The Menacing Past

Austin, Texas, is considering changing its name to shed its Confederate past.

I think they should change Austin to "City McCityface."

Who's with me?

The Statues Debate Summarized

I think the tide of popular opinion is now running well against the idea of tearing down monuments. Even my friend Xerxes the left-wing columnist has now come out against it.

In doing so, he also recaps all the arguments that have been presented in favour of destroying them. And he does not actually disagree: he only sees them as insufficient reason.

Let’s go through them one by one:

1. Why would we put up monuments to traitors? Lee took up arms against the government. Do we have monuments to Benedict Arnold?

Memorial to Benedict Arnold at Saratoga, New York

Comparing Robert E. Lee to Benedict Arnold is a false moral equivalence. Arnold did not just take up arms against the government. That would be George Washington. Arnold was also a turncoat, a saboteur, and a spy. Lee could be accused of none of those things. The only thing that separates him from Washington, or Sam Houston, or Paul Revere, is that his cause failed, and theirs succeeded.

Even this may not be fair to Lee. It was far clearer in Washington’s case than in his that he was indeed taking up arms against the duly constituted government. After all, in the minds of most Southerners at the time, the states were sovereign. That is pretty much what the US constitution says; and that is why they are called “States.” Lee’s nationality, then, was Virginian. Had he taken up arms against Virginia, he would have been a traitor. Defending it, when it was invaded, he was a patriot.

He had, incidentally, no hand in secession; he was against it.

The situation from the point of view of a Southerner of the time is comparable to the situation if when Britain left the EU, the rest of the EU invaded to prevent this. Would you call a Brit who took up arms in these circumstances a traitor?

If the rule is to be “no memorials to those who took up arms against the federal government,” it would mean also tearing down our memorials to Louis Riel, who is honoured with a statue in front of the Manitoba legislature; or Louis-Joseph Papineau, after whom many places are named in Quebec; as well as most prominent native leaders in the US. No memorials to Crazy Horse—awkward, because the largest monument to any human being ever is currently under construction in his honour. No Pontiac, Michigan. No Sitting Bull memorial. No Chief Joseph memorial. No Geronimo memorial. And so on.

How would that sound? Would that seem proper or honourable?

2. Lee lost. We do not put up memorials to losers.

Monument to King Leonidas, Thermopylae, Greece

 No monuments to losers? That too would be novel; and the underlying message, surely, would then be “might makes right.” Leonidas lost at Thermopylae; yet he is remembered. Carson, Bowie, and the rest lost at the Alamo; yet they are commemorated. In Canada, this would mean no honours to Montcalm—he lost on the Plains of Abraham. No memorials in Scotland to Bonnie Prince Charlie. No memorials in Ireland to Michael Collins--his side lost that Civil War. Not to mention, no memorials to Pearse, or Wolfe Tone, or Emmet, or just about any of the other heroes of Irish independence.

And, if we are to ban the Stars and Bars on these grounds, we ought also by that logic ban the fleur de lys on any Canadian flags or public monuments, as it was the symbol of the defeated regime.

Think that would promote unity? Does that sound like tolerance? Why would anyone think banning Confederate symbols is?

3. Confederate monuments celebrate slavery.

This is the only argument, surely, that can justify the elimination of Confederate references. Slavery has to be the key.

Not the mere fact that the South practiced slavery, either. Just about everywhere and everyone did, up until that time or soon before; and some well after. The Confederacy was not special in this regard.

The argument must be that the Civil War was about ending slavery, and moreover that slavery was the raison d’etre of the Confederacy.

It is possible to make that argument. But there is no consensus among historians; there are arguments that the key on the Southern side was states’ rights, discriminatory tariffs, and/or a Southern right to self-government; and that, on the Union side, the main objective was to preserve the union, not to end slavery. No one faction has no right to impose their interpretation of history on the other. To you or to me, it might have been about slavery. Fine, that is a good reason for us not to put up monuments. But we have no right to insist that everyone agree and conform.

But let us suppose the war was indeed about slavery. Even so, that war ended over 150 years ago. There has been no slavery in the US for that long. Slavery is not today a very current or pressing issue. Slavery is banned worldwide. There is not a single voice being raised, no prominent public intellectual, political commentator, or politician, anywhere in the world who is now advocating a return to slavery. What then has suddenly changed? Why now is it suddenly a problem?

