The Australian government plans to erect a new monument to British Captain James Cook to commemorate the anniversary of his first landing on the Australian continent on April 29, 1770.
The monument will be erected in Botany Bay where the crew of the British ship Endeavour first encountered the Aborigines, forever changing the nation’s history, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of that event in 2020.
However, many are not satisfied as there has been a heated debate in the country for some time about whether commemorating the arrival of English colonizers is an insult to the indigenous population.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison emphasized that the monument will be inclusive when presenting the plan on Saturday. They stated that it will mark the meeting of two cultures.
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“This was the first encounter between Europeans and Australian Aborigines here on the east coast,” Turnbull said.
“It gives us the opportunity to show the view from the ship and the view from the shore.”
Priest Ray Minniecon, an Aboriginal rights activist who participated in organizing the ‘Invasion Day’ protests on the occasion of Australia Day (January 26), said that erecting the monument is disturbing.
“It is still an invasion and an unwanted invasion,” he said.
Captain Cook declared Australia a British territory on August 22, 1770, on Possession Island.
Australia has been rocked by protests in recent years over its colonial past, similar to those against Confederate monuments in the United States.
Last year, there were protests against the Captain Cook monument erected in 1879 in Sydney because it states: “Discovered this territory in 1770.”
Aborigines lived in Australia for about 60,000 years before Cook’s arrival.
The monument has been vandalized along with several other monuments to prominent early British settlers such as Lachlan Macquarie, the fifth governor of New South Wales.
