tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/public-monuments-42243/articlespublic monuments – The Conversation2024-03-04T13:27:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233932024-03-04T13:27:20Z2024-03-04T13:27:20ZCongo Style: how two dictators shaped the DRC’s art, architecture and monuments<p><em>What kind of art is left behind by totalitarian regimes? A new <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/113312">free-to-read</a> <a href="https://press.umich.edu/Books/C/Congo-Style2">book</a> called Congo Style: From Belgian Art Nouveau to African Independence explores the visual culture, architecture and heritage sites of the country today known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It does so by exploring two now-notorious regimes: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium">King Leopold II</a>’s rule (1885-1908) of Belgium’s Congo colony and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">Mobutu Sese Seko</a>’s totalitarian Zaire, established when he seized power in a military coup in 1965 after five years of political upheaval. We asked artist and visual culture scholar Ruth Sacks five questions about her book.</em></p>
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<h2>What did you set out to achieve?</h2>
<p>Years ago, while I was in Belgium on an art residency, I became interested in the early modernist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/Art-Nouveau">art nouveau</a> movement (1890-1914). In architecture and art, this period is part of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/Modernism-art">20th century modernism</a>, known for a minimal, clean aesthetic that’s influenced by new technologies and the advent of machines. Art nouveau is distinctive because it’s highly decorative, while still using the new building materials of iron and glass.</p>
<p>What interested me was the colonial nature of art nouveau. Art nouveau came with a very strong sense of defining newly formed (or unified) nation states in western Europe. It was the style used at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/worlds-fair">world fairs</a>. These were grand exhibitions showing off western countries’ scientific and cultural achievements, including the acquisition of colonies. </p>
<p>A colonial pavilion in the art nouveau style at the 1897 Brussels world fair in Belgium helped establish one of the names for Belgian art nouveau: <a href="https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/art-nouveau-year-brussels">“Style Congo”</a>. </p>
<p>The style is distinctive for its curling, plant-like shapes and is a major tourist feature today. The years in which it was implanted in Brussels (about 1890-1905) directly coincided with the brutal Congo regime of Belgium’s King Leopold II. </p>
<p>Travelling to the DRC, I located actual art nouveau buildings from the early colonial period. But it was the state sites of the early Mobutu Sese Seko regime (1965 to 1975) that captured my attention. Like art nouveau, they are steeped in a sense of <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-2039">nationalism</a> and aimed at impressing. For example, the Limete Tower (in use from 1974) on Boulevard Lumumba is a massive monument intended to be a museum celebrating national culture. A tower made up of a huge raw cement tube is topped by an organic floret shaped crown, with a curving walkway leading off from its rounded lower sections.</p>
<p>My experience of the capital city, Kinshasa, made me rethink what cities were and could be. Buildings like Limete Tower that were designed for very different infrastructures (far more ordered, European and US systems) have weathered in fascinating ways that are often related to extremely violent historic events.</p>
<p>I didn’t want to present a conventional study that only analyses the design of the architecture and its functionality. The book attempts to read sites like this within the particularities of their city, its streets, plants and histories.</p>
<h2>What did you conclude about the Leopold period?</h2>
<p>In Leopold II’s time, the king himself was cast as the villain of the “red rubber regime” in the Congo. The Belgian colonial regime under Leopold II <a href="https://www.amdigital.co.uk/insights/news/red-rubber-atrocities-in-the-congo-free-state-in-confidential-print-africa">committed atrocities</a> connected to the rubber industry. (The 1897 Congo Pavilion was a pavilion within the <a href="https://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/1897-brussels">Brussels World’s Fair</a> dedicated to displaying how the Congo provided a lucrative and exotic resource to Belgium.) </p>
<p>Movements like the <a href="http://www.congoreformassociation.org/cra-history">Congo Reform Association</a> (mainly US and British) protested against horrific conditions, including torture and mutilation, that left at least a million Congolese people dead. A great deal of the focus was on Leopold II himself and his greed, which distracted attention away from the greater system of capitalist colonial expansion that was fully endorsed by Euro-American powers. </p>
<p>Famously, Leopold II never set foot in the Congo and neither did the art nouveau designers who fashioned buildings and exhibition pavilions relating to the Congo. I believe this distance from the realities of life in the Congo itself allowed for the fantastical forms that were created in Belgium.</p>
<h2>What did you conclude about the Mobutu period?</h2>
<p>Mobutu Sese Seko was widely maligned by the Euro-American press. What’s often ignored, to this day, is that he was <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/58653/drc-how-the-cia-got-under-patrice-lumumbas-skin/">put in place</a> by Belgium and the US. He was painted as the villain of the African story, fulfilling the ultimate caricature of the African kleptocrat, yet he wouldn’t have come to power without the nature of the colonialism that came before him.</p>
<p>Belgian colonialism followed a logic of extractivism (removing natural resources to export them) that forced the Congolese economy to supply raw materials to the west (especially Belgium), which continues today. </p>
<p>Mobutu is considered corrupt in the Congo today and his military dictatorship was indeed brutal and controlled the Congolese people with fear. However, his commandeering of a cultural blooming in Kinshasa in the late 1960s and early 1970s was important. Instead of dismissing what he built as only the work of a dictator, my book draws out some of the complexity of this time and what it meant to celebrate African craft, art forms and traditional culture. </p>
<p>The process of appropriating Euro-American artistic ideas and architectural styles in order to celebrate Africanness, as an anti-colonial statement, still holds weight today. Many of Mobutu’s towering monuments are considered objects of pride in the city. </p>
<h2>How does this live on today?</h2>
<p>There is something to be gained from looking at what is left in the wake of tragically violent regimes and how their structures are treated within both their societies and their immediate surroundings. How material culture is made is as important as what is made. Reckoning with monuments and memorials, and considering how these are maintained in the city, can shed often unexpected insights into the ways histories are told. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/retracing-belgiums-dark-past-in-the-congo-and-attempts-to-forge-deeper-ties-184903">Retracing Belgium's dark past in the Congo, and attempts to forge deeper ties</a>
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<p>My hope is that the book remains relevant as a sign there is value in picking apart material remains of regimes that aimed for total control, but never fully achieved it. The associations that build up around public spaces and exhibitions are not necessarily only to do with the circumstances of their making, but how these stories have been filtered over time. They can alienate people but they can also engender pride.</p>
<p>The extractivist attitudes I describe throughout the book, which see the Congo as a resource with bountiful raw natural materials, are still very much present in our day-to-day life. The cobalt in our smartphones, computers and electric cars is mined by labourers working in <a href="https://www.paradigmshift.com.pk/cobalt-in-congo/">near slave conditions</a> to feed our need for the latest technology. While Congo Style stays with historical examples in Kinshasa, the built material that follows colonial ecocide is the main topic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Sacks receives funding from the National Arts Council for research in the Congo conducted while undergoing a PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand. </span></em></p>The nationalist art of Mobutu Sese Seko and the art nouveau style of King Leopold II both live on in Kinshasa in fascinating ways.Ruth Sacks, Senior Lecturer in Visual Art, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1405462020-06-15T06:55:44Z2020-06-15T06:55:44ZRemoving monuments to an imperial past is not the same for former colonies as it is for former empires<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341765/original/file-20200615-65908-71e45r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C15%2C5152%2C3430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The global furore about the meaning and relevance of statues, memorials and place names from a racist, imperial past presents a special challenge to Aotearoa-New Zealand. In this former colonial outpost we are dealing with a double burden: the memorialisation of unsavoury historical figures, and the fact that they were imported from elsewhere.</p>
<p>There is the added irony of this current debate having arrived here from overseas, too. Are we ready to craft our own decolonial exit strategy? Or will we weakly copy what’s taking place at the former imperial centre? </p>
<p>Examining all this drills to the very bedrock of colonial history. It shakes the imperial foundations. </p>
<p>The Black Lives Matter protests in the US have provided the latest flashpoint for this issue. The echo in Aotearoa-New Zealand has so far involved a restaurant named after infamous Pacific slave trader <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/121772817/akaroa-restaurant-named-after-notorious-slave-trader-seeks-new-name">Bully Hayes</a>, a pub named after Captain Cook and a statue of New Zealand Wars figure Andrew Hamilton in the city that took his name.</p>
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<p>As in Australia, the once unquestioned legacy of James Cook has again been challenged: having laid the groundwork for subsequent colonisation, he began the renaming of places – many still in use – and erasure of local knowledge and ownership. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-taking-a-wrecking-ball-to-monuments-contemporary-art-can-ask-what-really-needs-tearing-down-140437">Friday essay: taking a wrecking ball to monuments – contemporary art can ask what really needs tearing down</a>
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<p>In the UK, what started with the dumping of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol harbour has grown into a “topple the racists” movement, complete with its own <a href="https://www.toppletheracists.org/">interactive map</a>. After slaver Robert Milligan’s statue was removed, London Mayor Sadiq Khan ordered a review of London’s monuments. The Māori Party has made the <a href="https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2006/S00097/maori-party-calls-for-inquiry-into-colonial-monuments-statues-and-names.htm">same call</a> here.</p>
<h2>The imperial past is all around us</h2>
<p>Defacing and removing statues is nothing new. Erected as markers of power and dominance in the landscape, they represent the ideas and actions of those commemorated. </p>
<p>It’s no surprise, then, that as regimes change, place names are written over and statues are toppled. Fallen monuments to Stalin, Lenin and Saddam Hussein provide dramatic 20th-century evidence of societies breaking from the past. </p>
<p>In Aotearoa-New Zealand, memorials to the most offensive colonial characters are just the tip of the iceberg. This is a place riddled with colonial markers – a nation where British imperial culture was stamped onto the landscape as a fundamental part of settlement. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341763/original/file-20200615-65908-1vxhhb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341763/original/file-20200615-65908-1vxhhb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341763/original/file-20200615-65908-1vxhhb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341763/original/file-20200615-65908-1vxhhb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341763/original/file-20200615-65908-1vxhhb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341763/original/file-20200615-65908-1vxhhb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341763/original/file-20200615-65908-1vxhhb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A worker paints over graffiti on a Captain Cook statue at Randwick in Sydney, June 15 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joel Carrett</span></span>
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<p>Some Māori place names were allowed to survive, but often they were supplanted by old-world people and places. British heroes were feted for imperial conquest and domination, often for their roles in subjugating Māori, such as <a href="https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-history/marmaduke-nixons-statue-isnt-the-problem-its-how-we-overlook-maori-history">Marmaduke Nixon</a> whose statue stands in Ōtāhuhu, Auckland. </p>
<p>The imperial master was copied, with the likes of Thomas Picton and Edward Eyre (currently <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/121799217/calls-to-rethink-name-picton-as-history-emerges-of-cruel-slaveowner">being shamed</a>) the rule rather than the exception when it came to naming places. Following in their mould, settlers who emulated imperial values were memorialised most. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-honest-reckoning-with-captain-cooks-legacy-wont-heal-things-overnight-but-its-a-start-130389">An honest reckoning with Captain Cook's legacy won't heal things overnight. But it's a start</a>
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<p>But the current agitation is not just a flash in the pan from a woke generation, as Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300033874/winston-peters-unimpressed-with-outcry-over-colonial-statues">implied</a>. The storm has been brewing for the past decade, targeting historical figures whose legacies live on in the present. The Rhodes Must Fall campaign in Africa and Britain and the destruction of Confederate statues in the US were part of widely publicised anti-racist protests. </p>
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<h2>Removing history or rewriting it?</h2>
<p>Arguments for and against removing statues and changing names tap into powerful forces. </p>
<p>On one side are those who assert they are hurtful, irrelevant and fail to represent contemporary diversity. </p>
<p>On the other are those who fear that effectively erasing historical evidence risks history repeating. By separating past from present, they argue, we can accept the behaviour of those cast in stone was and is reprehensible, but it should be seen in the context of its time, not erased because it offends modern sensibilities. </p>