There is nothing useful or humanitarian or brave about publicly opposing slavery now. How courageous or deeply symbolic is it to shoot a dead horse? To desecrate a corpse?

Accordingly, what is the real case for removing these monuments? For the reason cannot be opposition to slavery. Everybody opposes slavery. By removing then, you are not doing anything against slavery. If you want them to stay, your motive is manifestly not to support slavery. The only plausible motive seems to be to bully and humiliate a minority group: American “white” Southerners. Or else to cop a cheap sense of moral superiority at no cost to yourself, but only to others. Pharisaism, in New Testament terms.

The flag that some Southerners still fly is not the flag of the Confederacy. It is the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee’s command. It cannot, therefore, be fairly taken as representing any policy of that government. The person commemorated is generally not Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, who is not fondly remembered, or any political figure, let alone one who endorsed slavery as policy. It is Lee, or some other military figure: Jackson, Beauregard, and so forth. This strongly implies, if it were not already evident to common sense, that Southerners themselves are not being political about this. Those who want to preserve the memory of the Confederacy seem to have already taken pains to reject any support of slavery. The memorials and the flag celebrate the bravery, the gallantry, and the resourcefulness of the Southerners who fought and often won against long odds. And died in their hundreds of thousands.

Like Canadians, Southerners like to think of themselves as culturally different from Yankees, with their own distinct history and folkways. Surely they have the same right to think so as Canadians.

4. What about Cornwallis in Canada? Should his statue come down for calling for the killing of Indians?

A 19th century survivor of scalping by Sioux Indians

There was a war, or rather, an insurrection, on. He had a duty to preserve the peace. His crime, in the minds of the protesters, was that he put a bounty on Indian scalps. And this indeed sounds (and was) inhumane; but it is unfair to target Cornwallis here. Scalping was the established Indian practice. Anyone fighting against Indians more or less had to follow suit, or fight with one hand bound. Just as, in WWI, when one side used poison gas, all did; when one side introduced flamethrowers, all had to use them. It is the way with war. Not to follow suit would be a betrayal of your own people. If there is any blame for the practice of scalping, which was indeed inhumane, it falls on the Indians; yet they are the ones protesting Cornwallis. This is pure racism, surely.

5. What about Sir John A. Macdonald? Wasn’t he a racist?

I have seen no good evidence of Sir John A being “racist.” Somewhat corrupt, sure, but not racist. He seems to have been a rather moderate and tolerant sort. Sometimes the critics cite the residential schools, which makes no sense, since they were created for the benefit of the Indians and at their request. Usually people seem to just make the charge without any attempt to substantiate it. It looks to me like no more than the eternal human instinct to tear down others, out of envy for their accomplishments.

Incidentally, here my friend, despite his piece presumably passing through the newspaper’s editorial process, spells Macdonald’s name incorrectly, as “MacDonald.” He is a well-educated man, an opinion leader. His editors are professionals who are supposed to spot and correct any such errors. Wouldn’t you think the name of the country’s founder is a detail every schoolboy ought to know?

This illustrates the point that we know too little of our history. Yet this urge to tear down monuments is, beyond any other considerations, a new attack on anyone knowing history. How is that a good thing? Is ignorance better than knowledge? Is education a disease?

Beware any movement that seeks to keep the population ignorant.

We in North America also suffer from an absolute lack of history in the first place, compared to just about any other part of the world. Shared history is what builds a culture and a nation. How is it a good thing, then, to try to erase what little we have?

We also have too little art in our lives. How is it a good thing to tear down any public art we see? The better to keep all our noses to the grindstone?

6. What about Columbus? Wasn’t he a slaver? Didn’t he bring slavery to the Americas?

I hold no brief for Columbus. I have always thought his role in history has been overblown. But he is important to Italian-Americans and Italian-Canadians; and to Hispanic-Americans. He gives them a pride in their heritage and a sense of belonging in the New World. And in an American society in which they have not always been welcomed: Catholic immigrants were the main target of the Ku Klux Klan, not to mention of the Freemasons, the Know-nothings, and other nativist groups. To remove monuments to him, usually funded as a public service and a gift to their fellow citizens by Italian-American groups, is an attack on another minority and their sense of pride. It too ought to be offensive to anyone who believes in diversity and tolerance. You want monuments to your heroes too, fine. Just don’t tear down those of other people.

