Monument to a Genocidal Maniac

“All Aborigines from Sydney onwards are to be made prisoners of war and if they resist they are to be shot and their bodies hung from trees in the most conspicuous places near where they fell, so as to strike terror into the hearts of surviving natives…”

Governor Lachlan Macquarie…orders to troops…circa, 1816…

In so-called Australia, we need to have a good hard think about who we celebrate and memorialise. Where is the statue for each First Nations person murdered? Why are there so many statues of powerful white men? Will Trump get a statue here too? Herzog?

Thank you to poet and mentor Magdalena Ball for bringing this quote to my attention. It appears as the epigraph to the following poem by Sam Wagan Watson:
https://redroompoetry.org/poets/sam-wagan-watson/postcards-of-colonial-ghosting/

For more on the monument, and some honesty about the man, visit:
https://www.monumentaustralia.org/themes/people/government—colonial/display/99472-governor-lachlan-macquarie

Photo of Gov Macquarie Statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park is by Maksym Kozlenko (CC BY-SA 3.0 httpscreativecommons.orglicensesby-sa3.0, via Wikimedia Commons).