A statue of a Captain James Cook dinner with an arm raised ready that some liken to a Nazi salute has been faraway from a most important road in Cairns.
Demolition contractor Martin Anton hopes to be the unlikely saviour of the controversial statue, which had been used to promote a topless bar, after reportedly shopping for the statue for a token $1.
Anton is taking the statue to a holding facility within the close by Atherton Tablelands, and is remaining considerably coy about his long-term plans for it. He advised the Cairns Submit solely that his household enterprise deliberate to do “every part in our energy to protect it”.
Cairns’ notorious #CaptainCook statue is about for elimination. All 8 metres of it quickly to vanish from its house for the final 50 years. @abcbrisbane@abcnewspic.twitter.com/fAq4OorOMS
Many, although, would relatively see the statue consigned to the dustbins of historical past.
Calls to take away the statue gained prominence in 2020 because the Black Lives Matter motion led to a elimination of statues commemorating colonial figures world wide.
First Nations artist Emma Hollingsworth’s petition to have the statue eliminated, which garnered 19,435 signatures, describes it as “a slap within the face to all Indigenous folks”.
“Since 1972, the James Cook dinner statue on Sheridan Road has stood as a logo of colonialism and genocide,” she wrote.
“For us it represents dispossession, compelled elimination, slavery, genocide, stolen land, and lack of tradition – amongst many different issues.”
Adrian Abberley summarised the sentiment of many on this three-word response to the statue’s elimination.
“Bye, Adolph [sic] Cook dinner,” he wrote on Fb.
Colin Russell wrote that he was happy to see the elimination of the “embarrassing eyesore”.
However for others the statue was a Cairns icon that ought to be preserved.
Just lately re-elected member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, ridiculed calls to take away the 50-year-old statue on the time of the petition.
“Let’s do away with the pyramids and all this different stuff,” he advised Channel 7.
“That’s the identical form of nonsense that we’re speaking about right here.”
Ultimately although, it was not a historic reckoning which noticed Cook dinner faraway from Cairns’ most important drag, however the building of a hospital after a land deal was struck with the James Cook dinner College.
A crowd gathered to observe its elimination, with some bemoaning the lack of extra private histories related to the monument.
“Who will encourage me to do the Macarena while driving now?” Linden Bramich wrote on social media after the statue was eliminated.
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