Ten years on, earthquake casts shadow over Christchurch’s past, present and future

When the deadly second earthquake struck Christchurch 10 years ago today, among the many things toppled by natural forces were statues of the city’s founding father John Robert Godley, colonial politician William Rolleston and imperial hero Robert Falcon Scott.

Far worse things happened, of course, but this break with the past came to feel powerfully symbolic.

My 2016 book Christchurch Ruptures was in large part about the risks of our thinking being trapped in the past and attempting to put things back as they were. Might letting these statues go allow the city to leave behind the colonial attitudes and practices they represented?

Instead, I suggested, we might focus on the contemporary inhabitants of the city and build on its…