Montreal: Macdonald Monument & Queen Victoria Statue Vandalized Again

The following anonymous communique was originally posted to Montreal Counter-Info.

As the Victoria Day weekend begins, the Macdonald Monument and the Queen Victoria Statue at McGill have once again been vandalized. Montreal May Anarchists (MMA) sprayed the Macdonald Monument in anti-colonial green, and the Queen Victoria statue in anti-imperialist red.

In the words of the #MacdonaldMustFall group: “John A. Macdonald was a white supremacist. He directly contributed to the genocide of Indigenous peoples with the creation of the brutal residential schools system, as well as other measures meant to destroy native cultures and traditions. He was racist and hostile towards non-white minority groups in Canada, openly promoting the preservation of a so-called “Aryan” Canada. He passed laws to exclude people of Chinese origin. He was responsible for the hanging of Métis martyr Louis Riel. Macdonald’s statue belongs in a museum, not as a monument taking up public space in Montreal”.

And, in the words of the Delhi-Dublin Anti-Colonial Solidarity Brigade: “The presence of Queen Victoria statues in Montreal are an insult to the self-determination and resistance struggles of oppressed peoples worldwide, including Indigenous nations in North America (Turtle Island) and Oceania, as well as the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent, and everywhere the British Empire committed its atrocities. Queen Victoria’s reign, which continues to be whitewashed in history books and in popular media, represented a massive expansion of the barbaric British Empire. Collectively her reign represents a criminal legacy of genocide, mass murder, torture, massacres, terror, forced famines, concentration camps, theft, cultural denigration, racism, and white supremacy. That legacy should be denounced and attacked.”

The Macdonald Monument and the Queen Victoria statue should be removed from public space and instead placed in archives or museums, where they belong as historical artifacts. Public space should celebrate collective struggles for justice and liberation, not white supremacy and genocide.