Image: The reconstructed monument of Paraguayan dictator, Alfredo Stroessner
Well, I certainly didn’t predict when starting this newsletter that I’d be writing so much on current events, but it has been a good exercise in consuming news and seeing how well I can communicate what I’ve understood.
I have only watched the ABC news on TV once in the past week, so most of my news has come from online newspapers and social media. News about the protests cannot keep up with the energy of what’s happening on the ground. It’s critical to be discerning of how the news is packaged right now. True colours, especially in the US, are coming out the way in which broadcasters are choosing to focus on certain angles of the movement.
Unfortunately, the same is being seen here in New South Wales, too. Mainstream news condemns the #BlackLivesMatter protest on the weekend, and the government is making protest in the state ‘illegal’ until the virus is gone. I went to the protest on Saturday. I arrived just as the court of appeals authorised the event and was pleasantly surprised by how many people (>90%) wore face masks and the people offering hand sanitiser throughout the crowd. I don’t think I touched or was touched by another person all afternoon. I went back to the city on Sunday and found similar crowds, but in the mall and shops for sales, a similar distance away from each other as at the protests, and only ~50% in masks. Detractors of the protests keep smugly saying, “Here comes the second wave”, while every other day they’ve been in a supermarket. The point of ‘staying COVID safe’ is being cautious, not touching your face, and washing your hands. Not only this, but when protesters who are ‘anti-lockdown’ and 5G conspiracists gathered the weekend before, and the weekend before the restrictions were eased, the police commissioner let them, and our Prime Minister said, “It’s a free country”.
Just had to get that off my chest.
The thing that signifies, to me at least, that the current protest climate is vastly different to ones that have come before is not only the sheer number of people partaking, but the beginnings of monument removal. Confederate statues are being pulled down by protestors or even removed by decree of the mayor around the Southern US. In Bristol, UK, slaver Edward Colston’s statue was ceremoniously flung into the harbour.
Image: Protesters in Bristol tore down the statue from its plinth and tossed it into Bristol Harbour.(PA: Ben Birchall Via AP)
I do wonder if the same fate awaits statues of colonisers in Australian cities. I don’t think Australia is there yet. Sure, young people would have the temerity to ride the decolonisation wave, but a lot of taxpayers would be deeply affronted by such a symbolic fuck you to their understanding of Australian history. If we start with the monuments, then a whole lot of names of places and public institutions would have to change, too. But 2020 has been pretty spectacularly unpredictable so far. Maybe Australia will be a republic with a treaty with its Indigenous peoples by the end of it?
And here are some things you may have missed…
See below for the annotations:
More Indigenous organisations that you can donate to:
Indigenous art you can buy direct from the artists:
If you haven’t seen it already, please watch ‘The Australian Dream’ for free on the ABC’s iView.
And, lastly, 1986’s satirical documentary ‘Babakiuerea’ (thanks Kath & Eric for showing me all those years ago):