Colonial-era statues spark war of words

– A war of words over colonial-era statues in Australia took a further twist yesterday with calls for the addition of plaques acknowledging the nation’s indigenous history after several monuments were defaced.

Debate over the statues of early British explorers, including Captain James Cook, was sparked following American protests over Confederate statues that hark back to the nation’s slave-owning past.

In Australia, the focus has been on the role of Aboriginals, whose cultures stretch back tens of thousands of years before Cook’s arrival in 1770, and the colonisers’ treatment of indigenous people.

The controversy ratcheted up a notch at the weekend when vandals defaced Sydney statues, including one of Cook with the words “change the date” in reference to Australia Day, which marks the 1788 arrival of the British First Fleet.

The vandalism sparked a furious response from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who again brushed off calls for the statues to be torn down, adding that the defacement was “what Stalin did” in denying history.

“It is also part of a deeply disturbing and totalitarian campaign to not just challenge our history but to deny it and obliterate it,” he said.

“This is what Stalin did. When he fell out with his henchmen he didn’t just execute them, they were removed from all official photographs.”

A different solution was instead raised by opposition Labour MP Linda Burney, who called for Cook’s plaque to be updated to reflect that he had not “discovered” the nation. –