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Friday, September 1, 2017

Charlottesville, Part Two: The Statues



In my previous blog post about the Charlottesville protest I didn't discuss the Confederate statues themselves very much, despite the fact that the alleged purpose of the "Unite the Right" rally was to protest their removal.  Frankly, I was less concerned with what to do about beautiful old historic statues, than I was about heavily armed neo-Nazis marching down the street chanting, "Blood and soil.  Jews will not replace us!"  I mean, if it had been just the KKK carrying the Rebel flag and chanting, "The South shall rise again," or singing, "Dixieland," "Sweet Home Alabama" or "Swanee River," that would have been a bit alarming, given their past terrorist acts, but at least it would make sense, since they would be defending their Southern heritage.  But, why on earth would neo-Nazis care about Confederate statues, and what the hell did the Jews have to do with it?!

Of even greater concern to me was the fact that one of my young friends, a wannabe immigrant Jew from India, expressed support for the neo-Nazis, calling them "patriots" who defend the Constitution and the values of our "Founding Fathers," for whom he mistook the Confederate generals portrayed in the statues.  Clearly he was not alone in thinking this, based on numerous FB memes he shared with me, and therefore I wrote Part One to provide my friend and anybody else who didn't know, a short review of American history, particularly the Civil War, who the guys in those statues were, what happened in WWII and why Nazis were, and still are, bad.  I also explained that the thing which the various groups in the Alt-Right including the neo-Nazis and KKK have in common is White Supremacy, namely, the philosophy that non-whites and Jews are inferior.  Perhaps that was why the neo-Nazis supported the KKK re: their Confederate heritage.

While my young friend claimed to have read the article, comments he made to me thereafter clearly indicated that he had no knowledge of its contents and/or the links provided in it.  He further insisted that Muslims were behind the movement to take down the Confederate statues, which was something I'd never heard.  I assumed it was just another crazy rumor and didn't think much more about it.  A few days later, however, the same theory was advanced by an elderly retired veteran, a friend of my father, so I decided to research more, to find out where this idea originated.  

At first I couldn't find anything.  Then, after googling strenuously for some time, "muslims Confederate statues" turned up an article in The Blaze which said, "America’s largest Muslim civil rights organization is asking state and local governments across the country to remove or change the name of anything named after Confederate sympathizers."  The article did not explain why CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) wanted this to be done; their executive director merely said it would be a "fitting response" to the violence in Charlottesville.

I found one or two more articles on the subject from far-right-wing media sources, basically saying the same thing, in The Daily Caller and WorldNetDaily, the latter referring to CAIR as "the Muslim Mafia," allegedly a "terrorist organization founded by Hamas."  No further details were provided.  Note, I take these sources with a grain of salt, because they also promote the rumor that Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim and other conspiracies.  The articles state that CAIR joined the debate about the statues only after the Charlottesville protest in August 2017, i.e., there was no indication that Muslims started the movement to remove the statues in the first place. 

In any event, I still couldn't understand why Muslims would particularly care about Confederate monuments or U.S. Civil War history.  They weren't even here then, right?  And that is when, in the course of googling, "why do muslims care about u.s. civil war?" I stumbled upon the answer in this article about Muslims in America:  It turns out that actually they were here since at least the 1600s, before the founding of the United States, if not sooner.  Some early explorers of the New World from the 1300s to 1400s were believed to be Muslims from Spain and Portugal, as mentioned by Columbus in his memoirs.  And, more pertinent to this discussion, about 10% to 30%, depending upon whom you ask, of the African slaves brought over here were Muslim!  

Oh, wow, I have an American university education with a postgraduate degree, how could I not know this?  I don't remember ever hearing about African Muslim slaves in history class.  As far as I knew, the Africans were animists and/or practitioners of Voudon.  In the course of researching this topic I came across several very informative articles describing slavery in the New World in some detail from resources including the Smithsonian Institute and PBS.  I learned that many of the Muslim slaves fasted in observance of Ramadan while performing strenuous labor, even though practicing their religion was usually forbidden on most plantations.  George Washington was among the slave owners who did not mind which, if any, religion they practiced, as long as they were "good workmen."  Now I understand why Muslims would care about the Confederate monuments - because the history of African slavery in America is also their history!

