“We support the right of people to protest and demonstrate but it must always be done in a peaceful and respectful way.”
Go stand over there so we can continue to ignore you
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.
The powerful don’t do anything in a peaceful or respectful way.
All this does is turn people against the cause. But then again, I feel like this was done to make the people who did it feel special and important.
The fallacy of any publicity is good publicity needs to be put to rest.
Turned people against how?
‘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
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Victorian police are investigating “criminal damage” to a century-old Captain Cook statue in St Kilda in an apparent protest over the Australia Day public holiday.
Police said members of the public reported that the Captain Cook memorial near Jacka Boulevard had been vandalised about 3.30am on Thursday morning.
The plinth had been spray painted with the slogan: “The colony will fall.”
Several people were seen loitering in the area around the time, police said.
According to the Captain Cook Society, the monument to the British explorer was likely to have been the first major memorial to him in Victoria when it was unveiled in December 1914.
Its engraving commemorates the date of the Endeavour’s departure from Plymouth in 1768 on Cook’s first voyage that included charting the east coast of Australia.
The original article contains 183 words, the summary contains 131 words. Saved 28%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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Gotta erase all the history so nobody gets offended… I’m sure there won’t be any “doomed to repeat” in anyone’s future or anything…
Because the statue was what made us learn about and remember the terrible effect of colonialism on Aboriginal people.
Let’s go put up some statues of Hitler lest we forget about what happened during WW2.
Why James Cook though? He was just an explorer who mapped the east coast. He didn’t colonise the place.
Wouldn’t Arthur Philip be a more logical target?
He was more than just an explorer, and the cultural impact of him extends an even deeper meaning to Aboriginal people.
Like the guy literally had secret, sealed instructions to take control of the continent.
He’s also one of the first British people to shoot an Aboriginal person.
None of these links refute the fact that James Cook did not colonise the country. That first link is actually a partial transcription of a really great interview I recommend listening to.
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.
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.
Da fuq terra nullius didn’t come about until much later when bourke cracked the shits at the formation of Melbourne beyond his control
Oops - replied to the wrong comment.
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.
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.
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.
What a dumb comment
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.
You’re not wrong,
Nobody wants to hear it though…
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.
Yeah, so many people who preach good etc are the most hostile i come across on the internet. Dont agree you’re racist
Nah.
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.
Doomed to repeat what, you fucking racist?
Doomed to repeat colonialism? Repeating the defeat of fascism by force?
What history exactly is this erasing?
Get the fucking dogwhistle out of your mouth and maybe you’ll start making sense.
