It’s just off the intersection with Axis Sally Avenue.
Sound strange? It shouldn’t if you believe the Honoring Dead
Confederates Movement, which argues that memorials and monuments to Southern
traitors are merely “history.”
A similar claim is being used to oppose removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes from one of Oxford’s colleges. Rhodes, who lived until 1902, was an ardent and highly visible white supremacist.
Among the advocates of retaining the Rhodes statue is
current UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who said he was, “in favour of people
understanding our past with all its imperfections.” Johnson, who reasons like
Donald Trump but with extra syllables, went on to stress the historical value
of the Rhodes statue.
So, let’s consider the logic. If statues and memorials are
all about the importance of understanding the past, it seems there are
some gaps we need to fill.
One of the major events in Britain’s recent history was The
Blitz, the relentless Nazi air assault on the British Isles in 1940-41 that
killed thousands and levelled large sections of major cities. You don’t get
more historical than that. So where’s the memorial to the architect of the
bombing, Hermann Goering? He had a major role in the past, for sure.
Wouldn’t Goering Square in central London be a wonderful
place to teach youth about their nation’s past? Learning right there at the
mass murderer’s feet, so to speak. Of course, to complete the story, some of
the surrounding streets would need to be renamed. Given his important place in
history, Adolf Hitler would certainly be deserving.
Are you thinking it isn’t fair to put Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson in the same category as Hitler and Goering? Well, I agree – the
law recognizes degrees of crime. But understand that Lee and Jackson were
traitors. They were West Point graduates who swore to “bear true allegiance to the
United States of America” and then, after due care and consideration, betrayed that
oath. https://history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html
And don’t fall for that idea, pushed by generations of Southern
apologists, that the Civil War was about states’ rights and tariffs and not
slavery. This relentless whitewashing of history is simply false. Read the declarations of
secession, the documents that Southern states issued to explain their decision
to leave – the South’s own words consistently emphasize defense of slavery as
the cause of secession -- “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution
of slavery… none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.” [https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp]
As for states’ rights, well, the major grievance cited against
the federal government in these declarations was that it wasn’t forcing
Northern states to return escaped slaves. In other words, in its zeal to defend
slavery, the South was advocating for the opposite of states’ rights.
The simple fact is, ever since the advent of democracy,
after monarchs no longer made the decisions, we’ve used monuments and memorials
not for the mere noting of history but to honor greatness. If you can’t tell
the difference between a massive monument and an historical marker, you aren’t
sentient.
Of course, this means some judgment calls. It’s true Washington
and Jefferson were slave owners. However, so was one of Western Civilization’s
greatest minds and moral thinkers, Aristotle. Indeed, if one goes back to
ancient Greece and Rome, everyone of prominence owned slaves. Slaves in those
times were captives of war or their descendants; it was the American South that
made slavery racial.
Washington and Jefferson lived in a time when moral thinking
had turned against slavery, but the change wasn’t complete and we can
reasonably give them a pass on that basis. Still, there should be emphasis on
teaching their “imperfections.” Both knew better and should have acted
differently.
No such pass, though, should be given to people like Lee and
other leaders of the confederacy. Slavery had been a major moral as well as
political issue for a half century before their treason and few outside the
South defended it.
As for honor. Well, my great-grandfather lied about his age
to enlist as a soldier at age 16 -- not in the “Union” Army but in the United
States Army (using “Union” is part of
the whitewash). He was a patriot who fought against traitors and a moral man
who despised the immorality of slavery.
It isn’t only the descendants of slaves who are justly offended
by memorials to confederates. When we leave standing monuments to Robert E. Lee
and his kind, we also dishonor my great-grandfather and the millions of others who sacrificed, many with their lives,
for our nation and for its moral foundation.
