An Aussie Mountain Range Is Being Renamed To Honour Its Aboriginal Heritage
"It has troubled me for years that an extraordinary area of Western Australia should be named in honour of a person who is widely regarded as an evil tyrant with no connection to our state."
For more than 140 years, one of Western Australia’s biggest landmarks has been named after a man who’s globally regarded as an “evil tyrant”.
Not any more.
Today it was announced the King Leopold Ranges — a renowned landmark in the far north Kimberly region — will be called the Wunaamin-Miliwundi Ranges, in honour of its Aboriginal heritage.
The move comes as the world starts to reconsider whether maybe –just maybe — having a bunch of statues and monuments named after colonial figures who contributed to historical atrocities is a bit of a slap in the face.
Luckily King Leopold II was a Belgian monarch, so the name change doesn’t appear to have kicked up as much of a fuss as the graffiti of Sydney’s Captain Cook statue did.
good, a murderous king with no ties to our country should never have had his name there in the first place
— Madam Oz (@aladyforty) July 3, 2020
A name chosen in cooperation and engaging the Aboriginal tribes in the region.
More of this please.— Dave Underwood (@DaveMUnderwood) July 3, 2020
Leopold was responsible for brutally enslaving people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, back when Belgium was a big colonial power. He’s estimated to be responsible for around 10 million deaths.
He made the area in central Africa his property between 1885 and 1908 where he ruled using corporal punishment, execution, and rape as his tools.
He’s also remembered for exploiting resources like rubber — and for amputating the limbs of African children as young as five if they didn’t harvest enough. Even in Belgium, statues of the old king have been removed as a result of the global Black Lives Matter movement.
The traditional owners of the land have always referred to the ranges by their own name, and WA’s Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ben Wyatt said it was important to acknowledge their connection.
“It has troubled me for years that an extraordinary area of Western Australia should be named in honour of a person who is widely regarded as an evil tyrant with no connection to our state,” he said.
The name was chosen after consultation with the Wilinggin Aboriginal Corporation and Bunuba Native Title Corporation.
Feature Image: Wikimedia Commons