<p>Others view the desecration of memorials as vandalism by those wanting to replace the past with propaganda. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, a heritage lobby preserves statues as art forms but shies away from critical consideration of how they represent the structure of past or present societies. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-monument-culture-obscures-a-violent-history-of-white-supremacy-and-colonial-violence-140370">Britain's monument culture obscures a violent history of white supremacy and colonial violence</a>
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<p>And, taking the threat personally, a militant and reactionary right wing seeks to protect and defend statues and place names. </p>
<p>Short of nature intervening, as it did when the Canterbury earthquakes <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/4863323/A-natural-break-from-our-colonial-past">toppled</a> a number of colonial-era relics, what is the way forward?</p>
<h2>Context is everything</h2>
<p>One solution is to acknowledge these statues as an uncomfortable part of history and <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2020/07/04/relocate-the-captain-cook-statue/159378480010061">move them into museums</a> and statue parks. Again, this is nothing new. Defunct Queen Victoria statues have ended up in a Quebec museum, Sydney shopping centre and in Indian storage. In Gisborne, a James Cook statue was <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/388425/controversial-statue-of-captain-james-cook-to-be-moved%20to%20Tairawhiti%20Museum">relocated</a>. </p>
<p>This allows their legacy to be discussed while simultaneously casting them as history. Statue parks with interpretation and graffiti boards would promote further discussion. This is common, too – <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2019/06/20/coronation-park-and-the-forgotten-statues-of-the-british-raj/">Coronation Park</a> in New Delhi, for example. </p>
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<p>Revising street and place names is more difficult because transplanted colonial names are everywhere, although the promotion of Māori place names is rapidly gaining momentum already. </p>
<p>But in simply mimicking the removal of some of those explicitly responsible for colonial violence, Aotearoa-New Zealand risks falling in behind what suits elsewhere. The sun may be setting once more on the British Empire, but it’s the old empire leading the charge. </p>
<p>In this part of the world, reconsidering monuments and place names challenges the very foundations of settler societies and the evolution of race relations. The imperial past really is a different country, and we will have to do things differently here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>La Nouvelle-Zélande aussi s'interroge sur le sort à réserver aux monuments et aux noms de lieux rendant hommage au passé colonial.Katie Pickles, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1404372020-06-11T19:56:24Z2020-06-11T19:56:24ZFriday essay: taking a wrecking ball to monuments – contemporary art can ask what really needs tearing down<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341059/original/file-20200611-114080-j58km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1897%2C1077&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Albert in You Wreck Me (2020). </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the Black Lives Matter protests raged across the world, I was sent a post on Facebook that read, </p>
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<p>Donald J Trump now lives at 1600 Black Lives Matter Plaza, NW, Washington, DC 20500. </p>
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<p>The post referred to the <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/world/washington-emblazons-defiant-black-lives-matter-sign-near-white-house">mural</a> painted in front of Lafayette Square. In bright yellow paint, the words “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/dept-of-design/the-mimetic-power-of-dcs-black-lives-matter-mural">Black Lives Matter</a>” stretched from sidewalk to sidewalk over two city blocks. The work was commissioned by DC’s mayor <a href="https://twitter.com/MayorBowser">Muriel Bowser</a>, who also renamed the area Black Lives Matter Plaza. </p>
<p>The artwork is a powerful symbol, made even more so because of its visibility and prominence in a public space – and local government endorsement. It will serve to remind everyone of this moment in history, including the <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2020-06-02/bishop-outraged-after-tear-gas-used-on-crowds-before-trump-church-photo-op/">violence perpetrated against protesters</a> by police to clear the streets for a presidential photo opportunity in front of a church. </p>
<p>Contemporary art can be transformative, especially when located in public spaces. Historical monuments have the same kind of power. They are a physical reminder created to commemorate a person or event who is deemed worth remembering. </p>
<p>Now is the time to ask which monuments can withstand introspection and revision. Artists are opening those conversations – creatively and sometimes hilariously. </p>
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<h2>Tearing down history</h2>
<p>Around the world, we have seen colonial monuments attracting the rage of protestors who don’t want to see the continual memorialising of men known for their violent and oppressive actions. </p>
<p>In Bristol in the UK, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-52962356">statue of Edward Colston</a>, a 17th century slave trader, was torn down, dragged through the streets, and thrown into the harbour. Colston was a member of the Royal African Company and responsible for enslaving approximately 80,000 men, women and children and forcibly removing them from Africa to the Americas. His statue is a tangible reminder their lives were considered insignificant. </p>
<p>In the US, statues of Christopher Columbus have been beheaded. Columbus, once celebrated for “discovering” the US, has in recent times been reviled for his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/10/14/here-are-indigenous-people-christopher-columbus-his-men-could-not-annihilate/">brutality toward Native American people</a>, with many states and cities replacing the annual Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day. </p>
<p>In the US, most of the targeted statues have been of Confederate memorials in cities across the south. The statue of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/04/virginia-governor-confederate-statue-removal-robert-e-lee">Confederate General Robert E Lee</a> will be removed from its prominent position in the centre of the town of Richmond, Virginia, with Governor Ralph Northam pledging the state will no longer preach a “false version of history”.</p>
<p>Australians are also questioning whether colonial monuments – standing prominently in towns and cities – should remain. The <a href="https://twitter.com/TheTodayShow/status/1270837483622801408">same question</a> is being asked of past film and television productions. This week, Netflix <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/netflix-removes-four-chris-lilley-shows-from-library-20200611-p551g0.html">removed four Chris Lilley programs</a> from its library, some of which originally aired on the ABC, in which the comedian used “brown face” makeup and racial stereotypes to depict characters of colour. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-twitter-accounts-you-should-be-following-if-you-want-to-listen-to-indigenous-australians-and-learn-140353">Ten Twitter accounts you should be following if you want to listen to Indigenous Australians and learn</a>
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<p>Yesterday, Today show journalist and Gamilaroi/Gomeroi woman Brooke Boney <a href="https://twitter.com/TheTodayShow/status/1270837483622801408">broke down the tension behind the issue to her Channel 9 audience</a>:</p>
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<p>Does going through the archives and tearing down art that’s been made in the past really help us move forward? If I have children, I don’t want them to see and think that is how they fit into the world. But I’d also like to be able to show them how poorly our people were thought of and treated in the past.</p>
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<p>Can we contemplate a horizon whereby narratives of nation are represented by less harmful and more truthful physical constructions? Their presence is not neutral. They masquerade as benign signifiers of nation building when, in fact, they are inscribed with a violent history that reminds Indigenous people of their dispossession and enduring trauma.</p>
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<h2>Swinging through</h2>
<p>Enter <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/albert-tony/">Tony Albert</a>, a politically-minded artist provoked by stereotypical representations of Aboriginal people, and hailed as one of our most exciting contemporary Australian artists. His previous works have used drawing, painting, photography and installation. He’s also incorporated a collection of “<a href="https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/tony-albert/">Aboriginalia</a>” – retro and household kitsch objects depicting Aboriginal people and their culture. </p>
<p>His new artwork, titled <a href="http://makingart.work/projects/you-wreck-me">You Wreck Me</a>, is a video that invokes the mythology of the trickster, here to relay important moral and life lessons. The work brings to the fore the ongoing discussions about memorialisation and nationalism through the lens of parody. </p>
<p>In the video, Tony Albert is painted up for ceremony while straddling an exercise ball in a comedic representation of Miley Cyrus’s infamous video clip, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8">Wrecking Ball</a>. Singing (badly) and swinging, he shatters statues of Captain James Cook. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">So bad, it’s powerful. Tony Albert’s You Wreck Me has him swinging through colonial monuments.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Artists like Albert are asserting their existence in contemporary Australia in myriad ways, including using humour to challenge the continual idolisation of the legacies of colonialism littering our public spaces. </p>
<p>Albert’s work comes at a time as many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people across Australia are calling for the removal of colonial monuments. There is a growing movement towards a more equitable and fair society. </p>
<p>Gamilaroi/Darug multimedia artist Travis De Vries presciently captured this in his 2019 digital print <a href="https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/first-nations/tear-it-down/">Cook Falling, Tear it Down</a>. It showed a scene in Hyde Park, Sydney, with a group of Aboriginal people using a rope to pull down a statue of Captain Cook by the neck.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341073/original/file-20200611-114118-nbgg0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Cook Falling, Tear it Down (2019) by Travis de Vries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/first-nations/tear-it-down/">Travis de Vries</a></span>
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<p>Truth telling has been the focus of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships for some time as noted by the <a href="https://www.naidoc.org.au/get-involved/2019-theme">2019 NAIDOC theme</a>: VOICE. TREATY. TRUTH. </p>
<p>The colonial monuments speak to the erasure of our histories as noted by <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-18/america-tears-down-its-racist-history-we-ignore-ours-stan-grant/8821662">Stan Grant in 2017</a> when he said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the monument of Captain Cook speaks to the emptiness, it speaks to our invisibility; it says that nothing truly mattered, nothing truly counted until a white sailor first walked on these shores.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/monumental-errors-how-australia-can-fix-its-racist-colonial-statues-82980">Monumental errors: how Australia can fix its racist colonial statues</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Deeper than monuments</h2>
<p>I personally do not care if the colonial monuments are torn down. What I do know is that while this would be symbolically important, their removal will not remove the attitudes and institutional racism behind their creation. </p>
<p>The reason these <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-10/black-lives-matter-protests-renew-push-to-remove-statues/12337058">debates are raging</a> and the reactions from many non-Indigenous people are so vehement, is because their legacies still endure. Removing the statues will not automatically end the legacy. </p>
<p>I am also aware their removal would allow another kind of amnesia where the trauma and violence experienced by Aboriginal people could be “forgotten”. Other options are being debated – removing monuments and housing them in <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2020/07/04/relocate-the-captain-cook-statue/159378480010061">museums</a>, creating parks where they can stand and be used for educational purposes. </p>
<p>Some have pointed to artworks like the huge yellow slogan in Washington DC and demanded more from leaders. “It’s not enough to have a pretty painting in the middle of the street; we need politics,” Mckayla Wilkes, an activist for criminal justice reform, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/dept-of-design/the-mimetic-power-of-dcs-black-lives-matter-mural">told The New Yorker</a>.</p>
<p>Just ignoring the issue is not an option, because it also ignores who has the right to determine which histories are able to be displayed in public spaces and continues to privilege one version of history while erasing the presence of Aboriginal people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bronwyn Carlson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Monuments are testaments to how a society wants to remember. Now is the time to ask which monuments can withstand introspection. Artists are opening those conversations – sometimes hilariously.Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1215932019-08-28T12:25:45Z2019-08-28T12:25:45ZWhy Bulgarians want to conserve Communist monuments<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289620/original/file-20190827-184252-12mdv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Buzludja monument, Bulgaria.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/buzludja-bulgaria-july-20-2019drone-top-1462675727?src=-2-2">Todor Stoyanov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>All over the world, statues and monuments which celebrate controversial periods of history <a href="https://theconversation.com/soviet-war-memorials-in-eastern-europe-continue-to-strain-relations-with-russia-101687">are being reconsidered</a> and, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-confederate-statue-graveyard-could-help-bury-the-old-south-118034">in some cases, removed</a>. In the US, for example, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/least-110-confederate-monuments-and-symbols-have-been-removed-2015-180969254/">more than 100</a> Confederate memorials have been dismantled after becoming targets of protest and vandalism. But elsewhere, some attitudes about countries’ historical pasts are very different and, as my research in eastern Europe (specifically Bulgaria) has found, some people believe monuments which celebrate a history from which the world has moved on should be conserved.</p>
