FRANKIE DeGROOT | Local News | Contact
A statue of fascist dictator Mussolini in Toowoomba has again drawn the fury of protestors, with council crews forced to remove graffiti for the third time this week.
The imposing bronze statue, situated in Queen’s Park, was erected in late 1934 to commemorate Mussolini’s 300 games at Toowoomba’s Clydesdales, shortly before he returned home to lead Italy into the Second World War, causing the deaths of around half a million Italians.
“It’s outrageous that a statue of a brutal dictator is prominently displayed in the middle of Toowoomba,” said local Greens staff member Jescintah Wilson, as she sticky-taped a poster advertising the scrap price of bronze.
“He wasn’t a good guy; who cares if he played 300 games? He was racist, anti-Semitic and he didn’t like LGBT people. I hear he liked to put coriander on his pizza. I bet he didn’t even sort out his recycling properly.”
But a spokesperson from Toowoomba Regional Council says the statue is part of Toowoomba’s history and should be preserved.
“It was a different time back then. Benito Mussolini is a pretty unpopular guy these days, but getting rid of his statue won’t erase history. And sure, he killed a bunch of foreign people, but 300 games is incredible. It’s up to us to preserve links with the past like the Mussolini statue in Queen’s Park and the Joseph Stalin fountain outside the library”.