Nor did Columbus “bring slavery to the Americas.” Slavery was a feature of most, if not all, indigenous cultures in the Americas. Christian Europe was the odd man out in this regard. Columbus was adopting native practices. Changing the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day simply substitutes commemoration of one slaver with commemoration of several million slavers. How is that better?

The Human Urge to Destroy

Calvinist "iconoclastic" riot, 1566

Foreigners get noticed in a homogenous place like Korea.

Once, visiting a temple in winter, full of weekend visitors from the town nearby, I saw an exquisite tiny snow sculpture on the temple platform. Someone, out of sheer love of beuty, had created this wonderful thing that soon would melt away. I had to get a picture. Unfortunately, the film in my camera had run out. I had to step away for a minute to reload.

When I had returned, someone had smashed the snow sculpture.

Why?

For the same reason people are suddenly in a fever to destroy statues and memorials of the past everywhere.

I think they noticed the foreigner admiring it, and, because they had not built it, found this intolerable.

This has happened before, many times before.

It famously happened in the seventh century, from whence we get the term “iconoclasm.” Priceless art was destroyed throughout the Byzantine Empire. It happened in the Reformation, with the looting of churches and smashing of images. It happened in the French Revolution, the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Revolution. It happened in the Cultural Revolution. The Taliban did it in Afghanistan, and Isis is doing it now in Syria and Iraq: going into museums and destroying everything they can.

It is one of the great dangers, perhaps the greatest danger, that civilization faces.

Obviously, there is some basic human instinct at work here.

There is a simple and pretty much absolute principle involved: Creation good. Destruction bad.

This is pure evil. It is the same drive that leads, in most of the same upheavals, to mass murders.

It is also the instinct that prompts assassinations. It is the same instinct that killed Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Kennedys, Lincoln, or John Lennon.

A victim of European Reformation iconoclasm.

This instinct is most properly referred to as “envy.” See the story of Cain and Abel for the classic example.

Creating something significant or beautiful or good is hard work. Few can do it. Destroying something, or killing someone, on the other hand, is dead easy. Anyone can do it. And by doing it to something or someone good, significant, or beautiful, one takes to oneself, in a perverse way, some of the fame of the original creator.

Take down a statue of Robert E. Lee, and you are declaring to the world, if not proving to anyone but yourself, that you are a better and a greater man than that snivelling little Robert E. Lee. And better than the artist who created the statue as well, or the people who organized and supported its creation, I suppose.

All else is alibi.

An interviewer once went to prison to interview Sirhan Sirhan, the murderer of Bobby Kennedy. Sirhan had been working out. When the reporter appeared, he struck a bodybuilder pose, flexed his muscles, and said “So now what do you think of Sirhan Sirhan?”

That, I think, is a window on the soul of an assassin. 

Bamiyan Buddha, destroyed by Taliban.

They want to be someone important. They want to do something big, and they think tearing down something big is their main chance.

God help us, but we are at a time in history when the assassins are being given free rein. There are a lot of them around, given a chance. Hitler had no problem finding willing executioners. They are constrained at most times only by legal sanction.

Quickly, more quickly than many might have imagined, the call to tear down all traces of Confederate memorials in the US is metastasizing, feeding on this basic and base instinct like a fire on gasoline. The oldest American memorial to Columbus has just been destroyed by some vandals in Baltimore. A city in Ohio has banned celebration of Columbus Day.

This could be awkward. If we now have to remove all references to Columbus, we will need, for starters, to rename British Columbia, the nation of Colombia, Columbia University, and Columbus Ohio. And God help us if they twig to Amerigo Vespucci being a colonizer. We will have to rename the USA, plus two continents. But that is the direction we are heading, at warp speed.

In Canada, among the victims so far are poor defenseless Hector Langevin, Egerton Ryerson, Lord Cornwallis, and Sir John A. Macdonald. The teachers of Ontario—teachers!--have just demanded that any schools named after Macdonald be renamed.

But they had better be careful what new name they choose. There is no telling who or what is next. In Ghana, a university has just removed a statue of the racist Mahatma Gandhi.