To defend the erection of monuments that glorify confederate heroes is no different than would be defending the erection of monuments to Hitler and his Nazi henchmen at the gates of their memorialized concentration camps. Both the German Nazis and the American southern rebels were traitors to human rights. Both elevated themselves and economics above the common good. Both dehumanized and treated other races as property. Both were gross expressions of ignobility and evil. And neither was any less a horror than the other. There are three differences. The first is that the holocaust lasted the duration of World War II while the persecution of the black population in American has lasted for almost two hundred and fifty years. The second is that Germany sought to liquidate an ethnic group while America sought to enslave an ethnic group. The third is that Germany has admitted its complicity with evil while in America we have erected monuments honoring our complicity.
To say that these rebel monuments are celebrative of a cultural way of life is correct. But this culture was a moral affront to humanity that used slavery to maintain a genteel lifestyle for white males and their entourage. It was a way of life no different than the colonialism against which the revolutionaries rebelled that birthed America. It was a betrayal of the bloody sacrifice required of that birth. These monuments are a graphic gesture of contempt for the American Revolution and the democracy it sought to institute.
Essentially, they represent the resistance of the southern states to join the American democratic experiment and the nobility it represents. That some of these monuments are being removed is a sign of the awakening of a democratic conscience. However, that there is still strong resistance to removing the monuments indicates that the awakening is just a bud awaiting a full flowering. Nevertheless, it is a signal of democratic evolution.
The difference between these monuments and those erected to honor George Washington and Thomas Jefferson is consequential. Washington and Jefferson, despite being slave holders, were seeking to rise above the colonialism that birthed them in order to experiment with the notion of equality and the common good, even though the focus was limited to white men. They were taking a gigantic and perilous step beyond their colonial culture that grasped the hand of nobility. On the other hand, the confederacy was an attempt to use the liberty of the new nation to retain slavery and the morally destitute colonialism it represented. They were regressive rather than progressive in terms of democracy and that is precisely what the confederate monuments represent – a political and moral cultural retardation. They grasp the hand of ignobility.
So, hurrah for those of the south who now perceive the real meaning of these monuments and wish to see them removed. And, how sad for those who still cling to the blindness of an anti-democratic and morally destitute way of life which their defense of these monuments represents.
Robert
Robert T. Latham
mythinglink.com
Robert, Thanks for your comments on the recent disturbance on Monument Avenue. I am a redneck liberal, a lapsed Son of Confederate Veterans, a recovering Civil War re-enactor, & a redeemed racist. My ancestors were manipulated by the power elites of the South to fight their immoral war. (“It was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight!”) I may not have been responsible for what was done, but I am responsible for moving forward together with others to make this world a better place. Removing monuments that were erected because of a Lost Cause revisionist history, intended to bolster white supremacy, is a long overdue start. It is up to us, all of us, to redefine America for the 21st century!