Protesting is allowed down in a cellar, at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.
‘Cos most of the reactions i’ve seen haven’t been "oh my statues!! My art!!’ but general ambivalent approval ranging from a running commentary of hilarity on the statue’s fate to a simple ‘good’.
Ain’t no one getting aggro over a cook statue. Burke and wills maybe, that vandalism made no sense, but cook? Eh, fuck 'im
Colonization, slavery, even the Nazis. All of it was able to occur because people werent thinking about possible outcomes. Statues of colonizers and confederates are a tangible reminder that might help keep the understanding of possible outcomes in public consciousness, and maybe down the road that remembrance precludes a repeat.
It’s specifically why Auschwitz, the site of one of the most horrific outcomes, stands intact to this day.
Personally, I think the next great incident of dehumanizing and persecution is very likely to be perpetrated by a very liberal mentality, in the name of trying to do good. You see signs of it every day. Some of the labels applied to me in other comments are indicative of it, and I said absolutely nothing In support of the shit I was labelled as. I’m a racist, I’m a colonizer, etc… said no such thing, but there wasn’t any shortage of hostility and downvotes… It’s a dangerous mentality.
These statues are there to venerate, not educate. Auschwitz was partially rebuilt because it’s a memorial and a reminder of a horrific crime against humanity, a statue of cook was put up to celebrate him.
Cook really just steered the boat for Joey (the rockstar biologist) banks.
It was Banks that went back to Britain raving about “Terra nullius” (while knowing that to be false) and pushing colonisation. No one was interested in what Cook had to say.
Cause he was a colonising cunt who represents colonial cuntfuckery. There’s a reason white supremacists put him on their Nazi flags. He was also a child rapist.
Yeah, I’m not going to use whatever drives white supremacists as my benchmark for well, anything. They do stupid things because they’re stupid. Cook may represent something to them, but that’s pretty-much the point I was making: James Cook’s legacy in Australia is exaggerated.
I’m not even against protesting Cook for the things he represents. He simultaneously writes about a culture that he sees positive traits in, while claiming they’re not even people, merely savages. Dude had serious issues. But he had nothing to do with the first fleet. Hell, he wasn’t even alive when the English arrived in Australia to colonise. If we’re going to reassess Cook’s legacy and even take down some statues, then ok. But lets do it for these reasons. Not for something he didn’t do.
I’m not interested in defending cook at all, but I’ve never heard the “child rapist” thing before. Can you elaborate?
I’m morbidly interested in naval expeditions of that era, and I can tell you the are punctuated by licentious debauchery. I think it would be difficult to find a seaman of that day who was not a child rapist by today’s definition.
By all reports Cook was really a prude, not “engaging” with young women in the manner customary of the day.
As I said not trying to defend cook, it’s just an odd assertion to make IMO.
I still think these protests would make a better point if they actually targeted colonisers. Arthur Philip as I said for Sydney, and John Fawkner or Richard Bourke would make ideal protests for Melbourne. Everyone hates on John Batman, but Batman’s treaty (while wildly unfair) is the only European document of the 19th century to recognise Aboriginal land rights. Its existence challenges the whole concept of Terra Nullius and is why Richard Bourke declared the whole settlement on the Yarra illegal.
This is the stuff we should be discussing and educating people about. Not James Cook - his role in Australian history is exaggerated because people of English heritage 100 years ago credited him with “discovering” Australia. Which of course, we know he did not do.
Do we seriously need to rehash this argument? I feel like everyone saw every variation during the confederate statues flair up and the general consensus is that it is a lazy, inaccurate, and ridiculous argument.
Do you think Germany forgot about World War II and Hitler because they destroyed all of the monuments raised during the third reich? I mean FFS I had somebody argue with me the other day that GitHub changing from “master branch” was erasing history. Can’t make this stuff up.
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