Tear down the statues: was Caesar as bad as Hitler? Should explorers like Captain Cook & Burke and Wills have their statues torn down?

I am a (or perhaps 'an' I'm always confused) historian and I'm excited by the current debates around the world about tearing down statues of historical figures dotted around towns and cities of the world. Many are being torn down because of links to slavery, colonial conquests and genocides. The representation of history which we have often been oblivious to as we walk past these statues of great (white) men, looking very great and imposing, and important and literally up high above us, are now being recognised as very obvious symbol of the world's racial divisions, inequalities and injustice. Particularly of Indigenous and minority peoples.

I'm all for a good old-fashioned statue tearing down, I think it can really help break down barriers in the world and reposition ourselves for the future. In my lifetime I've seen statues of Sadam Hussein tumble, and also Lenin and other Bolsheviks in post-communist Europe. There does remain a statue of John Lennon in Cuba, but that's just a point of trivia more than a statement of anything in particular. Like that famous left-wing liberal Ronald Reagan said in the 1980s: Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall! In reference to the Berlin Wall. Reagan recognised that physical structures, such as walls, were symbols of division. Of course in the Berlin Wall's case, and in typical Reagan fashion, it was a literal wall that also literally divided people. So probably nothing to do with statues really, except that the wall represented a whole lot of history and ideology that we've now moved on from.

In 1989, inspired by Reagan (I shouldn't have to point this out, but since young people might be reading this, and they maybe don't do history anymore, I'm being facetious, although Reagan was good for a laugh), I wrote an essay for my year 12 ancient history class comparing Julius Caesar to Hitler. Both were dictators, both were warmongers who wanted to expand their empires and subjugate people, both waged war on France/ Gaul, as well as Britain, and both took millions of slaves from conquered territories and both undertook genocides - with Caesar he was in fact a lot closer to the genocides, such as a 55 BC massacre of Germanic tribes he ordered in modern day Netherlands. Caesar was also responsible for killing millions due to wars he started, Hitler was also responsible for killing millions from wars he started (in Hitler's case I don't want to downplay the broader role, and support, of the millions of nazis supporting him). Caesar was essentially a nationalistic fascist, who would have loved Hitler, indeed the term fascist comes from the fasces, the bundle of wooden rods and axe symbolising justice (and to an extent power) in ancient Rome. 

The main difference between Caesar and Hitler was that Caesar won and Hitler didn't. And as a result Caesar now has a very sanitised version of himself fed to children. I saw a site 'Caesar for children' which described Caesar as 'a famous Roman leader who won many battles for Rome and helped the Roman Empire grow'. As late as 1942, we could have described Hitler in the same way (substituting Germany of course), he won many battles, conquered France and expanded the German empire far into Eastern Europe where he enslaved and subjugated millions of people he viewed as inferiors, just as Caesar had done. And had he won children would probably be getting the same sanitised version of  Hitler in history as we now have of Caesar. And now, while I can probably still live with the odd Caesar statue, I, and I doubt many people, would certainly not accept a statue of Hitler in a public space, extolling his great triumphs. And I think the French might not want a statue of the bastard in their towns! It would offend all that those great Gaulish freedom fighters Asterix and Obelix fought for for so many years, holding out against Caesar's legions and beating the Romans at the Olympic games (all very legit historical events). Thank our lucky stars, and the millions who died fighting the nazi regime, that we don't find ourselves in the position of wondering what to do with statues of Hitler now.

Of course we also wouldn't accept a modern fascist leader, like Mussolini, still having statues celebrate his reign dotted around Rome (not that there seemed much to celebrate even in fascist terms - though he did expand the Rome's empire, and just as Caesar had done, killing and subjugating the place in true white supremacist style in Ethiopia - and yes I know Caesar didn't go to Ethiopia). Now, that's a long introduction to give context to debates we are having here in my home country of Australia, and around the world, over the place, and legitimacy, of public statues. I use here two examples of colonial conquest figures. Statues of Captain James Cook, in St Kilda, Melbourne, and the ill fated explorers Burke and Wills, also in Melbourne.