<p>There are thousands of monuments representing the Soviet and communist past in the countries formerly considered to be part of the Eastern Bloc. Bulgarian monuments in particular often celebrate fraternity and alliances (usually with Russia), and commemorate specific events such as World War II, or the liberation from the Ottoman Empire. </p>
<p>Some are monumental in size – such as the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/founders-of-the-bulgarian-state-monument">monument dedicated to the foundation of the Bulgarian state</a> in the Shumen province, north-eastern Bulgaria – and sit in high and conspicuous locations, presiding over the surrounding landscape. <a href="https://thespaces.com/ismael-gueymard-photographs-communist-bulgarias-mountaintop-monuments/">Others stand quietly</a> on the outskirts of sleepy towns and villages. The <a href="https://opoznai.bg/view/pametnik-na-dimitar-blagoev-buzludja">memorial for Dimitâr Blagoev</a>, the founder of Bulgarian socialism, situated between the town of Kran and the Buzludzha peak in central Bulgaria, being one such example. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289603/original/file-20190827-184229-rwlbuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289603/original/file-20190827-184229-rwlbuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289603/original/file-20190827-184229-rwlbuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289603/original/file-20190827-184229-rwlbuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289603/original/file-20190827-184229-rwlbuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289603/original/file-20190827-184229-rwlbuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289603/original/file-20190827-184229-rwlbuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria, built above the city of Shumen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E2%80%9E%D0%A1%D1%8A%D0%B7%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%B1%D1%8A%D0%BB%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0_%D0%B4%D1%8A%D1%80%D0%B6%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%E2%80%9C5.jpg">Desitodorov/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But since the fall of communism these buildings and statues have simply been abandoned, left to the mercy of the elements, <a href="https://theconversation.com/soviet-war-memorials-in-eastern-europe-continue-to-strain-relations-with-russia-101687">and becoming victims of graffiti</a>. Today, these monuments stand silent within Bulgaria’s developing cultural landscape. For the most part, they inspire a sort of ambivalence from Bulgaria’s population. </p>
<p>This attitude of neglect is beginning to change, however. In 2015, the <a href="http://www.buzludzha-monument.com/">Buzludzha Project</a> was created with the aim of conserving <a href="http://www.buzludzha-monument.com/history">the iconic Buzludzha monument</a>. It seeks to explain, preserve and remember the building – which was once a functional event space and public museum – as well as the political context in which it was built and used. </p>
<p>Opened in 1981, the monument was created as a <a href="http://www.buzludzha-monument.com/#welcome">tribute to the socialist movement</a>“, although Bulgarian society has since become democratic. The peak on which it was constructed is linked to <a href="http://www.buzludzha-monument.com/mountain">three events which have great historical significance</a> in the country too. These are the foundation of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party in 1891, the death of Hadzhi Dimitâr in 1868 (a military commander who fought for the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule) and a World War II-era battle between partisan and fascist forces.</p>
<p>Last month, the project attracted international investment in the form of US$185,000, from the American Getty foundation. This money was donated specifically for the <a href="https://www.svobodnaevropa.bg/a/30062606.html">restoration and renovation of Buzludzha as a heritage site</a>. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/62Qvp4y031k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>But not all of the country’s communist monuments are as well known internationally as Buzludzha – and so have received little to no attention. Yet a critical factor that must be considered before any heritage site is created or restoration undertaken is the viewpoint of the country’s people. There is little point conserving a past they would rather forget.</p>
<p>To find out what the people of Bulgaria think of projects like this, I recently asked nearly 100 Bulgarians about the future of the country’s monuments. Using an online survey, I wanted to find out whether they wanted legislation to be implemented which aims to conserve and restore these monuments. I specifically asked whether they thought this should be an EU matter, rather than a state matter, due to the fact that Bulgaria does not currently have the funds needed to renovate and conserve all of its crumbling communist monuments. </p>
<p>Overall, the participants of the survey agreed that EU intervention is needed if these monuments are to be conserved (58% of respondents said they wanted it). Yet, while there was considerably divided opinion on this conservation point, the most interesting revelation from the survey was that most people considered these monuments to contribute to their sense of national identity. Even those under the age of 34 – the ones least likely to remember communism, if they lived through it at all – still felt connected to these places and recognised their role in maintaining aspects of national belonging. The monuments have become part of Bulgaria’s historical landscape and are now totems of intertwined real history and personal pasts.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287549/original/file-20190809-144862-1xvh72.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The overall results from the survey.</span>
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<p>While this is just a small survey, the fact that a majority of people would like to see Bulgaria’s monuments conserved is important. It may very well reflect national attitudes towards more conservation plans in line with what has been proposed for Buzludzha. More ventures like it would ultimately help to maintain Bulgaria’s monuments as important historical markers, in an environment which seeks to sustain the country’s national historic legacy. </p>
<p>Bulgaria’s monuments were born out of critical historical episodes which deserve to be memorialised. By recognising the importance of these structures to the Bulgarian people’s national psyche – regardless of age and political leaning – the EU and Bulgarian government will ensure that all citizens are represented within the diversification of the national story going forward into the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dòmhnall Crystal receives funding from AHRC.</span></em></p>As Bulguria’s iconic Buzludzha monument attracts international investment, a survey has found that the country’s people want more of their Communist monuments to be conserved.Dòmhnall Crystal, Doctoral Student of Archaeology and Ancient History, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1180342019-07-26T13:03:40Z2019-07-26T13:03:40ZA Confederate statue graveyard could help bury the Old South<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285786/original/file-20190726-43136-xpbabp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A damaged Confederate statue lies on a pallet in a warehouse in Durham, N.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, after protesters yanked it off its pedestal in front of a government building. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Confederate-Monument-Protest-Statue-Toppled/15d7476fae6e4d1d887d525278683db8/81/0">AP Photo/Allen Breed</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An estimated <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy">114 Confederate symbols</a> have been removed from public view since 2015. In many cases, these cast-iron Robert E. Lees and Jefferson Davises were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/05/633952187/where-do-confederate-monuments-go-after-they-come-down">sent to storage</a>.</p>
<p>If the aim of statue removal is to build a more racially just South, then, as many analysts have <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-taking-down-confederate-memorials-is-only-a-first-step-78020">pointed out</a>, putting these monuments in storage is a lost opportunity. Simply unseating Confederate statues from highly visible public spaces is just the first step in a much longer process of <a href="http://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/5597/">understanding, grieving and mending the wounds</a> of America’s violent past. Merely hiding away the monuments does not necessarily change <a href="https://theconversation.com/tearing-down-confederate-statues-leaves-structural-racism-intact-101951">the structural racism that birthed them</a>. </p>
<p>Studies show that the environment in which statues are displayed <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1464936042000252769?journalCode=rscg20">shapes how people understand their meaning</a>. In that sense, relocating monuments, rather than eliminating them, can help people put this painful history into context. </p>
<p>For example, monuments to Confederate war heroes first appeared in cemeteries <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/585508">immediately following</a> the Civil War. That likely evoked in visitors a direct and private honoring and grieving for the dead. </p>
<p>By the early 1900s, hundreds of Confederate statues dotted courthouse lawns and town squares across the South. This prominent, centrally located setting on government property sent an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues-were-built-to-further-a-white-supremacist-future">intentionally different message</a>: that local officials endorsed the prevailing white social order.</p>
<p>So what should we do with rejected Confederate monuments? We have a modest proposal: a Confederate statue graveyard.</p>
<h2>Lessons from the Soviet past</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780815354260">research as cultural geographers</a> recognizes that Confederate monument controversies – while typically considered regional or national issues – are in fact part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/brazils-long-strange-love-affair-with-the-confederacy-ignites-racial-tension-115548">global struggles</a> to recognize and heal from the wounds of racism, white supremacy and anti-democratic regimes.</p>
<p>The idea of a Confederate monument graveyard is modeled after ways that the former communist bloc nations of <a href="http://www.mementopark.hu/">Hungary</a>, <a href="http://grutoparkas.lt/en_US/">Lithuania</a> and <a href="https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/noukogude-aegsete-monumentide-valinaitus">Estonia</a> have dealt with statues of Soviet heroes like <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/russia/history-of-the-soviet-union">Joseph Stalin</a> and Vladimir Lenin.</p>
<p>Under communist Soviet rule between 1945 and 1991, Eastern European countries suffered <a href="https://www.history.com/news/ukrainian-famine-stalin">mass starvation</a>, land theft, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/4477/iron-curtain-by-anne-applebaum/9781400095933/">military rule and rigid censorship</a>. An estimated <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-Terror-Reassessment-Robert-Conquest/dp/0195317009">15 million</a> people in the Soviet bloc died during this totalitarian reign.</p>
<p>Despite these horrors, many countries have opted not to destroy or hide their Soviet-era monuments, but they haven’t left them to rule over city hall or public plazas, either. </p>
<p>Rather, governments in Eastern Europe have altered the meaning of these politically charged Soviet statues by relocating them. Dozens of Soviet statues across Hungary, Lithuania and Estonia have been pulled from their pedestals and placed in open-air parks, where interested visitors can reflect on their new significance.</p>
<p>The idea behind relocating monuments is to dethrone dominant historical narratives that, in their traditional places of power, are tacitly endorsed.</p>
<h2>A statue graveyard</h2>
<p>The Eastern European effort to create a new <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-008-9201-5">memorial landscape</a> has been met with mixed public reaction. </p>
<p>In Hungary, some see it as <a href="https://urbanlabsce.eu/budapests-memento-park-an-example-for-america/">a step in the right direction</a>. But, in Lithuania, people have expressed that re-erecting the statues of known dictators is in “<a href="https://www.economist.com/prospero/2017/08/30/how-lithuania-dealt-with-its-soviet-statues">poor taste</a>” – an affront to those who suffered under totalitarianism. </p>
<p>The relocation of Soviet statues in Estonia has taken an even more interesting turn. </p>
<p>For the past decade, the <a href="https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee">Estonian History Museum</a> has been collecting former Soviet monuments with the intention of <a href="https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/noukogude-aegsete-monumentide-valinaitus">making an outdoor exhibition</a> out of them. For years it kept a decapitated Lenin and a noseless Stalin, among other degraded Soviet relics, <a href="https://www.timetravelturtle.com/soviet-statue-graveyard-tallinn-estonia/">in a field next to the museum</a>. </p>
<p>The statues weathered Eastern European winters and languished in a defunct, toppled state. Weeds grew over them. The elements took their toll. </p>
<p>Travel writer <a href="https://www.timetravelturtle.com/soviet-statue-graveyard-tallinn-estonia/">Michael Turtle</a>, who visited the museum in 2015, called the field a “statue graveyard.”</p>
<p>“Everything here seems to fit into some kind of purgatorial limbo,” he wrote on his blog. “The statues are not respected enough to be displayed as history but are culturally significant enough to not just be destroyed.” </p>
<p>To this we would add that these old statues, when repurposed thoughtfully and intentionally, have the potential to mend old wounds.</p>
<h2>Confederate monument graveyard</h2>
<p>What if the United States created its own graveyard for the distasteful relics of its own racist past? </p>
<p>We envision a cemetery for the American South where removed Confederate statues would be displayed, perhaps, in a felled position – a visual condemnation of the white supremacy they fought to uphold. Already crumpled monuments, like the statue to “The Boys Who Wore Grey” that was <a href="https://www.apnews.com/dace53761754407a8d48c193d52d522e">forcefully removed from downtown Durham, North Carolina</a>, might be placed in the Confederate statue graveyard in their <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article224038660.html">defunct state</a>. </p>
<p>One art critic has even <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2019/02/15/getty-monument/#624ec6e452c5">suggested</a> that old monuments be physically buried under tombstones with epitaphs written by the descendants of those they enslaved. </p>
<p>We are not the first to suggest relocating Confederate statues.</p>
