I was reminded of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign when I came across the Explorer¡¯s Monument in Fremantle, Australia (¡°Must Rhodes fall?¡±, Features, 15 December).
The original monument, dating to 1913, commemorated explorers who had been killed by ¡°treacherous natives¡± in 1864. By the end of the 20th century, it was recognised that this was one-sided, to say the least. The solution was not to remove the statue but to add a further plaque, equally prominent, written by those who found the original plaque offensive, noting that the perspective of Aboriginal people had been omitted. The full wording of both plaques . I see this as a good solution: it does not brush the original monument out of history, but it forces one to think about the ways in which a colonial perspective damaged many indigenous people ¨C and perhaps to question other things that are just taken for granted.
Dorothy Bishop, Oxford
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