Amid global protests demanding racial equality and a denouncement of past historical figures who are still celebrated in spite of the racially-motivated oppression they enacted, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said people demanding the removal of Captain James Cook statues should “get a grip”. Around the world, over the past few weeks, statues of several slave-owners and colonialists–such as Robert E. Lee, Christopher Columbus, Edward Colston, and King Leopold II–have been brought down.
Similar calls have emerged in Australia, which continues to honor figures such as Captain James Cook. However, PM Morrison said, “Cook was no slave-trader. He was one of the most enlightened persons on these issues you could imagine.” He added, “Australia when it was founded as a settlement, as NSW, was on the basis that there’d be no slavery.” Morrison reaffirmed his position by saying, “It was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia.”
The PM’s comments drew flak from across the aisle and from various corners of the Australian population. The Labor party’s indigenous affairs spokeswoman, Linda Burney, said Morrison’s misguided comments highlight a “need for a greater understanding and awareness of our nation’s history”.
Thousands of Chinese ‘coolies’ were brought to Australia in the 1850s. Aboriginal people were enslaved for years as prostitutes and household servants. Children were stolen from Aboriginal families. At least 60,000 Pacific islanders were kidnapped to work on sugar and cotton plantations in a practice that is commonly referred to ‘blackbirding’. In fact, investigations into Australia’s blackbirding history have unearthed hundreds of unmarked graves. Even if one were to heed senseless calls for the past to be left in the past, this ignores the fact that some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders worked for no wage until 1972.
The Australian government itself has acknowledged some of these events. The Queensland government, for instance, distributed $190 million to around 10,000 Indigenous Australian workers as a result of the Stolen Wages class action lawsuit.
Ultimately, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s are heavily out of touch with reality and with history. If worldwide protests highlighting the reach and impact of modern and historical acts of systemic racism have not forced leaders to introspect and look more closely into their nations’ histories, then perhaps nothing will. Leaders like Morrison, Trump, and Bolsonaro, who seem more intent on blaming calls for justice as left-wing propaganda, are simply unwilling to confront these uncomfortable truths because they benefit from the obfuscation of those truths.
Amid Calls to Remove Captain James Cook Statues, Morrison Claims “No Slavery in Australia”
PM Morrison said, “It was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia.”
June 11, 2020
IMAGE SOURCE: TRACEY NEARMY / GETTY IMAGESAustralian PM Scott Morrison