<p>Democratic presidential candidate <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elizabeth-warren-president-confederate-monuments-museum-a8830841.html">Elizabeth Warren</a>, for example, has proposed that toppled Confederate statues be housed in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-museum-of-confederate-statues-could-help-end-the-american-civil-war-82934">history museum</a> – “where they belong.” </p>
<p>That has proven <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/are-museums-right-home-confederate-monuments-180968969/">challenging for curators</a>. </p>
<p>When The University of Texas moved a statue of the Confederate President Jefferson Davis from its pedestal on campus to a campus museum, some <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Happened-When-One/244481">students criticized</a> the ensuing exhibit’s “lack of focus on racism and slavery.” One suggested that the statue’s new setting inadvertently glorified Davis, given the inherent value conferred on objects in museums. </p>
<p>And since statues in museums are typically exhibited in their original, upright position, Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee still tower over visitors – maintaining an imposing sense of authority.</p>
<p>We believe felled and crumpled monuments, in contrast, would create a somber commemorative atmosphere that encourages visitors to grieve – without revering – their legacy. A carefully-planned and aesthetically sensitive Confederate monument graveyard could openly and purposefully undermine the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2747/0272-3638.23.1.31">power these monuments once held</a>, acknowledging, dissecting and ultimately rejecting the Confederacy’s roots in slavery.</p>
<p>Planning a Confederate monument graveyard will prompt many questions. Where should it be located? Will there be one central Confederate monument graveyard or many? Who will design and plan the graveyard?</p>
<p>Answering these questions would not just be part of a conversation about steel and stone but about the serious pursuit of peace, justice and racial healing in the nation — and about putting the Old South to rest. </p>
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<p><a href="http://www.aag.org">Jordan Brasher is a member of the American Association of Geographers</a></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.aag.org">Derek H. Alderman is a member of the American Association of Geographers</a></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Brasher is a member of the American Association of Geographers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek H. Alderman is a member of the American Association of Geographers</span></em></p>Where do old Confederate statues go when they die? The former Soviet bloc countries could teach the US something about dealing with monuments from a painful past.Jordan Brasher, Doctoral Candidate in Geography, University of TennesseeDerek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1181542019-06-14T12:41:37Z2019-06-14T12:41:37ZMaryland has created a truth commission on lynchings – can it deliver?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279229/original/file-20190612-32361-90xzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 40 lynchings have been documented in Maryland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/noose-concept-murder-suicide-on-dark-1159477744">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Between 1850 and 1950, thousands of African American men, women and children were victims of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/magazine/a-lynchings-long-shadow.html">lynchings</a>: public torture and killings carried out by white mobs.</p>
<p>Lynchings were used to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/26/lynchings-memorial-us-south-montgomery-alabama">terrorize and control</a> black people, notably in the South following the end of slavery. </p>
<p>Yet despite the prevalence and seriousness of the practice, there has been an “<a href="https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/">astonishing absence of any effort to acknowledge, discuss, or address lynching</a>,” reports the <a href="https://eji.org/">Equal Justice Initiative</a>, the leading organization conducting research on lynchings. </p>
<p>Until now. </p>
<p>In April 2018, the <a href="https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial">National Memorial for Peace and Justice</a> – the first lynching memorial in the U.S. – was opened in Montgomery, Alabama. In December of the same year, the U.S. Senate <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/28/why-it-took-century-pass-an-anti-lynching-law/">unanimously passed a bill</a> that defined lynching as a federal crime. </p>
<p>More recently, in April 2019, the state of Maryland <a href="https://legiscan.com/MD/text/HB307/id/2005426/Maryland-2019-HB307-Chaptered.pdf">established a truth commission</a> to investigate the lynchings of at least 40 African Americans between 1854 and 1933. </p>
<p>The legislation that authorized the truth commission, <a href="https://legiscan.com/MD/text/HB307/id/2005426/Maryland-2019-HB307-Chaptered.pdf">Maryland HB 307</a>, was sponsored by Maryland House Delegate <a href="http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=sponpage&tab=subject6&id=pena&stab=01">Joseline Peña-Melnyk</a>. </p>
<p>Speaking before the House Judiciary Committee in February 2019, Peña-Melnyk said that the commission would be an opportunity “<a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-lynching-commission-hearing-20190211-story.html">to send the message that the lives of the 40-something people really mattered</a>.” Written with the help of the <a href="https://www.mdlynchingmemorial.org">Maryland Lynching Memorial Project</a> and endorsed by the <a href="https://eji.org/news/maryland-establishes-first-statewide-commission-on-racial-terror-lynchings">Equal Justice Initiative</a>, the bill passed with strong bipartisan support just two months later. </p>
<p>The commission has the potential to educate the public about <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-lynching-in-maryland-20180919-htmlstory.html">dozens</a> of lynchings – some of which occurred with the knowledge or direct involvement of <a href="https://legiscan.com/MD/text/HB307/id/2005426/Maryland-2019-HB307-Chaptered.pdf">local, county and state government entities</a>. The commission can also provide the opportunity for <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0430-lynching-commission-20190429-story.html">reconciliation</a> between the families of those who were responsible and the families of those who were killed. </p>
<p>Can it live up to its promise? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279225/original/file-20190612-32321-tmaek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Death certificate for George Armwood, 22- or 23-year-old lynched in Maryland by a mob.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/washington_area_spark/22848848409/in/album-72157647348751200/">Maryland State Archives/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Truth commissions around the world</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.zvobgo.com">I study human rights</a>, with a particular interest in institutions that hold individuals, organizations and governments accountable for human rights abuses. My current research focuses on truth commissions and how they can be designed to be effective.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/isid/files/isid/priscilla_b._hayner_unspeakable_truths_transitibookzz.org_.pdf">truth commission</a> is a temporary body that investigates different forms and systems of violence that happened in the past. Examples include the commissions that investigated apartheid in <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">South Africa</a>, the civil war in <a href="http://www.cavr-timorleste.org/te/">Timor-Leste</a> and the dictatorship in <a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/chile/">Chile</a>.</p>
<p>Generally, governments establish commissions to examine documents and collect witness testimony. A key goal of commissions is preparing a report that details the facts and traces the legacies of violence and abuse. A second, related goal is reconciliation. In Maryland’s case, this would mean working toward <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0258934042000280698">respect, understanding and trust</a> of those of other races and their experiences.</p>
<p>Based on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14754835.2018.1543017">my research</a> and analyses of truth commissions in <a href="https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Global-Memorialization-Democracy-2007-English_0.pdf">Chile</a>, <a href="https://www.ictj.org/our-work/regions-and-countries/south-africa">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://www.ictj.org/news/10-years-cavr-report-timor-leste-truth">Timor-Leste</a>, I believe that the commission in Maryland has the potential to succeed. </p>
<p>But it faces some big obstacles.</p>
<h2>Truth commissions in the US</h2>
<p>The commission in Maryland will not be the first in the U.S. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, a national commission studied the government’s <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/research/japanese-americans/justice-denied/summary.pdf">relocation and internment in camps</a> of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II. The commission’s work led to both <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/87/3/1134/871118">apologies and reparations</a> for victims.</p>
<p>In addition, there have been commissions at the local level – for example, the 2004 commission in <a href="http://www.greensborotrc.org">North Carolina</a> that examined the killing of five anti-Ku Klux Klan demonstrators in Greensboro in 1979. There have also been commissions at the state level – for example the 2013 commission in <a href="http://www.mainewabanakitrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TRC-Report-Expanded_July2015.pdf">Maine</a> that investigated the separation of indigenous Wabanaki children from their communities since 1960.</p>
<p>However, the commission in Maryland will be the first to research lynchings, which investigative journalist Ida B. Wells in 1909 called the U.S.’s “<a href="https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/09/mob-murder-in-a-christian-nation-june-1-1909/">national crime</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279234/original/file-20190612-32327-wf8tby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lynchings happened across the U.S., including the 1916 lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crowd-people-gathered-watch-lynching-jesse-755026276">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The truth commission in Maryland</h2>
<p><a href="https://legiscan.com/MD/text/HB307/id/2005426/Maryland-2019-HB307-Chaptered.pdf">The Maryland law establishing the commission</a> calls for “full knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of the truth.” </p>
<p>How would a commission accomplish this? </p>
<p>I have found <a href="https://www.zvobgo.com/research">in my research</a> that a commission needs support from politicians, access to information, and community knowledge and involvement. It appears that the commission in Maryland has – or will have – each of these characteristics. In this regard, it is similar to previous successful commissions. </p>
<p>First, similar to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14754835.2018.1543017">South Africa</a>, the commission has support from politicians on both sides of the aisle – in this case, Democrats and Republicans. Bipartisan support affords the commission public legitimacy as it seeks access to court records, historical archives, and local and statewide newspapers. So, it may be harder to politicize the commission’s work.</p>
<p>Second, as in <a href="https://www.ictj.org/news/10-years-cavr-report-timor-leste-truth">Timor-Leste</a>, where the commission held hearings in the villages where violence occurred, the commission in Maryland will hold hearings across the state, including in communities where lynchings occurred. </p>
<p>By operating throughout the state, the commission can more easily reach victims’ descendants and collect their stories. Collecting information from as many sources as possible is important to ascertaining the truth. </p>
<p>In addition, the commission will be well positioned to broadly share its work and findings, through the hearings themselves, local news reporting and more. This is key to both truth and reconciliation. </p>
<p>Third, as in <a href="https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Global-Memorialization-Democracy-2007-English_0.pdf">Chile</a>, the commission in Maryland <a href="https://legiscan.com/MD/text/HB307/id/2005426/Maryland-2019-HB307-Chaptered.pdf">will receive recommendations from the public, including from victims’ families,</a> about erecting memorials and historical markers where lynchings occurred. </p>
<p>Getting families and the wider community involved in this aspect can help provide healing and closure. For more than a century, the pain and trauma they experienced went unacknowledged.</p>
<p>Now, not only does Maryland have the potential to address this pain and trauma, it has the opportunity to memorialize the lynchings so others, too, can know what happened.</p>
<h2>Obstacles to truth and reconciliation</h2>
<p>There are, I believe, obstacles that may prevent the commission from accomplishing all of its goals.</p>
<p>To start, the commission’s limited focus may lead to limited reconciliation. Lynchings represent just one form – the most extreme form – of race-based discrimination and violence. </p>
<p>Other forms – which persist today – include the <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-youth-assessment-20190417-story.html">over-policing</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/overcriminalization-of-america-113991">over-criminalization</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/03/15/mass-incarceration-of-african-americans-affects-the-racial-achievement-gap-report/?utm_term=.26d1cdc2d464">mass incarceration of African Americans</a>. The commission hasn’t been designed to address these issues or the broader context of racism and violence. So, it’s unclear how the commission will lead to widespread reconciliation.</p>
<p>In addition, while the families of those responsible for lynchings can work with the commission and take the opportunity to make amends to the victims’ families and communities, they may decline to do so. And victims’ families may not be prepared to forgive.</p>
<p>Finally, the commission has been created in a fraught social and political environment. Hate crimes have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/hate-crimes-fbi-2017.html">increased</a> in recent years throughout the U.S. Some elected officials have <a href="http://time.com/5461133/cindy-hyde-smith-public-hanging-lynching/">trivialized racial violence – including lynchings</a>. And some race-focused policies, such as reparations, are <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-americans-think-about-reparations-and-other-race-related-questions/">widely unpopular</a> among Americans. </p>
<p>So, while the commission benefits from broad support from government leaders in Maryland, it may not enjoy similar support from the public.</p>
