INGRID DOULTON | OPINION | CONTACT
Conservative commentators and the seven or so thousand people that watch their late night programs on Sky News, are fuming today – as the American debate about glorifying unsavoury historical figures in bronze and stone statues makes it’s way to Australian soil.
It started with Stan Grant’s comments that Captain Cook did not discover Australia, which was closely followed by a spray painted alteration to Sydney’s Hyde park monument, that suggested he was the first human to step foot in modern day New South Wales.
As Andrew Bolt, a well-known right-wing blogger, pointed out in one of his blogs – that was re-churned into several NewsCorp articles – these lefties didn’t seem to care about genocide until they were educated on it by an Indigenous scholar. Typical, but we don’t expect a reasonable debate from these people.
“Suddenly, the activists decided they were so offended as well that they defaced the statue, demanding the date of Australia Day be shifted from January 26 to spare Aborigines the painful reminder that the First Fleet arrived on that day in 1788.” wrote Bolt.
Well, guess what. They aren’t finished. These lefties have a few more statues that they want to get rid of – and they won’t stop until they wipe our 200-year-old history clean.
Others have suggested that all tributes to Governer Macquarie should be altered to point out that while he was instrumental in Australian colonialism, he also used to like throwing Aboriginal families off cliffs.
But, the last straw was thrown on by some vocal soap-dodging inner-city-Sydney-based anti-serial killer activists, who have called for the twenty-year-old statue of iconic Australian folk legend, Ivan Milat, to be torn down from the centre of the Belanglo State Forest, where he hunted and killed seven backpackers between 1989-1993.
“We understand that Milat made Belanglo State Forest what it is today, but we really should not be glorifying the fact that he murdered people for sport” said one spokesperson Sally Winfield.
“It’s just a bit insensitive to the families of the murdered backpackers. I know you’ve never met any of them, but you should know that these statues offend them”
Andrew Bolt was quick to question their motives.
“What is it that these people actually want?” he asks.
“Do they want a world where the only people we commemorate are scientists and scholars? Or should we recognise people that actually got things done, which unfortunately in some circumstances, required rolled up sleeves and dirty hands.”
“And the senseless, sadistic murder of innocent people”
“It’s a disgrace to try and throw a blanket over Australia’s proud history by not glorifying these kinds of people”
Now we see what today’s totalitarians look like, this is what Stalin tried to do. If the statue of Ivan Milat is altered in anyway shape or form, then we are having something we can’t really identify taken from us.
