São Paulo’s Borba Gato statue should be permanently removed. Here’s how to do it

Movements in the U.S. and United Kingdom to vandalize and remove statues deemed to be glorifying those countries’ colonizing and slave-trading past have now spread to Brazil. Last week, a group which calls itself the Peripheral Revolution set fire to a controversial statue of famous pioneer Borba Gato in the southern zone of São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city.

Borba Gato is among the best-known of Brazil’s Bandeirantes, a group of explorers and fortune hunters credited with the inland expansion during the country’s colonial period. Stretching the borders of Brazilian territory to lands unexplored by settlers, the Bandeirantes captured, raped, and enslaved indigenous populations, pillaging gold and silver on their way.

This is not the first time the Borba Gato statue has come under attack. In 2016, it was vandalized with ink, in what was an attempt to call attention to its problematic existence. However, isolated acts of destruction and vandalism will not be enough to get...