<p>Whether the obstacles I describe will overcome the strengths of the commission remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the commission represents an important first step, and offers a guide for similar efforts in other states.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelebogile Zvobgo receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>The first truth commission to research lynchings has been established in Maryland. It has the potential to educate the public about and support racial reconciliation. But it also faces obstacles.Kelebogile Zvobgo, Provost's Fellow in the Social Sciences and Ph.D. Candidate, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1008662018-08-07T10:53:05Z2018-08-07T10:53:05ZIda B. Wells: How grassroots support and social media made a monumental difference in honoring her legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230680/original/file-20180806-41351-101cqdq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michelle Duster holding a portrait of her great-grandmother, Ida B. Wells</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Ida-B-Wells-Monument/4d4afbf1ca2f430baa35b6a67cc65b2a/1/0">AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I learned at an early age that my great-grandmother, Ida B. Wells, was a force to be reckoned with.</p>
<p>Born a slave in Mississippi, she became a <a href="http://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15138coll18/id/176">leading civil rights activist</a> when she sued the Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroad for discrimination in the mid-1880s.</p>
<p>At the end of the 19th century, as an investigative journalism pioneer, she uncovered and documented in meticulous detail the <a href="https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/">violence of lynching</a>. She also explained in hundreds of speeches how lynching served as a tool to terrorize the African-American community, rather than a form of punishment against alleged crimes against white women. In the early 20th century, she founded the <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3631430.html">Alpha Suffrage Club</a>, the first African-American women’s group that advocated for their right to vote.</p>
<p>Growing up in the Windy City, I met people who had never heard of Wells, only recognized her name from a housing project that bore her name; or confused her with someone they thought invented the <a href="https://madamenoire.com/165665/whats-better-for-your-hair-flat-iron-vs-hot-comb/">hot comb</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230650/original/file-20180803-41331-1t7y7mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ida B. Wells with her children, 1909.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.IBWELLS#idp84886768">Ida B. Wells Papers at the University of Chicago</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A family commitment</h2>
<p>Concerned that her legacy would fade from public memory, I decided to do what I could to make sure more people would remember the life and work of one of the most famous women during her time.</p>
<p>Since 2008 I have published two collections of her original writings – <a href="http://bwpublishing.com/index.php/ida-in-her-own-words.html">“Ida In Her Own Words”</a> and “<a href="http://bwpublishing.com/index.php/ida-from-abroad.html">Ida From Abroad</a>.” I give presentations, speeches and lectures about her work, and so does my brother, <a href="http://www.danduster.net">Dan Duster</a>.</p>
<p>Dan and I belong to a <a href="http://www.idabwellsmonument.org/">committee</a> that is creating an Ida B. Wells monument, and we have been involved with having a <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-rahm-emanual-ida-b-wells-street-20180725-story.html">street renamed</a> in her honor. In addition, we manage the <a href="http://www.ibwfoundation.org">Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation</a>, which our father, <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/usa/chicago-sun-times/20130411/282192238460193">Donald L. Duster</a>, and his four siblings founded in 1988.</p>
<p>Through all of this work, I’ve come to see many parallels between the grassroots support that my ancestor experienced during her lifetime and the posthumous movements to honor her.</p>
<h2>Grassroots demands</h2>
<p>Four decades after she died, the late 19th-century Romanesque Revival style stone residence that Ida B. Wells and her family lived in was designated a <a href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail?assetID=78f3bc18-5602-43ad-b9b4-d59525aee904">national historic landmark</a> in 1974 and a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chicago_Landmarks">Chicago Landmark</a> by the City Council in 1995.</p>
<p>But the general public and our family had no access to the site in the predominantly black Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side because of its private ownership. </p>
<p>Her former residence, with the discreet historic marker in front, was located across the street from a massive public housing community.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Public-Works-Administration">public works project</a>, it was the first of its kind in the city to incorporate a big park with playgrounds and athletic fields. Although the authorities considered other names, pressure from the local community to name the projects after my ancestor prevailed. <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/253.html">The Ida B. Wells Homes</a>, which opened in 1941, eventually included over 1,600 units.</p>
<p>Dozens of former residents have told me that when the homes first opened they were considered a <a href="https://www.blueprintforbronzeville.com/explore/">dream place to live</a> for African-American working-class families. For several decades the housing served as a beacon of hope and source of pride.</p>
<p>However, as a result of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/us/many-face-street-as-chicago-project-nears-end.html">many factors</a>, the area fell into disrepair and despair. As the <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-08-11/news/0808100304_1_mixed-income-public-housing-ida-b-wells">Chicago Housing Authority</a> demolished the buildings between 2002 and 2011 to make way for mixed-income housing, former residents of the Ida B. Wells Homes joined with other local leaders and activists to seek new ways to sustain Wells’ legacy in the community.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230661/original/file-20180805-41351-l2sfgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The future site of the Ida B. Wells monument is also where the Ida B. Wells housing project once stood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Duster</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Going viral</h2>
<p>Between 2011 and the end of 2017, the <a href="http://idabwellsmonument.org">monument committee</a> raised money in traditional ways like mailings and fundraising events, as well as waging a crowdfunding campaign. Despite widespread interest in and support for a monument, by early 2018 we had raised less than a third of the money required. </p>
<p>I decided to approach other organizations that were in alignment with the work my great-grandmother did about partnering with us. I also awakened my sleepy <a href="https://twitter.com/MichelleDuster/status/982976987273859074">Twitter account</a> and began to
make appeals for support from the public.</p>
<p>My tweets caught the attention of several people with large followings, including organizer <a href="http://mariamekaba.com/">Mariame Kaba</a> and award-winning journalist <a href="http://nikolehannahjones.com/">Nikole Hannah-Jones</a>. They retweeted my messages raising awareness about this project, and added #IdaPledge to urge people to get involved in making history. In addition, Kaba hosted a New York-based fundraiser that included Hannah-Jones as a panelist, and I made appeals to people at various events across the country.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1019222465774604289"}"></div></p>
<p>Donors from all over the nation and some from Canada and England supported the project, proving the international interest in my ancestor. A deluge of donations from over 1,100 people totaling more than US$40,000 coincided with her 156th birthday on July 16. Within six months, Kaba, Hannah-Jones and I had raised close to $200,000 – mostly through online donations that ranged between $10 and $100. </p>
<h2>Street renaming initiated by local groups</h2>
<p>At the same time, dozens of local organizations, led by the <a href="https://my.lwv.org/illinois/chicago/how-league-involved">League of Women Voters of Chicago</a>, pushed to have a major Chicago downtown street renamed after Ida B. Wells. There is already a <a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2005/Street-Creed/">Wells Street</a>, but it’s named for a soldier who was stationed in the area before it became a city.</p>
<p>Two local officials, Aldermen <a href="https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/about/wards/04.html">Sophia King</a> and <a href="https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/about/wards/42.html">Brendan Reilly</a>, led the initiative as grassroots organizations worked to increase public support. </p>
<p>The aldermen <a href="https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/5/23/17385630/balbo-drive-rename-ida-b-wells">originally proposed renaming Balbo</a> Drive, which honors a controversial Italian aviator and fascist leader. Their idea stirred opposition that diverted attention from the goal of honoring Ida B. Wells. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1024073143151931400"}"></div></p>
<p>King and Reilly agreed that the nearby bigger and busier Congress Parkway, which feeds into interstate highways, was a more fitting honor for the longtime Chicago resident who fought for justice and equality. And on July 25, 2018, the Chicago City Council voted to rename the major thoroughfare <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-rahm-emanual-ida-b-wells-street-20180725-story.html">Ida B. Wells Drive</a>, the first downtown street in the city’s history to be named after a woman or person of color. </p>
<p>During her lifetime, Ida B. Wells got most of her work done with grassroots support from the African-American community. In keeping with her legacy,
almost every public honor that Chicago has bestowed on her grew out of the interest, tenacity and work of ordinary citizens who pushed for her recognition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Duster is a leader of efforts to honor the legacy of Ida B. Wells, her great-grandmother.</span></em></p>My great-grandmother, an early civil rights champion, path-breaking journalist and suffrage leader, was among the most influential women of her time.Michelle Duster, Lecturer of Business Writing, Business and Entrepreneurship Department, Columbia College ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963442018-05-10T20:34:22Z2018-05-10T20:34:22ZHow Captain Cook became a contested national symbol<p>Captain Cook has loomed large in the federal government’s 2018 budget. The government allocated $48.7 million over four years to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Cook’s voyages to the South Pacific and Australia in 1770. The funding has been widely debated on social media as another fray in Australia’s culture wars, particularly in the context of $84 million in cuts to the ABC. </p>
<p>Closer scrutiny suggests that this latest celebration of Cook may serve as a headline for financial resources already committed to a range of cultural programs, at least some of which could be seen as business as usual. These include the development of digital heritage resources and exhibitions at the National Maritime Museum, National Library, AIATSIS and the National Museum of Australia, as well as support for training “Indigenous cultural heritage professionals in regional areas”.</p>
<p>However, the budget package also includes unspecified support for the “voyaging of the replica HMB Endeavour” and a $25 million contribution towards redevelopment of Kamay Botany Bay National Park, including a proposed new monument to the great man. </p>
<p>So while the entire $48.7 million won’t simply go towards a monument, it’s clear that celebrating the 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing at Botany Bay is a high priority for this federal government. </p>
<p>In 1770 Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook, on a scientific mission for the British Navy, anchored in a harbour he first called Stingray Bay. He later changed it to Botany Bay, commemorating the trove of specimens collected by the ship’s botanists, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. </p>
<p>Cook made contact with Aboriginal people, mapped the eastern coast of the continent, claimed it for the British Crown and named it New South Wales, allowing for the future dispossession of Australia’s First Nations. He would later return to the Pacific on two more voyages before his death in Hawaii in 1779.</p>
<p>Scholars agree that Cook had a major influence on the world during his lifetime. His actions, writings and voyages continue to resonate through modern colonial and postcolonial history.</p>
<p>Cook continues to be a potent national symbol. Partly this is due to the rich historical written and physical records we have of Cook’s journeys, which continue to reward further study and analysis. </p>
<p>But the other side to the hero story is the dispossession of Australia’s Indigenous peoples from their land. As a symbol of the nation, Cook is, and has always been, contested, political and emotional.</p>
<h2>Too many Cooks</h2>
<p>There are other European contenders for the title of “discoverer of the continent”, such as Dirk Hartog in 1616 and William Dampier in 1699. However, both inconveniently landed on the west coast. Although Englishman Dampier wrote a book about his discoveries, he never became a major figure like Cook. </p>
<p>Cook’s legend began immediately after his death, when he became one of the great humble <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Imagining_the_Pacific.html?id=aePdPAu_PTIC">heroes of the European Enlightenment</a>. <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/From_the_Ruins_of_Colonialism.html?id=zrE8AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Historian Chris Healy</a> has suggested that Cook was suited to the title of founder of Australia because his journey along the entire east coast made him more acceptable in other Australian states. Importantly, unlike that other great contender for founding father, the First Fleet’s Governor Arthur Phillip, Cook was not associated with the “stain of convictism”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218401/original/file-20180510-34024-1vu7txz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770, by Emanuel Phillips Fox, 1902.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emanuel_Phillips_Fox_Captain_Cook_Botany_Bay.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australians celebrated the bicentenary of Cook’s arrival in 1970, and the bicentenary of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1988. Throughout this period it was widely accepted that Cook was the single most important actor in the British possession of Australia, despite the fact that many other political figures played significant roles.</p>
<p>This perhaps partly explains why Cook has featured so prominently in Aboriginal narratives of dispossession, and why the celebrations in 1970 and 1988 triggered debate around Aboriginal land rights. </p>
<p>Other scholars have examined the Aboriginal perspective on Cook’s landing. In the 1970s archaeologist Vincent Megaw found British artefacts in a midden at Botany Bay. He cautiously suggested that these items might have been part of the gifts given by Cook to the Aboriginal people he encountered. </p>
