From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli

It does not advance the broader narrative; nor does it assuage the resentment, or dissipate the anguish.

Written in the blood of human suffering, history is, by definition, ugly, and challenging; a subjective compilation of facts and figures about which no two historians seem able, or willing, to agree. Pondered through the prism of 2024, it proves even more problematic; more unfathomable.

It does not follow, ipso facto, a statue stands in unbridled admiration. It can be as reproving as it is glorific of hitherto acceptable mores and practices from a less enlightened epoch. Invariably, the statue is a manifestation of a prevailing philosophy — a lost time-and-place. The current perception of the statue, and its public worth, is shaped by available knowledge; the sobering passage of-time, and the dispassionate hand-of-reason.

We need more, not less, history on display, including those monuments which beguile, but contrarywise, and inadvertently, reveal dark, hidden truths about society; an ugly underbelly.

Evidence should not be discarded, carelessly; similarly, nor should unjustified respect or known crime stand unchallenged. Contentious statues offer an opportunity for thought; to seek truth; and to help right-the-wrongs in the writing of our history. It is the physical presence — the inanimateness, which provides stimuli. By staring and engaging with the face and measurements of the figure we are able to hypothesise; to strive to reach a conclusion.

Across Australia there are statues of those men(there is a conspicuous absence of women) whose names and endeavours have been writ, inaccurately, in history: Captain James Cook — a man of his time; Governors Lachlan Macquarie and Captain James Stirling, John Batman, Sir Thomas Mitchell, and the truly odious Alfred Canning of Canning stock route fame. To find their waterholes, he chained and force-fed salt to Indigenous men. He was exonerated by a royal commission.

In London, and other world capital cities, there are many statues to erstwhile, great men. However emotionally unpalatable, they speak to us of who we were as a people. They help tell the painful story of our troubled journey. In London, 1992, The Queen Mother was booed at the unveiling of a statue dedicated to Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris. During WW2 Harris ordered retaliatory carpet-bombing campaigns of German civilian areas. Paradoxically, Bomber Command razed Dresden, and defeated the Nazi Luftwaffe.

Clive of India was an 18th century, murdering sociopath who, through the iniquitous East India Company, looted India’s wealth. He remains a devise figure for the British people.

Suzannah Henty, a descendant of the family regarded as Victoria’s earliest European settlers, has called for monuments exulting her ancestors in Victoria’s south-west region to be removed, or destroyed. The coloniser, Edward Henty, arrived in Portland, 1834. Tensions between settlers and traditional owners, the Gunditjmara people, resulted in Victoria’s first recorded massacre of Indigenous people.

Should we, therefore, remove provocative statues from public places? The question is vexed. It could be argued, with merit: there is more to be achieved by leaving them in situ — stripped of their romanticism; forcing them to stand in their eternal shame; a reminder of atrocities; and encouraging a more accurate version of our dark history. If we seek, as a civilised nation, to redress the past, we must, perforce, face the grim truths. Destroying evidence dissipates its power and allows it to disappear from our sight. The wound needs air to heal.

Without truth, history is propaganda.