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David Smith on the controversy over Confederate statues in America

"What Trump Gets Wrong About Antifa"

Posted about 11 hours ago
Expires: Sunday 17 February 2019 8:32pm

Dr David Smith from the US Studies Centre [ https://www.ussc.edu.au/people/david-smith ] joins The Link to discuss the current controversy over Confederate statues in America.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/the-link/2017-08-18/david-smith-on-the-controversy-over-confederate/8822312

For all on both sides of the statue question the video inside is a must watch. David sees the statues, not as a hate or heritage thing but as a political position. Many of them were erected in the '20s or later, long after the war was over. Erected as monuments to the belief that the South did not lose the war. Erected as symbols of, and in support of, white supremacy. I was lucky enough to catch it on our ABC very early this morning. The host Stan Grant is a journalist of Australian Aboriginal ancestry.

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Congratulations U.S.A.

America tears down its racist history, we ignore ours

Analysis
The Link [the video above]
By Indigenous affairs editor Stan Grant

Updated yesterday at 8:13pm

IMAGE Photo: The Captain Cook statue in Hyde Park, Sydney. (Wikimedia Commons: J Bar)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-18/the-captain-cook-statue-in-hyde-park,-sydney/8822158

Related Story: Donald Trump sad to see 'beautiful' Confederate statues torn down
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-18/donald-trump-sad-to-see-beautiful-statues-torn-down/8818228

Related Story: Sara James: Confederate statues must come down
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-18/charlottesville-lessons-from-civil-war-sara-james/8819936

Map: Sydney 2000
http://www.google.com/maps/place/Sydney%202000/@-33.8631,151.2043,5z

I passed by Hyde Park this week in the heart of Sydney and looked again on the statue of Captain James Cook.
It has pride of place, a monument to the man who in 1770 claimed this continent for the British crown.

On the base of the statue is an inscription in bold letters:

-
DISCOVERED THIS TERRITORY
1770
-

It has stood since 1879. When it was unveiled more than 60,000 people turned out. The procession at the time was the largest ever seen in Sydney.

No-one present then questioned that this was the man who founded the nation.

But think about that today. Think of those words: "Discovered this territory."

My ancestors where here when Cook dropped anchor. We know now that the first peoples of this continent had been here for at least 65,000 years, for us the beginning of human time.

Yet this statue speaks to emptiness, it speaks to our invisibility; it says that nothing truly mattered, nothing truly counted until a white sailor first walked on these shores.

The statue speaks still to terra nullius and the violent rupture of Aboriginal society and a legacy of pain and suffering that endures today.

Heritage and hate .. continued: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-18/america-tears-down-its-racist-history-we-ignore-ours-stan-grant/8821662

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