As a Tasmanian council moves to take down a statue of the state's former premier, an expert says we can expect more challenges to colonial figures to come.
abc.net.au/news/more-challenges-to-colonial-statues-to-come/101337858The Black Lives Matter movement prompted a new push to remove or reconsider memorials to figures from the past.voted to take down a statue of the state's former premier William CrowtherCrowther, who was also a surgeon, sent the skull to a museum, and replaced it in the morgue with that of another corpse.But Crowther is only the latest figure to fall.
Colonial history expert Professor Jane Lydon, from the University of Western Australia, says we can expect more calls for controversial memorials to be removed — but warns simply taking statues down could erase the history we need to face.Perth's statue of Captain James Stirling has drawn the ire of protesters because of his role in a notorious massacre of Indigenous people.
The Explorers' Monument was dedicated to Brown and to three settlers found clubbed and speared to death in 1865.Brown led a raid to avenge the dead men, in which as many as 20 Karrijarri people were killed.It reads: "This plaque was erected by people who found the monument before you, offensive." The statue was given to Alice Springs by the Stuart McDouall Freemasons Lodge to mark 150 years since Stuart reached the town.
Mayor Matt Patterson said this was because "as a community we have not been great at telling our own history and story. That has to change".John Batman was one of Melbourne's first colonial settlers, and the namesake for the federal seat of Batman in Melbourne.In 2018 the seat was renamed Cooper, in honour of Yorta Yorta activist and leader William Cooper, after Batman was tied to the massacres of Indigenous Australians in the 1820s.
While Professor Lydon believes Australia must reckon with its colonial past, she says there needs to be an approach that looks beyond "the single man".
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