No doubt some readers will be quick to point out that Muslims also had slaves and in fact, Arabs sold many Africans into slavery, including those who had been captured by other Africans, and to this day, people are still enslaved in the Middle East.  While true, that is a different topic for another time.  This blog post is not about Islam or the Middle East.  So, having taken this side-track in order to understand the history of slavery in the U.S. and who was involved, let's get back to the Confederate statues, what they represent and what, if anything, we ought to do about them.

As mentioned in Part One, I was ambivalent about the fate of the statues at first, being more concerned about the upsurge in modern-day fascism than Civil War history.  From the standpoint of art per se, the statues are beautiful.  I am especially fond of the horses, and liked the skit on the Stephen Colbert show where it was suggested, "Why don't we just remove the riders and keep the horses?!"  Being an equestrian myself, I can't help noticing that some of the riders appear heavy-handed on the reins.  It would not surprise me if in another 20 years people will be protesting the statues based on a moral objection to the oppression and enslavement of horses.  But, we can worry about that if and when it happens down the road.  Our current complaint with the statues is their glorification of the Confederacy which was founded on the enslavement of human beings.

There are those who argue that the Civil War was not about slavery but rather, states' rights.  In essence, however, it was specifically the right of white men in those states to own African slaves which led to the South attempting to secede from the Union.  In opposition to the Founding Fathers' declaration that "all men are created equal" and their intention to gradually end the institution of slavery in the United States, Confederate leaders, like White Supremacists today, believed that all men are not created equal.  They held that the non-white races were mentally and morally inferior, and that their proper place in society was to serve and be protected by their white superiors.   Further, they believed that bringing African slaves to the New World to live under the "civilizing" guidance of their white masters and converting them to Christianity, was actually in the Africans' best interest.

John C. Calhoun (one of the men portrayed in the offending statues) said that slavery was "a positive social good... indispensable to the peace and happiness of both whites and blacks... I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually."  James Henry Hammond, another southern pro-slavery theorist, stated that any efforts towards racial equality would undermine the stability of society and the rule of law, leading to class warfare and the downfall of civilization.  This paternalistic theory was similar to the argument against equal rights for women, who were likewise regarded as mentally and morally inferior and whose liberation would destroy the family, the foundation of society, a view also held by modern White Supremacists.

The ideological clash between the North and South over racial equality did indeed, as Calhoun predicted, result in tearing America apart.  The South was so committed to the institution of slavery that they were willing to kill their own countrymen and secede from the Union to found their own white supremacist nation, the Confederate States of America, with their own flag and Constitution.  The Confederate flag, also called the "Rebel Flag" because the South did literally rebel against the United States, has remained very popular in the South in modern times and was the first Civil War icon to be protested.  The movement gained strength after the 2015 murder of nine African American worshippers at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina by Dylann Roof, a White Supremacist who displayed the Rebel Flag on his license plate and on Facebook.  The Confederate flag was soon thereafter removed from the State House in Charleston, followed by other government buildings in the South over the next couple of years.  Journalist Jack Jenkins calls the flag "a point of profound embarrassment for many South Carolina residents," especially after this incident.

The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville at Emancipation Park, formerly named "Lee Park," was subsequently scheduled for removal, prompting the August "Unite the Right" rally in which heavily armed neo-Nazis and other white supremacists marched down the street in protest, arguing that the flag and statues should be preserved as "symbols of our American heritage."  But as Jenkins explains, "It’s easy to recount the multiplicity of historical explanations as to why the Confederate flag has absolutely no place anywhere near the South Carolina State House. It doesn’t make any sense, for instance, to fly the flag of the United States of America next to the flag of a failed state that actively tried to secede from the union, sparking a war that resulted in the deaths of more Americans than any other armed conflict  - including World War II."

Interestingly, After the Civil War ended, the South having been defeated, Robert E. Lee considered Confederate symbols treasonous:  "So strong were Lee’s feelings,” RedState’s Teri Christoph added, “that he refused to have Confederate flags at his funeral and was not buried in his Confederate uniforms; his soldiers also didn’t don their uniforms at the funeral.  Lee’s daughter said that having those symbols present would almost be ‘treasonous,’ as her father had take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution the day he took office as president of Washington College (now known as Washington and Lee University).” 

