For the past few days I have listened to people I admire and people I don't, talk about the challenge of facing up to our colonial past. One comment that struck me the hardest on radio was that "none of Australia's first Europeans were as bad as their Confederate counterparts in the United States".
John Batman is widely known as the founder of Melbourne. He makes the American Confederates look friendly. As a bounty hunter in Tasmania he killed countless Aboriginal people. In his words: "We only captured that night one woman and a male child about two years old … next morning we found one man very badly wounded (and) shortly after we found another, alive but very bad … On Friday morning we left the place for my farm with the two men, woman and child, but found it impossible that the two former could walk, and after trying them by every means in my power, for some time, found I could not get them on I was obliged to shoot them ...".Â
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Graffiti scrawled on historic Sydney statues
Vandals have defaced historic statues in central Sydney with politically-charged graffiti. Video: ABC
Tasmanian Governor George Arthur wrote that Batman "… had much slaughter to account for." This was a remarkable and telling accusation by a governor who was most definitely not known for his compassion.
On the issues of statues as emblems of our past, it's worth looking at how Berlin dealt with its own fascist monuments after World War II. Vacant, weed-covered building blocks sit throughout the city, as silent, empty reminders of what horror can be unleashed if people sit idly by for long enough.
![A number of statues in Hyde Park have been defaced by protesters arguing for a change in the date of Australia Day.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170828181843im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/4/q/j/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gy53b1.png/1503918496210.jpg)
I think that all of our monuments should stay as they are, albeit with clear, correct and concise revisions of their plaques. No statues should be vandalised as they were in Sydney this weekend, but correct captioning will not only progress reconciliation it will also add a captivating and real layer of historical truth to our streets. Captain James Cook did not "discover" Australia. And John Batman was a mass murderer.
This weekend Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on 3AW radio:Â "I think the vast majority of Australians are ... horrified at the thought that we're going to go around rewriting history..." He was apparently shocked that Wiradjuri man Stan Grant would suggest that we should discuss and consider the plaques and monuments of our colonial past. In a Facebook post Turnbull has now said that the actions of one angry graffiti artist are not far from "Stalinist"Â zealotry. Well, Prime Minister, I'd argue that if you allow a continuation of the glorification of known mass murderers, like John Batman, that action is also dangerous. Protecting the history of massacres, simply because "we're the best country in the world"Â is tinged with equally extreme ideology.
If we had achieved proper and resounding reconciliation with Indigenous Australia there would be no need to continue this relentless and painful revision. But while people, including members of your own government, refuse to accept, let alone apologise, there is no choice but to continue to fight for the most basic human rights, of recognition.
I will never forget the shame I felt when Peter Dutton and Sophie Mirabella walked out of the Australian Parliament's apology to the Stolen Generation. Forgiveness can only begin after an apology. Â I believe that the vast majority of Australians are very ready, in fact eager to have that discussion with people like Stan Grant. We are sophisticated and we are proudly Australian. But when privileged white men like you, Malcolm Turnbull, refuse to accept the true histories of our collective past the hurt will continue.
![A number of statues in Hyde Park have been defaced by protesters arguing for a change in the date of Australia Day.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170828181843im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/4/q/6/0/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gy53b1.png/1503887090778.jpg)
You accuse Stan Grant of trying to edit our history, but the history that you stand behind was deeply edited from the beginning. The edits being discussed now are corrections. Our history has been written, controlled and ensured by colonial Englishmen. They had an agenda. The history they wrote was for their times, it was rigidly British. Times were markedly different. People in your parliament continue to fight to encourage an absurd and dishonest reading of history. It is time to correct the errors, call out the murderers and take the final proud steps through reconciliation.Â
Ben Quilty is an award-winning artist.
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