José Rizal

The other statue in Ashfield Park is of the writer and freedom fighter José Rizal. It was erected in 1988 by the Australia Philippine Society as a Bicentennial Project. It is a curious monument because, although about seven feet tall over all, at least half of that height consists of a plain oblong sandstone plinth, on which is another square bronze plinth, with the statue itself on top of that. The consequence is that although José Rizal is shown as an adult, with a lapelled jacket, a hat and a book under his arm, the figure is about the size of a five year old child. This, perhaps paradoxically, gives the monument a dignity which the much larger and heavier Mary Poppins did not have. She seemed earthbound, whereas José Rizal looks, if not exactly like a spirit of the air, light and untrammelled. Quite why he is in Ashfield Park is not clear but he looks very much at home there. If you walk from the taxi depot in Haberfield where I work(ed) back to Summer Hill, you pass him by, a companionable presence, about halfway along an avenue of magnificent Phoenix palms. I always say a word and sometimes receive a word or two in reply.