Colonial monuments vandalized in Melbourne ahead of Australia Day
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Many Indigenous Australians feel the anniversary of Australia Day represents the beginning of colonial persecution of Indigenous peoples and Britain's imperialist expansion in Australia and Oceania.
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Anzak Memorial in Parkville vandalized on the eve of Australia Day (Social media)
Protesters in Australia have demolished a monument celebrating a 19th-century imperialist as Indigenous rights rallies rage around the country during a national holiday.
The memorial to John Batman, one of the founders of the southern city of Melbourne, was demolished in Melbourne on Sunday, the day before Australia Day.
The day is observed on January 26 annually in commemoration of Britain's First Fleet arrival at Sydney Cove in 1788.
Many Indigenous Australians feel the anniversary represents the beginning of colonial persecution of Indigenous peoples and Britain's imperialist expansion in Australia and Oceania.
Batman helped to establish Australia as a British colony by massacring the Indigenous people of Tasmania and imposing a unilateral land agreement on Victoria's Indigenous people.
Images on social media showed Batman's stone statue in downtown Melbourne split in two and lying on the ground. Victoria police say they were informed about the incident and are investigating it as vandalism.
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Two more monuments attacked in Melbourne in the lead-up to Australia Day - a statue honouring city founder John Batman, and an Anzac memorial in Parkville defaced with "land back" graffiti. pic.twitter.com/hKx4ytpeih
An Anzak memorial was also spray painted in what is intended to represent blood, with the words "Land Back" graffitied on the monument.
On Thursday, the sandstone figure of James Cook in eastern Sydney was painted crimson and had its hand and nose knocked off.
Cook, a British geographer and explorer English explorer who arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonization of the region, claimed eastern Australia for the British Empire.
The local council in Randwick, where the monument is placed, branded the action as "a disservice to the community and a disservice to reconciliation."
On Friday, local lawmaker Andrew Hay referred to the demonstrators as "low lives" who were making a "political point".
In previous years, protesters have targeted national landmarks and sculptures of colonial figures ahead of Australia Day, and thousands gather on the holiday to highlight the plight of Australia's Indigenous peoples at the hands of colonial invaders.
Protesters demand that proper reparations be provided to Australia's Indigenous communities in exchange for the crimes done by European settlers against them.
