the far left having their opinions ampliphed by their friends in the mainstream media and academia.
One wonders what campaign the anti-Australia Day crowd will move onto next week? But one thing is for sure that this vocal minority should not be given the authority to stomp all over Australia Day and Australian history. Australians need make their voices heard, that we are proud of history and that it helped build the free and prosperous nation we enjoy today. Otherwise the left will move onto even more extreme demands.