A nutty editorial in the Christchurch press from a Canterbury University historian.
And so forth until we arrive at this piece of purple prose
Well the statues of the people who have fallen are reminders of the men without whom there would be no city of Christchurch - they were men of vision with the energy to create a city where no city stood before, a city where generations of people have made their homes and earned their livelihoods.
It's nice to know that in the city these men built and which now has suffered a serious setback that there is room for silly women living on comfortable salaries paid by the Government to write tosh filled with meaningless leftoid slogans like this
A natural break from our colonial past
On February 22, the city's founding father, John Robert Godley, director of the Canterbury Association, was shaken off his pedestal after 143 years standing in Cathedral Square. A statue of early provincial superintendent William Rolleston fell backwards off its plinth to lie beheaded by the forces of nature. British imperial adventurer Captain Robert Falcon Scott's likeness was also knocked over and is in need of repair.
These damaged statues are symbolic of the end of a colonial era in Christchurch. In getting back up, regrouping and rebuilding after the earthquakes, it is important to recognise that the city has literally broken free from the past once and for all. February 22 is our postcolonial moment.
And so forth until we arrive at this piece of purple prose
The felled Christchurch works of art evoke images of statues of former leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Josef Stalin being eagerly and emotionally pulled down by societies erasing the old and advancing the new. Some former colonies of the British Empire have removed statues that evoke colonisation. In India, Queen Victoria statues are in storage, while in 1963 Quebec's Front de Liberation du Quebec blew the head off a Queen Victoria statue, making clear its desire to break from the past. The statue, head still detached, is now displayed in a museum.
Well the statues of the people who have fallen are reminders of the men without whom there would be no city of Christchurch - they were men of vision with the energy to create a city where no city stood before, a city where generations of people have made their homes and earned their livelihoods.
It's nice to know that in the city these men built and which now has suffered a serious setback that there is room for silly women living on comfortable salaries paid by the Government to write tosh filled with meaningless leftoid slogans like this
The February 22 earthquake is Christchurch's postcolonial moment. It's time to break freeBreak free from what may I ask?
What a steaming pile of garbage...
ReplyDeleteThey should rebuild those statues bigger than they were before...
India is an ancient civilisation where British rule was preceeded by Muslim/Mogul rule, Arabian rule and in Canada the statue was destroyed by terrorists... So her comparisons are crap or advocate terrorism...
Silly nutcase... The statues of Stalin and Hussein were pulled down by people in societies where the principles and dictatorship those figures stood for enslaved them, in Christchurch the statues were knocked down by natural forces, not by people who recognise that the principles those figures stood for freed us and enriched us...
A Canterbury University historian. Which means the taxpayer is keeping her.Time to unplug her from nanny's teat, methinks.
ReplyDeleteBloody parasite.
I want to stick up for Katie here. She's a Christchurch girl, she is older than me but her brother was in my class at school. Katie was one of the leaders in my Brownie group and she comes from a throughly lovely family. Her mum was so proud when Katie got her lecturing job at Canterbury.
ReplyDeleteShe's entitled to her opinion without being called a parasite, especially given she could move overseas and teach for a far greater salary at a private university. However her family are in Christchurch.
So she's a lovely girl...and that has what to do, exactly with her idiot pronouncements?
ReplyDeleteAnd the fact that she could get a higher salary teaching overseas merely demonstrates that there's an international market for clowns.
ReplyDeleteShe's entitled to her opinion without being called a parasite,
ReplyDeleteI do my best to remain reasonably respectful to most people when they express an opinion, and of course, it makes a difference to know the person.
On this occasion though, I think it's also important to provide a counter-opinion, as she is weighing in as an academic, and an historian to promote a message that, ironically, she is declaring these people that statues were erected for, some kind of colonial parasites.
I really wish she herself wasn't quite so offensive with her name calling. Admittedly, she is abusing dead people, but she sweeps a lot of us descendants of colonialists into the "we are guilty of everything and having nothing to be praised for" mentality.
A historian who wants to wipe her hands of the past? I'm not sure she really understands the past, and her words seem to provide condemnation based on living in these times with no appreciation of the context.
Admittedly, she may have been quoted out of context, because the MSM like doing that. I hope she gets a chance to reflect on the criticism being heaped upon her and consider that perhaps she was a little harsh. I mean, Stalin and Hussein?
"the city these men built..."
ReplyDeleteWhich part, pray, was built by Scott? In fact what was Scott's contribution to ChCh that they built a statue to him?
In the same vein, could you perhaps tell us which Gulags Scott consigned millions to?
ReplyDeleteMore seriously; all you see that makes up the fabric of a city is not just bricks and mortar Bearhunter.
This is why when cities such as Christchurch crumble, the spirit of the survivors will be just as necessary as the material to actually rebuild the city.
A historian who wants to wipe her hands of the past? I'm not sure she really understands the past...
ReplyDeleteMy reaction too. I studied history at Uni of Canterbury back in the 80s, and it was a very good dept. Looks like the quality of the teaching staff has gone drastically downhill since then.
She's entitled to her opinion without being called a parasite, especially given she could move overseas and teach for a far greater salary at a private university.
Given that she feels Christchurch is a product of crimes on a par with those of Saddam Hussein or Josef Stalin (and if she's a historian she ought to know that the Soviet Union pulled down statues of Stalin decades before it collapsed), you have to wonder why she, as a descendant and beneficiary of these criminals, continues to live there and draw a salary from the university they founded. Apparently the city must be freed of all trappings of colonialism except the one that's paying her.