<p><a href="http://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/62403/frontmatter/9780521762403_frontmatter.pdf">Historian Maria Nugent</a> has assessed the narratives recounted by Percy Mumbulla and <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/danayarri-hobbles-12397">Hobbles Danaiyarri</a>. Both were senior Aboriginal lawmen and knowledge holders who, in the 1970s and ’80s, shared their sagas of the coming of Cook to their lands with anthropologists.</p>
<h2>Too pale, stale and male?</h2>
<p>Controversy over the celebration of Cook as founding father is not a new thing. It dates back to the 19th century when his first statues were raised. </p>
<p>This latest Captain Cook fanfare comes hot on the heels of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/historian-captain-cook-statue-graffiti-indigenous-20180418-p4zade.html">broader global debates</a> about the contemporary values and meaning of civic statues of (“pale, stale, male”) heroes associated with colonialism and slavery. </p>
<p>In Australia, there has also been debate about how the events of the first world war have been commemorated so expansively by Australia. A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2018/apr/09/a-500m-expansion-of-the-war-memorial-is-a-reckless-waste-of-money">further $500 million was recently allocated for the extension of the Australian War Memorial</a>, at a time when other cultural institutions in Canberra are being forced to shed jobs and tighten their belts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218400/original/file-20180510-185500-1anfe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The view from Captain Cook’s landing in Botany Bay, Kamay National Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Captain_Cooks_Landing_Place_Park_-_panoramio_(3).jpg">Wikimedia/Maksym Kozlenko</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The funding cycle for our contemporary cultural institutions and activities in Australia has been closely linked to anniversaries and their commemoration since at least the 1970 bicentenary. The 2018 budget lists support for programs at a number of cultural institutions and for training Indigenous cultural heritage professionals. It would be interesting to know whether these funds have been diverted away from existing operational budgets and core activities in these institutions to support the Cook celebrations. </p>
<p>The master plan for <a href="http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/research-and-publications/publications-search/kamay-botany-bay-national-park-kurnell-draft-master-plan">Kamay Botany Bay National Park</a> has also been in development for some time. While centred on the historical event of Cook’s landing, the plan itself is more about the rehabilitation and activation of this somewhat neglected landscape. Plans have been drawn up in consultation with the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council. </p>
<p>Should we be devoting scarce financial resources to yet another celebration of Cook? Focal events such as these can divert funds into cultural activities and may allow researchers and creative practitioners to unearth new evidence and develop fresh interpretations. Some of these funds may also go to support initiatives driven by First Nations communities. </p>
<p>There is no escaping the fact that Captain Cook is a polarising national symbol, representing possession and dispossession. Another anniversary of Cook’s landing may give us much to reflect upon, but it also the highlights the need for investment in new symbols that grapple with colonial legacies and shared futures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tracy Ireland receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The federal government will spend nearly $50 million over four years to commemorate Captain Cook’s first landing. But some have questioned the spend.Tracy Ireland, Associate Professor Cultural Heritage, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/870042017-11-09T19:20:52Z2017-11-09T19:20:52ZWhy children need to be taught to think critically about Remembrance Day<p>A few years ago, my then four-year-old daughter came home from preschool wanting to know who the soldiers were and why they died.</p>
<p>As a history teacher for nearly two decades, I thought I had it covered. This was my moment to shine as a parent and educator. Unfortunately, I had grossly overestimated my capabilities. I found myself stumbling over explanations and unable to find the words. Anyone who has tried knows it’s nearly impossible to describe to a four-year-old the machinations of war in a non-terrifying way. How would I unpack the complex cultural participation in commemorations? I resorted to telling her: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ll explain it when you’re older. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I know, I know, shame on me. </p>
<p>But it got me thinking about how we position our students to engage meaningfully with wartime narratives and commemorations. I think we’re missing valuable opportunities to teach students how to critically evaluate memorialisation as a historical artefact. This deserves our attention because artefacts embody the ideological value systems of the community that create it and the society that, 100 years later, continues to use and observe it. In critiquing Remembrance Day, students will likely learn a great deal about the social and political customs of their own community. </p>
<h2>How do schools now participate in commemoration?</h2>
<p>What happens now is fairly straightforward. Schools will consult a website such as the <a href="http://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/">Australian Government Department of Veterans’ Affairs</a> to find a <a href="http://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/conduct-event">runsheet</a>. Students will be organised to speak, taking heed of the advice for the commemorative address to “<a href="http://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/conduct-event">highlight the service and sacrifice of men and women in all conflicts</a>”. A wreath may be purchased, a minute’s silence will be observed, and a recording of <a href="https://www.army.gov.au/our-history/traditions/the-last-post">The Last Post</a> and <a href="https://www.army.gov.au/our-history/traditions/the-rouse-and-the-reveille">The Rouse and the Reveille</a> will be played. </p>
<p>The concern is that uncritical engagement in the social act of commemoration is creating generations of historical tourists. These “tourists” are not enabled to understand that memorials and commemorative services are interpretations of the past, or that such services are a representation of how present-day society believes it should interact with that past. They simply pass through without understanding the full context. Asking pupils to organise and participate in a commemorative event, or providing red paper to make poppies, will not help students develop capacity to recognise that memorial sites and the framing of historical narratives are responses to the context of the time they were created. </p>
<h2>Why is this important?</h2>
<p>Memorials and commemorative services use rhetoric that speaks to national identities. Political leaders are adept at using these monuments, ceremonies and rhetoric to respond to current social anxieties in a way that often creates further divisions.</p>
<p>As historical tourists attending commemorative services, students (and the adults they grow into) are at risk of accepting without question nationalistic and political agendas that may not be in their best interests. I want my students and pre-service teachers to recognise the political, social, and economic factors that influence how a society conducts and participates in memorialisation of the past. Recognising and understanding this influence leads to active and proactive citizenship.</p>
<h2>Preparing our students</h2>
<p>How can teachers best prepare primary and secondary school students to think critically about memorialisation? Here is some sound advice from around the globe.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11125-010-9140-z">Monique Eckmann</a> from the <a href="https://www.hes-so.ch/en/homepage-hes-so-1679.html">University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland</a> says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the history of memory has to be studied; it is important to understand the context and the history of the decision to create a memorial or a commemoration day. Which advocacy groups took the initiative to propose a memorial place or a commemorative date, when, and for whom? What groups were involved in memorialisation politics? What victims are named, who is mentioned in the official memory, and who is not included in it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/TSSS.98.3.105-110">Alan S. Marcus</a>, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at the <a href="https://education.uconn.edu/">Neag School of Education</a> at the University of Connecticut suggests: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>providing students with or asking them to research the public and private purposes and missions of the memorial, and asking students to discuss how they may influence what is displayed,</p></li>
<li><p>asking students to interview other visitors at the memorial to learn about their experiences and how those visitors understand the monument and the commemorative services conducted there.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/43259416">Barnaby Nemko</a>, Head of History at <a href="http://www.sthelens.london/">St Helen’s School</a> in Northwood, London, set his students the task of producing their own photographic memorial of the first world war, which would serve as a record for future generations. The aim was for pupils to construct their own First World War photo memorial based on what they experienced on their day trip to the site of <a href="http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/battles-ypres-salient.htm">Ypres</a>. Subsequently, the pupils would have to justify their choice of “exhibits”. </p>
<p>As a history teacher, I see great value in all these strategies. So I was surprised by the results of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/43259416">Nemko’s</a> study. The work his students produced displayed a complete lack of understanding that the photographic memorial they created was indeed an interpretation of the past. He found that the historical monuments elicited such a strong emotional reaction from the students that it impaired their analytical skills, which were otherwise well developed in relation to other kinds of historical accounts.</p>
<h2>What about the place of commemoration in pre-school?</h2>
<p>My second child attends a different preschool. Fortunately, there are no commemorative activities offered at this centre. I am more than a little relieved. I avoid stumbling again through the murky waters of attempting to explain war and remembrance to a child under the age of five. More importantly, I just don’t think she’s ready to engage in the horrors of war and the complexities of how societies construct narratives to memorialise such events.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Teaching students to recognise and understanding the political, social, and economic factors that influence how we celebrate Remembrance Day would make them more active citizens.Kim Wilson, Lecturer in History Education, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/846562017-10-09T20:55:13Z2017-10-09T20:55:13ZInto the fascist forest – a real Italian controversy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189446/original/file-20171009-6967-qubcs6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A fire recently tore through an Italian memorial to Mussolini made of trees.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can a forest be fascist? This may seem a facetious question, but it is one that Italians have been discussing of late due to a fire that occurred at the end of August.</p>
<p>The fire, <a href="http://www.ilmessaggero.it/primopiano/cronaca/una_passata_di_pomodoro_per_cancellare_l_enorme_scritta_dux_sul_monte_giano_visibile_anche_da_roma-3201994.html">allegedly started accidently</a> by someone cooking tomato sauce, burned down part of a historic and controversial forest on the slopes of Mount Giano, about 100km north-east of Rome. The 20,000 fir trees here, spread over eight hectares, were planted between 1938 and 1939 by recruits studying at the academy of the forestry corps in the small town of Cittaducale. They were a homage to Mussolini: planted in such a way so that from afar, they read DUX, the fascist leader’s title in Latin. <a href="http://www.leggo.it/italia/cronache/incendio_monte_giano_casa_pound_ripristineremo_la_scritta_dux-3201932.html">And some want to replant it</a>. </p>
<p>This story brings effectively together two major recent issues of debate: forest fires and the removal of inappropriate, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/23/post-charlottesville-confederate-monuments-begin-fall-across-united-states/595393001/">“disturbing” monuments</a>. In this instance a politically incorrect monument has been (partially) destroyed by one of the many forest fires that, every year, hit central and southern Italy. This past summer was particularly dramatic, with more than <a href="https://www.legambiente.it/contenuti/comunicati/emergenza-incendi-2017-il-dossier-di-legambiente-con-numeri-dati-e-analisi-sui-">70,000 hectares</a> of Italian forest destroyed by fires.</p>
<p>However, this forest is not just any forest, but a prime example of the <a href="http://www.whpress.co.uk/EH/EH1910.html">fascist appropriation of landscapes</a> to mark a regime’s domination on both the country and its nature. The fact that this forest survived decades of neglect and a first attempt at getting rid of it in the 1950s has allowed it to become a powerful symbol for neo-fascist groups, who gather publicity by <a href="http://www.adnkronos.com/fatti/cronaca/2017/08/25/brucia-monte-giano-fumo-scritta-dux_NX9MwOOb3AJO5pqa8VjMTJ.html">defending its historic value</a>.</p>
<p>So should we see the forest first and foremost as a forest, a natural landscape that perhaps should be restored, or as a disturbing memory of Mussolini? Ought we to recreate the forest, as a preservation of the memory of the country’s history? Or should we leave it to its destiny and forget about it?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188030/original/file-20170928-2939-ywxy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188030/original/file-20170928-2939-ywxy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188030/original/file-20170928-2939-ywxy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188030/original/file-20170928-2939-ywxy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188030/original/file-20170928-2939-ywxy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188030/original/file-20170928-2939-ywxy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188030/original/file-20170928-2939-ywxy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woody homage to Mussolini – the fascist leader’s title in Latin is DUX.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monte_Giano_-_bosco_DUX_da_Calcariola_01.png">Marco Miluzzi / YouTube: Rieti e provincia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Woody DUX</h2>
