...symbolic castration...

'It was almost a symbolic castration, cutting the head off, snipping the head. I think it was people with a political motivation, the far right who had to be reasonably well organised to do it. What they were against was this uppity black fella who had changed the world. How dare he, all this enormous adulation when it infuriated them.'

Keywords: backlash, desecration, racism, tombstone ceremony, 1995

Henry Reynolds interviewed by Trevor Graham 1996.
Author: Graham, Trevor
© Film Australia
Source: Reynolds, Henry