The case for public monuments that include rather than divide

Editor's note

What role do public monuments play in how we understand our history? This question flared in the US city of Charlottesville recently, leading to US President Donald Trump courting (even more than usual) controversy over his response. But what about here in Australia?

As Freya Higgins-Desbiolles writes, it’s time we also looked at what, and whom, we commemorate, especially when the subjects of those commemorations may have brought great pain to a part of the population. The time has come, she says, for us to look more towards monuments that are inclusive rather than divisive.

Amanda Dunn

Editor

Top story

Australia’s first memorial to Indigenous service people. Freya Higgins-Desbiolles

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Many of our public commemorations honour people and incidents that brought great harm to others. We need to look at what that says about us, and how we build more inclusive public memorials.

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