TRANSCRIPT
A warning: the following story refers to names of Indigenous people who have died.
In Australia, there are more than 200 statues dedicated to prominent leaders from the colonial years - from 1788 until Federation in 1901.
The celebration of historical figures during the colonial period as heroic and admirable is being challenged by those who say it glorifies a history that was marked by massacres, land theft; and the oppression of First Nations people.
Similar debates over the role of public monuments and links to colonial violence have taken place in Canada, the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Indian subcontinent.
In Australia, some activists have taken matters into their own hands by removing the statues in an act of what police are treating as vandalism.
SBS spoke to an anonymous group based in Melbourne who say their aim is to remove all colonial statues, which they say is a reminder of Australia's violent past that should not be celebrated.
Members of the group spoke to SBS on the condition that their voices and identities are disguised.
Male voice 1: "In part, toppling the statue is an act of resistance and response to the violence that they embody. We're emphasising that hope lies in the culture of resistance."
Male voice 2: "It can be good to bring it back to Australia's history of not telling the truth about what happened. When people came here."
Some of Australia's most controversial colonial statues are in Hyde Park in Sydney's CBD.
There is a bronze Captain Cook statue from 1879 with the inscription "discovered this territory", which stands despite Indigenous Australians being the world's oldest continuous living culture.
City of Sydney councillors voted in 2023 to review the plaques of 25 colonial statues, but Aboriginal councillor Yvonne Weldon told SBS, progress has stalled.
The pace of change has been too slow for the Melbourne-based group SBS spoke to.
Members say they have been ramping up their activity in the last 18 months, including severing the bronze head of a 2.7-metre statue of King George V in June last year - on the King's Birthday public holiday.
The head later appeared at the final Melbourne show of Northern Irish band Kneecap in March.
"This used to belong here. The statue of King George (crowd boos) Allegedly!"
Victoria Police say their investigation into the missing head is still ongoing.
The repair of damaged colonial statues can cost tens of thousands of dollars of ratepayers' money.
Richard Silink - at International Conservation Services - says it is a global problem that gained particular prominence during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 in the UK.
"There is a statue of Edward Colston who was a slave trader in Bristol (in the UK). And in public protest, they basically topped Colston and rolled him down the main street and into the harbour."
In Tasmania, residents woke up one morning in May last year to discover the statue of former Tasmanian premier William Crowther had been cut down the night before.
More than 150 years ago, reports from witnesses allege Dr Crowther - who was also a surgeon - stole the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne from a Hobart morgue in 1869, with plans to send it to the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
A long running campaign for the removal of the statue led to a decision by Hobart City Council in 2022, after extensive consultation, to remove the 130-year-old statue of William Crowther, and retain the plinth at the base of the statue.
The council then outlined a plan to add "new interpretive elements for the site, telling the complex stories of William Crowther and William Lanne".
But before that plan could be completed, the statue went missing; and on the empty plinth, there were spray-painted words saying: "WHAT GOES AROUND" and "DECOLONISE".
Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliot says the destruction of public property was appalling - and it has been hugely upsetting to Mr Crowther's descendants.
"It was taken down because of a denied and unproven allegation of an individual who did a huge amount of good for our community. And whose community paid for; and wanted this statue erected. Even if the allegations were true, we need to look at the whole person; and the values at the time."
Kamilaroi woman Imogen Johnstone says she understands why there has been growing unease about the colonial era statues.
Michelle Elias: What do you think when you see pictures of police protecting the statues?
Imogen Johnstone: It just shows you they are protecting the wrong thing. They could protect our sacred sites, our burial sites that are being taken from us. They can protect our children from being incarcerated. They could protect our basic human rights, I think."
She says believes there is more anger over statues being toppled than over issues like Indigenous deaths in custody.
Her aunt, Tanya Day, died in December 2017 after hitting her head on a wall in her prison cell at Castlemaine police station.
She had been arrested for being drunk in a public place after falling asleep on a train.
It is something Ms Johnstone says she can never forget.
"I think that the way they react to the statue is a kick in the face. My aunt is a human being who lost her life."
The group of activists SBS spoke to say they are not Indigenous, but they feel passionately about the need to set the record straight about Australia's past.
Michelle Elias: Some of the Indigenous people that we've spoken to have said that often when a statue is toppled, they see more division. What do you think of that?
Male voice 1: "I wouldn't attribute that to the toppling of the statue. I would attribute that to so many leaders who are just trying to exacerbate political polarisation and othering within our communities."
Male voice 2: "I think racism in this country has been here from day dot and maybe something like the toppling of a statue. Maybe it flares it up, but maybe it's just exposing what's always around us. I do also recognise and feel really troubled by that. Maybe something we need to think more about or have more conversations about."
And you can watch the full story from the team at SBS The Feed, by visiting their YouTube channel. Search for SBS The Feed.