Now what to do about these historical figures? Tear them down? Contextualise them and leave them up? What do statues like these symbolise in this day and age? I'll start with Burke and Wills, two famous colonial explorers who travelled from the colony of Victoria to what is now the Gulf of Carpentaria, I think ending up on the lands of the Kukatji people. Burke and Wills' statue has been on prominent display in Melbourne in various locations over the years, including in the centre of the town (it's been moved around as no one knows where to put it). According to Google maps, it looks to still be there in Melbourne's CBD. These guys weren't necessarily 'bad' people, at least not that I've come across, of course we usually don't hear about a lot of their indiscretions, but at least it seems these two blokes weren't genocidal maniacs of the scale of Hitler and Caesar. Though the British empire they represented certainly was of that ilk. 

But what do they symbolise? Here were two white men are celebrated for 'discovering' a land already occupied. They travelled through dozens and dozens of separate Aboriginal nations. All nations with their own languages, cultures and practices. The people of these places had (and still have) their own practices for welcoming foreigners, for allowing them access to their countries. Yet Burke and Wills  part of a conquering campaign, just as dubious as the expansionism of Caesar and Hitler, are the ones now celebrated, and not the people who owned the land they walked upon. That is actually disturbing. The one surviving member of the Burke and Wills party, John King, only survived due to the support and kindness of local Aboriginal people. The Yandruwandha people who helped King also helped Burke and Wills, but it seems one of those stupid white fellows scared them off with a gun so they died. Burke and Wills entrenched whiteness, and sense of superiority, meant they traversed a whole continent but never really ever appreciated, or recognised, that these people had lived on the land for thousands of years, had complex relationships with their neighbours and a deep affinity with the natural world that the conquerors perhaps could never have appreciated.

So why is it important to debate whether these statues remain in public places? Well, for a start there seems no statues of the Aboriginal people who lived in the lands Burke and Wills quite likely trespassed on - although who knows there may have been some welcome to country along the way. If you look at the maps of Burke and Wills' journey it isn't like the colourful one below showing different Aboriginal nations and language groups. The maps of the ill fated tourists show places with English names. Places that were already named by Aboriginal people. What arrogance to think they could even do that when people were obviously living there. And yet there were no qualms at all about it. And maybe that was just a result of the historical times. But, what does this legacy tell us about our society. That the statue of the two white man is more important than the thousands of black fellas who lived there before? Who live there now. It's now just another symbol of the genocide and dispossession, and ignorance that followed and that remains today, supported by these symbols of oppression.

Keeping these statues on public display says black lives don't matter.

And what about the great Captain Cook? When I was a kid I was told he was the first man to 'discover' Australia (though he wasn't even the first European to visit here). He gave this land 'worth' by revealing it to the white man, by claiming it for England and the great white empire. His maps are also not richly coloured with the borders of Aboriginal lands, they also show English names and a large empty space called terra nullius, the 'empty land', that the British used as their justification for conquering hundreds of Aboriginal nations. The term terra nullius was only officially recognised as untrue in the 1990s when a Mer Island fella called Eddie Mabo challenged it in the High Court of Australia. It took hundreds of years just to admit someone lived here before Europeans came!

So what does this statue tells us of Australia? What is it saying to our kids? It says it's not only fine to take over someone else's land, but we'll also erect a statue of you to commemorate it. Like a mighty Caesar looking down on his conquered lands. And later, in 1788 when the first fleet arrived from Britain, around 18 years after Cook's journey, to start the official and full invasion process, we'll make that date Australia's national day of celebration, one that we are all meant to feel proud of. Seriously?

Yes, many may think statues should be left alone in public places as relics of the past. Sure keep them, but take them out of public squares and put them in museums and contextualise them with the untold history of the conquered people. People who have waited all this time just to get simple recognition. People who still practice their cultures today. To leave these statues in public places is to continue to support the outdated propaganda of the empire past. Sure, people may have been ignorant of these things in the past, and we should forgive them for that, but for the future to be better, for justice to be had, we must evolve, and if that means getting rid of a few symbols of conquerors, colonialism and outdated racist attitudes, well, I'm all for that.

Tear down those statues, in a nice safe way, observing whatever applicable work health and safety standards to avoid any further injury.