Dunedin protester Andrew Tait places a necklace of potatoes around the Queen Victoria statue at Queens Gardens on Saturday. Photo / ODT
Dunedin protester Andrew Tait places a necklace of potatoes around the Queen Victoria statue at Queens Gardens on Saturday. Photo / ODT
Does Andrew Tait have a chip on his shoulder? He doesn't think so.
The Dunedin protester just dislikes the idea that people are unaware of the darker sides of some historic figures who are now commemorated and celebrated with statues around the city.
The Robbie Burns statue in the Octagon on Saturday. Photo / ODT
While some are calling for the removal ofsome public statues in light of protests about systemic racism following the death of American George Floyd, Tait said he would prefer to see them left standing and used to highlight their colonialist or racist backgrounds.
On Saturday morning, he placed a necklace made of potatoes around the neck of the Queen Victoria statue in Queens Gardens, to remind the public she was on the throne in the 1840s when Ireland was under English rule, and hundreds of thousands of Irish died when a blight ruined potatoes, their main food source.
As a result, she is often referred to as the "Famine Queen".
"Queen Victoria presided over a famine which saw something like a third of the Irish population die of starvation, while England was exporting grain to other countries overseas at the same time.
Dunedin protester Andrew Tait places a necklace of potatoes around the Queen Victoria statue at Queens Gardens on Saturday. Photo / ODT
"The population of Ireland still hasn't recovered. It's still lower than it was before Queen Victoria was queen.
