Here at Ptara, we try to avoid contemporary “politics.” However, we see more and more, in the 21st century, that politics has effected history.
Now, a statue that a tyrant puts up to himself is not really history, it is domination. But a plaque commemorating the indigenous people of a place, or those allies who helped you, this tells a story we can all benefit from hearing.
https://youtu.be/USrwfhJ7A0c?si=uc54B6n330qBQ4Ud
“You should not erase other people’s history because it makes you uncomfortable,” says Keianna Cachora when she heard that President Trump was going to remove plaques from the Little Big Horn battlefield.
But why is this happening?
At first, they were offended by Soviet statues and Confederate flags, so those were taken down. They were symbols of oppression to many, and so while some people said it was heritage, the majority said no, it has to go.
Hungary and Angola had a solution. Gather the statues and bring them to a museum, or a statue park. Some very ignorant people will claim that having the monuments by communism preserved in Hungary shows Hungary as being “pro-Russian.” Well, they still have old concentration camps in Germany. Refusing to erase the evidence of a crime doesn’t mean you approve of the crime. Hungary is not celebrating communism with the statues park, it is remembering the horrors of communism. (And some communists might see it as a shrine.)
The American situation was a little different. A lot of the statues to soldiers of the CSA were built during the civil rights era. The flags and statues were about pride in their ancestors, maybe not about pride in all the sins of their ancestors, but most of their supporters will say it was about celebrating the bravery, the heroism of fighting as the underdog.
Of course, not everyone saw it that way. Statues were dismantled. State flags were modified to take out CSA symbols, bands even changed their names.
Not everyone who objected was pro-confederacy or even pro-Southern heritage. Many others were seen with suspicion, however, if they objected to the removal of “history.”
To understand why people were nostalgic for the old statues, we should look beyond America. We can see something said by South African artist, Pitika Ntuli. “If it is a statue of my worst enemy, I would respect the artist more than I hate who is depicted.” He suggested moving Apartheid statues to a “Theme Park” which is similar to what happened in Hungary. He wasn’t commenting on the situation in America, but I can see his words. I also respect the work of artists, and I wish we still had statues from the Ancient world, just to see what they looked like.
Not every toppled statue has defenders. When an ugly statue of a slave owner was thrown into the sea in England, I didn’t hear anyone crying over it.
When monuments to (US rebellion) Confederate soldiers were being dismantled, there was a protest. People claimed the Confederacy, or Confederate States of America, was part of their “heritage.”
The claims were pretty boring “essays.” Some made mentions of shamrocks or Superman, to try and elicit emotion from other groups. But a lot of symbols were taken down in response to a mass shooting, and later to other crimes, that somehow the statues or flags were seen to have inspired.
Both sides of the statue debate have used old testament verses in the Bible to justify their stance. The “Southern Heritage” side have pointed to verses like Proverbs 22:28. However, there are also those who point to “Biblical reasons for removing statues” comparing the Confederate statues to “idolatry.”
Now, however, the momentum of destroying statues and monuments has not stopped. What is condemning the “heritage” crowd is their relative silence when it comes to destroying the monuments of African American soldiers in Europe or Native Americans at the national parks in America. Doesn’t Proverbs 22:28, the Shamrock and Superman also apply to them? This is why I put “heritage” in quotes when it comes to CSA symbols, they seem to expect others to stand up for their symbols, but we don’t see them protesting to preserve the symbols of others.
It is not just an American issue. Songs, flags, statues, slogans, memorials, and other symbols of ethnic identity and historical remembrance are the subjects of controversy and legislation throughout the world. The President of Romania recently objected to an unclear law which would bring new limits on free speech, but the courts passed it anyway. Ireland rejected a similar law. If you attend the museums in Estonia, you can see how removals of statues about the past led to protests.
However, the cases outside the United States usually don’t get global publicity. If you live in Belgium and go to a lot of museums, you might think everyone knows about Leopold II, but I doubt most people outside of Belgium ever heard of him. It was protests that started in America that made his statue more controversial in Belgium, but some wonder if the protestors in America ever heard of Leopold II, knew there were three Leopolds altogether, could find Belgium on a map or even pronounce “Leopold.”
I would suggest giving statues a kind of a fair trial. Instead of a mob or a President deciding what stays up and what goes down, why not have a level headed discussion, with an impartial jury listening to the defendents and the prosecution?
In any case, I think we should preserve history, especially indigenous history, whether it be the indigenious people of the USA, Asia, Europe, or whereever. The sense of identity, of community, of self-knowledge, is a good thing. We shouldn’t wait for others to attack our own heritage to defend it.