<p>In 1998, the centre-left regional government allocated 260m liras (about €130,000) for the restoration of the forest. Although the aim was to promote the forest while writing over the text with the growth of new plants, it still ignited a heated debate, <a href="http://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/DF/17878.pdf">which even reached the national parliament</a>, but ultimately ended without further consequences. </p>
<p>Then in 2004, the new regional government, led then by a far right politician, who had never hidden his sympathy for fascist ideology, <a href="http://www1.adnkronos.com/Archivio/AdnAgenzia/2004/01/30/Cronaca/LAZIO-VERRA-RESTAURATA-LA-SCRITTA-DUX-DEL-BOSCO-ANTRODOCO_212100.php">started to restore the writing</a>. For him this woody DUX seems to be quite an obsession; after the recent fire, <a href="http://roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2017/08/27/news/rogo_monte_giano_storace_la_scritta_dux_tornera_pronta_sottoscrizione_-173984055/">he proposed a public collection of funds</a> and the mobilisation of citizens in order to restore the forest. The region is now ruled again by a centre-left coalition, less committed to the conservation of this fossil of fascist forestry.</p>
<p>This controversy feeds into a broader discussion in Italy over <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2017/09/12/emanuele-fiano-pd-giusto-rimuovere-la-scritta-mussolini-dux-dallobelisco-del-foro-italico_a_23205521/">the conservation of fascist monuments</a> and the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/italy-lays-down-the-law-no-more-mussolini-wine-no-more-hitler-cakes">public display of nazi-fascist symbols</a>. This debate, which has been growing in Italy in the last few years, parallels the US debate on the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/23/united-states-convulsed-debate-confederate-monuments/">removal of Confederate monuments</a>.</p>
<p>But there is something unique about the DUX forest. This is not a monument made of concrete and bricks, but memory inscribed into the landscape. The fire provides an opportunity to reflect on the <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/259345#.WdUQWC_TTdQ">natural and cultural legacies that are embodied in landscape</a>, whether a vast burial field remembering the fallen of the war or even a national park set up in a border region to mark the state’s control over the area. Ghosts of the past are everywhere, not just in the more obvious human-made memorials. The stories with which they haunt the world are the lens through which we interpret the landscape.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189355/original/file-20171009-6956-1n2bcit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189355/original/file-20171009-6956-1n2bcit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189355/original/file-20171009-6956-1n2bcit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189355/original/file-20171009-6956-1n2bcit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189355/original/file-20171009-6956-1n2bcit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189355/original/file-20171009-6956-1n2bcit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189355/original/file-20171009-6956-1n2bcit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teufelsberg, Berlin: a man-made hill made from the rubble of World War II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Gold/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A burning issue</h2>
<p>Recreating past symbols as they are is not just conservation, but rather an action with much symbolic and political value. So we are not sure whether there is any defensible reason to replant a hideous symbol of fascist rule, especially considering that foresters themselves are starting to reconsider whether reforestation is <a href="https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/08/18/a-year-after-rim-fire-debate-sparks-over-replanting-trees/">the right answer to fires</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857414002699">Recent studies</a> in forest ecology support the idea that replanting is not the best way to have an area recover from forest fires if the aim is to improve species variety: leaving the area to natural regrowth processes seems a better route to a sustainable and resilient forest. Plantations (such as the original DUX forest) are prone to burn again due to lower biodiversity. The variety of available plants, in particular the presence of more broadleaves, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4705065/">in fact would reduce the overall flammability</a>. Additionally, the area selected by fascist foresters for the DUX script was a calcareous, barren landscape, which may not be suited to supporting woodland in the long term anyway.</p>
<p>Given all this, one wonders why the Italian public should fund the maintenance of the forest – especially in its fascist shape. Instead, the fire should be seen as an opportunity to explore other ways of critically preserving contested memories without being forced to maintain or even recreate odious monuments. An example of how something like this could be achieved by using augmented reality and social media is provided by the <a href="http://www.antspiderbee.net/2015/07/21/creating-a-digital-wonderland-environmental-and-cultural-history-in-the-digital-age/">Digital Wonderland</a> prototype app developed, in a completely different historical and social setting, for Yellowstone National Park. The idea would be to be able to superimpose, on the screen of your smartphone, historical elements and related contextual explanations on the landscape.</p>
<p>Nature is made up of memories as much as of rocks, trees, and soil. We need to imagine a critical preservation of controversial memories, such as those haunting Mount Giano, one which does not reproduce oppression and hierarchies but frees the hidden stories of resistance and liberation. </p>
<p>Because of course, it was not tomato sauce that caused Mussolini’s own disappearance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84656/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A forest that is also a disturbing memorial to Mussolini recently burned down.Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, Senior Research Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceMarco Armiero, Director, Environmental Humanities Laboratory, KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/831162017-08-28T23:00:19Z2017-08-28T23:00:19ZInstead of renaming buildings, why not truly improve Indigenous lives?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183623/original/file-20170828-1604-14xj4aq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The federal government is renaming the Langevin Block building on Parliament Hill out of respect for Indigenous peoples.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I grew up on Maitland Street in London, Ont., named for Peregrine Maitland, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada in the 1820s – a resolutely conservative leader who opposed democratic reform.</p>
<p>My grandmother had a house on Simcoe Street, named after the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, who created the clergy reserves, substantial tracts of land assigned exclusively to the Church of England. </p>
<p>These and other officials owed their allegiance and positions to the British Crown, which <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/slavery-abolition-act-1833/">did not abolish the slave trade in British North America</a> until 1834. </p>
<p>An argument could be made that all streets, institutions or monuments recognizing such officials should be renamed because whatever else they contributed to the development of Canada, they were proponents of elitism, imperialism, racism, militarism and sexism. </p>
<p>Even social justice icons such as <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/wayne-k-spear-how-j-s-woodsworth-opposed-the-war-and-saved-capitalism">J.S. Woodsworth</a>, the first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) – predecessor of the New Democratic Party – wouldn’t escape such critical scrutiny. He was the author of <em>Strangers Within Our Gates</em>, a 1909 book that demeaned immigrants as well as “the Negro and the Indian.” </p>
<h2>Intensely political</h2>
<p>Make no mistake: The naming of buildings and memorials is an intensely political process, and there is nothing especially sacred about it. </p>
<p>Such decisions arise from successful lobbying by supporters, or in the case of removing names from buildings and memorials, successful lobbying by opponents of historical individuals, most of whom reflected the times in which they lived. </p>
<p>As a longtime historian and author of <em>The Promise of Schooling: Education in Canada, 1800-1914</em>, I contend that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/politics/trudeau-renames-langevin-block/">renaming of the Langevin Block</a> in Ottawa earlier this year has unwittingly unleashed a political movement that will be difficult to rein in. </p>
<p><a href="http://activehistory.ca/2017/06/langevin/">Historians have already noted</a> that Hector-Louis Langevin was not personally responsible for creating residential schools. So Trudeau has essentially invited a campaign against the person who was in fact responsible: Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183624/original/file-20170828-1557-1lhzog4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183624/original/file-20170828-1557-1lhzog4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183624/original/file-20170828-1557-1lhzog4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183624/original/file-20170828-1557-1lhzog4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183624/original/file-20170828-1557-1lhzog4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183624/original/file-20170828-1557-1lhzog4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183624/original/file-20170828-1557-1lhzog4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir John A. Macdonald is shown in an undated photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/National Archives of Canada</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>And the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario has taken up this invitation. <a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-elementary-teachers-union-calls-for-renaming-john-a-macdonald-schools">They want all John A. Macdonald schools</a> in the province to be renamed. </p>
<p>That’s a genie that’s going to be difficult to return to its bottle for the prime minister.</p>
<p>On the one hand, the political motivation behind the campaign is admirable and useful. It heightens awareness and sustains public discussion about Canada’s abominable historical treatment of Indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it generates enormous practical and moral problems.</p>
<h2>Thousands of renamings?</h2>
<p>Given the prejudices and questionable actions of historical figures who have been memorialized, literally thousands of renaming exercises will be required, a divisive process that could consume the energies and resources of communities everywhere. </p>
<p>And unless we choose to avoid names altogether and simply number our schools and streets, there is no guarantee, as we have seen, that the reputations of those we do honour will endure untarnished. </p>
<p>More important than any of this is the fact that name-changing alone improves no one’s life in Canada on any significant scale. It’s a symbolic gesture that inspires headlines and rhetoric but ignores the real issues.</p>
<p>In that spirit, let’s pour our time and money into <a href="https://www.ecojustice.ca/drinking-water-crisis-first-nations-communities-violates-human-rights/">supplying drinkable water</a> to those living on First Nations land and <a href="http://homelesshub.ca/resource/engaging-urban-aboriginal-population-low-cost-housing-initiatives-lessons-winnipeg">decent, affordable housing</a> to those in cities. </p>
<p>Let’s seriously address Indigenous poverty and unemployment, and improve First Nations’ <a href="http://leaderpost.com/opinion/columnists/canada-150-and-indigenous-post-secondary-education">access to post-secondary education.</a> </p>
<p>Schools and universities should also deepen their students’ knowledge of Indigenous societies, beyond the superficial and symbolic. </p>
<p>Let’s confront inequity in all of our institutions and invest less time in the dubious and exhausting process of renaming them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Axelrod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Langevin Block on Parliament Hill is being renamed out of respect for Indigenous people. But instead of renaming buildings, let’s offer meaningful change to the Indigenous.Paul Axelrod, Professor Emeritus, Education and History, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/829802017-08-27T20:07:48Z2017-08-27T20:07:48ZMonumental errors: how Australia can fix its racist colonial statues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183394/original/file-20170825-28115-1nebnya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aboriginal dancers from Pinjarra perform at the unveiling of the counter-memorial in Esplanade Park, Fremantle, April 9 1994. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Bruce Scates</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>War memorials are a feature of the Australian landscape. Obelisk and arch, broken pillar and stone statue remind us of the crippling loss a young nation faced in campaigns overseas. But where are the monuments to conflicts fought in our own country – a brutal war of dispossession that left deep and enduring scars on countless communities? </p>
<p>As the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-public-monuments-its-time-australians-looked-at-what-and-whom-we-commemorate-82751">debate over Australian statues</a> demonstrates, sanitised symbols of violence and dispossession have long stood unchallenged in the heart of our towns and cities. By occupying civic space they serve to legitimise narratives of conquest and dispossession, arguably colonising minds in the same ways white “settlers” seized vast tracts of territory.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-public-monuments-its-time-australians-looked-at-what-and-whom-we-commemorate-82751">The politics of public monuments: it's time Australians looked at what, and whom, we commemorate</a>
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<p>Stan Grant has called for a Sydney statue of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-18/america-tears-down-its-racist-history-we-ignore-ours-stan-grant/8821662">James Cook</a> that claims Cook “discovered” Australia to be corrected. Others have called for the renaming of buildings and public spaces named after <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/clover-moore-refers-concerns-about-macquarie-statue--to-indigenous-panel-20170822-gy1jn4.html">Lachlan Macquarie</a> and people associated with <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-24/townsville-statue-whitewash-slave-history-islanders-say/8838984">Queensland’s slaving</a> (known as “blackbirding”) history. </p>
<p>In response, Prime Minister <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/25/changing-colonial-statues-is-stalinist-says-malcolm-turnbull">Malcolm Turnbull</a>, along with other politicians and commentator <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-bolt-blanking-history-a-sign-of-true-totalitarian/news-story/d1ba156061612b581b6aaae100a91b53">Andrew Bolt</a>, have labelled these calls to alter monuments “Stalinist”. </p>