Southern white liberals say that they want to remove the Confederate monuments because they cannot in good conscience display on public land statues that implicitly glorify slavery by memorializing the men who fought against the Union to keep their slaves.  The statues are a painful reminder of terrible past injustice that they would rather forget.  The Civil War is indeed part of our historical "heritage" - a part which understandably embarrasses many Americans.  I get it.  However, the more I think about it, this is all the more reason that we ought to keep the statues.

Yes, the glorification of Confederate generals and sanitizing of the Civil War and slavery is a whitewash of American history.  In a speech that gained national attention, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu argued that the statues had originally been erected in an effort to “rebrand” the Confederate cause, saying: “These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.”  And he is right, of course.

But, while Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum would disagree, IMO removing or covering up those monuments is itself a form of white-washing history.  If we don't have to confront uncomfortable reminders of an ugly past, we can pretend like it never happened.  Is that really the goal, to put ourselves in a state of denial?  Personally, I view these statues in a similar way as the Holocaust memorials.  They are painful to look at and they should be.  We must never forget!  As Winston Churchill said in 1948, "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it," paraphrasing George Santayana's 1863 statement, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  We cannot learn from a history that we refuse to acknowledge ever happened.

I've actually met people who tell me the Founders of the United States did not own slaves, the Holocaust never happened, and the Confederates and Nazis were Patriots.

So this is what I propose:

We won't fly the Confederate flag on U.S. government buildings, because it is an enemy flag and that would make no sense, but we can put the flag in museums, educate people about the history of it, and allow private citizens to display it if they wish.  They will only brand themselves as racists, helping other people to identify and avoid them.

As for the statues, they can remain standing, but only with the addition of plaques explaining in blunt detail who they were and what they represent, e.g.:
Joseph Wheeler: "A leader of the Confederate cavalry who fought in many campaigns against the Union and oversaw the massacre of hundreds of freed slaves at Ebenezer Creek in 1864."
John C. Calhoun: "The 7th VP of the United States, turned rebel to lead the South into the Civil War.  He was a major proponent of slavery as 'a social good' and believed that the Founders' ideals of liberty and equality were destructive to the social order."
etc.  With our modern technology we could also provide computer screens at these historical sites with lengthier and more detailed information.

In addition, I agree with the idea of putting up new statues of civil rights leaders and of African-Americans whose contributions to our history are too often overlooked.  They don't need to replace the existing statues, but stand across from them in stark contrast to tell their side of the story, staring at the Confederates with expressions of disdain and condescension, or perhaps with tears in their eyes.  Many such statues have already been proposed.  Let's put our talented American artists to work!  It will be good for our culture and the economy.

On a related note, the issue of Free Speech and censorship has been raised, and I agree that all sides have a right to be heard, no matter how ignorant, rude and offensive they may be.  I am sorry if peoples' feelings get hurt.  I don't believe in censorship of art or speech.  If it's not free for everyone, then it's not Free Speech.  If we censor the neo-Nazis today, then tomorrow it may be the anarchists or Democrats, or whichever group you happen to support.  Censorship is counter-productive, both because offenders can (justifiably) whine that they are being censored, playing the martyr, and more importantly, if we censor offensive speech, people won't know the horrible things that have been said.

For example, shortly after the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally, one of the organizers, Andrew Anglin, posted on his neo-Nazi website, DailyStormer, a couple of very disturbing articles.  One entitled, "Heather Heyer, Woman Killed in Road Rage Incident, was a Fat, Childless, 32-year-old Slut," said that Heyer deserved to die "because a 32-year-old childless woman is a drain on society."  Another article had the title, "The Jewish Problem," which I couldn't read because by the time I got around to it, DailyStormer had been censored and could no longer be found on the internet.  So, when I was trying to explain to my young admirer of neo-Nazis just how vile these people like Anglin really are, he didn't believe me, and I could not prove it because the website was gone and the articles unavailable - as if they'd never existed.

People need to be informed.  The truth will speak for itself.  

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