<p>In debating the place “explorers” or “blackbirders” might occupy in civic space, Australians face a choice in how we engage with a past that is painful, multivocal and complex. White Australians raised such memorials as tributes to their colonial pasts; other than as subjects, there was no place for Indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>Should politicians, bureaucrats or the apologists for our country’s racist past decide the fate of these memorials today? Or can this debate empower previously displaced voices? These monuments have maligned and marginalised first nations’ peoples from the first day they were erected. And they stand, after all, on land whose sovereignty was never surrendered.</p>
<p>Indigenous communities have confronted such challenges before. And they have acted with courage, wisdom and generosity. In Fremantle, Western Australia, a monument that celebrated the racism that mars Australia’s past has today become a symbol of dialogue and reconciliation. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WrtUmyT4hxM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Susan Carland and Bruce Scates discuss Australia’s frontier conflict.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Revising the past</h2>
<p>The Explorers’ Monument in Fremantle was unveiled in 1913 to commemorate three white explorers – Frederick Panter, James Harding and William Goldwyer – who were killed in the far northwest in 1864. For generations it stood unquestioned in the centre of the Esplanade Reserve in Fremantle, enshrining a pioneer myth writ deep in Australian history. </p>
<p>A series of plaques circling the monument claimed that the explorers were attacked at night and “killed in their sleep” by “treacherous natives”. The land where they died is portrayed as hostile and alien: a “terra incognita”. Aboriginal people are described as savages, the whites as “intrepid pioneers”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183415/original/file-20170825-28115-1du1qp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The orignal plaque on the Explorers’ Monument.</span>
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<p>Other features of the monument are stridently belligerent. An imposing bust pays tribute to Maitland Brown, “leader of the government search and punitive expedition” who carried the explorers’ remains back with him to Fremantle. Brown’s expedition ended in the massacre of around 20 Aboriginal people; mounted and well armed, none of his party were killed or wounded.</p>
<p>In 1994, the United Nations Year of Indigenous Peoples, a counter-memorial was set in the monument’s base. Elders from Bidyadanga (formally La Grange) unveiled a new plaque outlining the history of provocation that led to the explorers’ deaths. It was a striking instance of what scholars call “dialogical memorialisation”, where one view of the past takes issue with another and history is seen, not as some final statement, but a contingent and contested narrative. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183411/original/file-20170825-18734-8f5h3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The plaque added to the Explorers’ Monument in 1994.</span>
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<p>Equally importantly, the plaque acknowledges the right of Indigenous people to defend their traditional lands and solemnly commemorates “all those Aboriginal people who died during the invasion of their country”. The dedication service ended as Aboriginal people scattered dust from the site of the massacre and two white children laid wreaths of flowers decked in Aboriginal colours.</p>
<p>The Explorers’ Monument carried the same inscription chiselled on war memorials the length and breadth of our country. “Lest we forget” was the chilling phrase chosen to commemorate Panter, Harding and Goldwyer in 1913, and those words back then were an incitement to racial hatred. </p>
<p>Over 80 years later, the people of Bidyadanga and the Baldja network in Fremantle added “lest we forget” to their counter-inscription. This invites us to widen the ambit of remembrance and recognise the common tragedies that attended the so-called settlement of Australia. </p>
<h2>Authorised and unauthorised history</h2>
<p>In the United States, symbols of the nation’s racist past have been the flash points of violent confrontations, such as in <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-charlottesville-to-nazi-germany-sometimes-monuments-have-to-fall-82643">Charlottesville</a>. Protesters demand the removal of statues that celebrate slave owners and white supremacists. Right-wing militia groups rally to their defence. </p>
<p>Similar debates have emerged elsewhere. Should great centres of learning like Oxford pay tribute to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-students-toppled-rhodes-but-they-cant-get-rid-of-zuma-53996">Cecil Rhodes</a>, a man who pioneered the policies of apartheid? </p>
<p>Can a democracy enshrine the advocates of racial, sexual or religious discrimination, or peaceful communities honour those who carpet-bombed Europe? In each case, statues and memorials stand at the heart of these controversies. Once the meanings of monuments were thought to be set in stone; now they crumble in the relentless critique of history.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fair-game-the-audacity-of-heritier-lumumba-82898">Fair Game? The audacity of Héritier Lumumba</a>
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<p>Would those opposing the altering of Australia’s colonial statues have also opposed the demolition of the Berlin Wall, or the toppling of statues of Saddam Hassein? In monuments, as in written histories, some narratives are authorised, others denied or disputed. </p>
<p>And such critique raises deeper questions, interrogating the very nature of history as a scholarly discipline. Does history cease to exist when a memorial is removed from public view and civic sanction – or is that act of removal, a forceful repudiation of the past, itself an act of choice and agency in history?</p>
<p>Ray Minniecon was an Aboriginal student at Murdoch University who led the liaison with Indigenous communities. “Monuments,” he said on the day Fremantle’s counter-memorial was unveiled, “are not just a window into our past; they are a window into ourselves.” We can choose. We may cling to the racism and hatreds of the past or make our own commitment to what the <a href="https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/sites/default/files/2017-05/Uluru_Statement_From_The_Heart_0.PDF">constitutional convention at Uluru</a> aptly dubbed “truth telling”. </p>
<p>Perhaps, at this critical juncture in our history, Fremantle suggests the way forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Charles Scates does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Fremantle monument to three white explorers was revised in 1994 to acknowledge the violence committed against Indigenous owners. As Australia struggles to reconcile its racist past, perhaps this monument shows a way forward.Bruce Charles Scates, Professor of History, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/827512017-08-23T19:32:08Z2017-08-23T19:32:08ZThe politics of public monuments: it’s time Australians looked at what, and whom, we commemorate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182712/original/file-20170821-17162-1u9y4qv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C220%2C2458%2C1376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia's first memorial to Indigenous service people.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Freya Higgins-Desbiolles</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/17/trump-neo-nazis-antifa-moral-equivalence-tweets-charlottesville">events in the US</a> have seen Confederate Civil War monuments pulled down and painful histories revisited. Comparing these acts to those of the Islamic State terror group, Spiked editor Brendan O'Neill <a href="https://medium.com/@burntoakboy/the-orwellian-war-on-history-b0b67e91f8ff">evocatively called this</a> an “Orwellian war on history” and a “Year Zero mentality” on the march.</p>
<p>O'Neill also took aim at Australia’s Yarra Council for its <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yarra-council-drops-australia-day-ceremonies-despite-warning-from-turnbull-government-20170815-gxx18y.html">recent decision</a> to no longer celebrate Australia Day on January 26. This a result of ongoing calls from Indigenous groups to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/indigenous-rapper-briggs-says-malcolm-turnbull-should-stop-being-a-coward-over-australia-day-20170817-gxyfzw.html">change the date</a> of the national day. This is because it marks the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet at Botany Bay and is thus, in their view, “invasion day”. </p>
<p>O'Neill is wrong. It is not a matter of erasing history but a question of <em>whose</em> history is told. In Australia, it has been called the “the Great Australian silence”, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/weh-stanner-and-the-great-australian-silence/3143396">following W.E.H. Stanner</a>, as we stubbornly refuse to tackle these issues.</p>
<p>Yet as events in the US demonstrate, there is significance in what is deemed worthy to cast in bronze and erect in public spaces. It matters what events are commemorated and celebrated. It may mark power and domination or it may mark diversity and inclusion. </p>
<p>The events in the US have made some look at Australia as a similar settler-colonial state, and ask which of our monuments might come down. From <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/19/are-australias-proud-memorials-to-racism-under-threat-from-leftwing-fascists">First Dog on the Moon</a> to the ABC’s Indigenous affairs editor and Wiradjuri man <a href="http://johnmenadue.com/stan-grant-america-tears-down-its-racist-history-we-ignore-ours/">Stan Grant</a>, Australians are asking themselves questions. This follows ongoing debates about Australia Day and whether the date should be moved.</p>
<p>The concept of <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/IJCTHR-05-2012-0038">“dissonant heritage”</a> describes this situation well. Academic Harvey Lemelin and his colleagues argue this refers to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the perpetuation of grand colonial narratives in Australia, North America and elsewhere which have resulted in the general omission of Indigenous [and other marginalised peoples’] narratives from discourse about, and interpretation and development at, many sites</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These include monuments, memorials and other forms of public commemoration. <a href="https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/18536">Sabine Marshall claims</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Commemoration manifests itself, among other ways, in the (re)naming of streets, cities, and public buildings; the construction of new museums, documentation and interpretation centres; the reenactment of battles and historical events; the identification and official marking of new heritage sites; and the installation of memorials, monuments and public statuary.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Monuments are as much about forgetting as they are remembering, and they can certainly communicate power and dominance. </p>
<p>This recent discussion concerns memorials that glorify men or events that brought direct harm to others, in the case of Australia through invasion and dispossession.</p>
<p>But there are several manifestations of this issue in public space. For example, there are recent memorials to events telling the experience of invasion from Indigenous points of view. There is incorporation of Indigenous contributions to national attainments such as military service. But there are also memorials and acknowledgements yet to be accomplished as well.</p>
<p>Australia is awash in memorials glorifying settlers and colonists, some of whom did quite heinous acts. One example is the statue of John Batman erected on Collins Street in Melbourne. Batman was an explorer and settler who participated in the “Black Line” violent removal of Tasmanian Aboriginal people in the 1830s. </p>
<p>Tasmanian colonial governor George Arthur observed that Batman “had much slaughter to account for”. But Batman is not alone in being celebrated despite a dubious history; this applies to place names as well as monuments. </p>
<p>In recent decades, Indigenous advocacy has brought about increasing recognition of and commemoration at massacre sites. An illustrative example is the <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/IJCTHR-05-2012-0038">case of Myall Creek</a>, New South Wales. In 1998, Sue Blacklock, a descendant of a massacre survivor, collaboratively formed a Memorial Committee to see the Myall Creek massacre commemorated. In 2000, the Myall Creek Massacre Memorial was opened and attended by descendants of the victims, survivors and perpetrators of the massacre. </p>
<p>Since that time, annual remembrance and healing ceremonies have been held. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/video/video-news/video-national-news/map-shows-aboriginal-massacre-sites-20170705-4vss3.html">Recent research</a> adds to the body of evidence on massacre sites making ongoing silence impossible to maintain.</p>
<p>The first monument acknowledging <a href="http://www.adelaidecityexplorer.com.au/items/show/93">Indigenous diggers</a> who served in Australia’s wars was opened in 2013 in Adelaide. It was the result of community fundraising and activism to ensure that Anzac commemorations no longer overlooked the service that Indigenous people have given in Australia’s wars, despite not having full citizenship rights in many cases.</p>
<p>Australia does not yet appear ready to extend this recognition of military valour to the wars of resistance to invasion and the “frontier wars” that followed. As Grant noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… there is still no place on our War Memorial wall of remembrance for those Aboriginal people who died on our soil fighting to defend their country.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The continuing refusal of many non-Indigenous Australians to empathise with this perspective may be a gauge of how far we are from reconciling our past. </p>
<p>I am reminded of a short film based on the Archie Weller short story <a href="https://www.kanopystreaming.com/product/confessions-headhunter">Confessions of a Headhunter</a>. This work communicates the dissonant heritages of Australia in a 30-minute film. </p>
<p>Two Noongar men are angry at the repeated beheading of a statue embodying resistance warrior Yagan along the Swan River near Perth. They cut a swathe from Perth to Botany Bay, taking the bronze heads of statues honouring murderous settlers encountered along the way. At Botany Bay, they melt these down and recast the metal into a statue of an Aboriginal mother and her children looking to sea evoking hope and resilience. </p>
<p>This is a metaphor for our moment. It remains to be seen if we reconcile our past across dissonant heritages to derive a shared present and build a future together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Freya Higgins-Desbiolles has received funding from a number of organisations for research on Indigenous tourism, including the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre. </span></em></p>Many of our public commemorations honour people and incidents that brought great harm to others. We need to look at what that says about us, and how we build more inclusive public memorials.Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, Senior Lecturer in Tourism, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.