The problem with “History” and symbols is that they are interpretive. “History” is a narrative about the past, made up and told by people. It is not the past itself, but a representation/interpretation of it. Thus, “history” is a narrative that is generally as flawed as the humans writing it, or telling it. And all humans are deeply flawed (me first and foremost from where I stand).
Symbols — including statues/monuments and flags — it’s true, inherently have a meaning about which there is a consensus of some degree. But as well, on the personal level, any symbol that is somewhat complex means something specific to any one individual. And likely even that personal meaning shape-shifts depending on how the person is feeling and thinking in any specific moment s/he thinks about or sees the symbol.
See the first photo above here of the top section of a statue? Do you know who that is? I don’t, but I’ll figure that out with some more research, or when one of you writes to inform me. Just for fun, grab one other person, and both of you look at the image, and write down what it means or says to you. Then read your descriptions to each other. I bet they aren’t identical, even if they are similar.
I live in Charlottesville, Virginia. On August 11 & 12, 2017, throngs of white-supremists (WSs from now on) came to our town to — as they saw it — defend the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee that stands in a small city park adjacent to our downtown pedestrian mall. The WSs don’t like that we, as a city, have decided to remove the statue as soon as we can. There are locals who don’t want the statue removed as well, but enough of us here in town expressed that we want it gone for the city to move forward with that plan.
On August 12, 2017, one person was killed and 29 other injured in the chaos brought to town by the WSs (and yes, a few were also locals). The WSs also marched through our town, in different locations, sometimes with lit torches to invoke Nazi and Klu Klux Klan rallies that many humans thought were a thing of the past. At other times, they marched around with loaded guns — many, many of them. Much violence and many clashes of different descriptions occurred that fatal weekend. Please read and research as much as you need to if you’d like a fuller account.
I took the photo above here of the statue, in the park, surrounded by barricade fencing put in place in the park and on the street it abuts as means of crowd/people control during August 10, 11, 12 of this year, 2018. Our city braced for possibly the worst — some sort of replay of last year — as the One-Year-Later weekend approached. And the trouble with the statue persists, even while a bunch of similar Confederate monument statues came down very quickly following the events now known as #A12 here in the town now known as #Charlottesville. I was inspired to write this piece by the most recent statue removal: a group of mostly young people of approximately college age toppled the statue known as ‘Silent Sam’ on the campus of UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on 8/20/2018.
The symbol in the image above evokes strong emotions and has a clear meaning for many people. It is commonly regarded as the Confederate flag, though it is technically the ‘Confederate Navy Jack’, and a different flag was the ‘official’ flag of the Confederacy. If you hadn’t already, perhaps you are starting to understand how non-static and flexible all of this “history” and symbolism actually is.
Civil War, Statue, Flag — pick and choose your meanings:
To some, that flag represents their own personal pride in the southern states that seceded from the Union because they didn’t like being told what to do when the union told them to do stuff they disagreed with.
To some other people, that flag represents the southern states that tried to leave the Union because it was going to end the enslavement of the descendants of Africans captured and brought here. These people think that’s the main thing the southern states didn’t like being told — that slavery was going to be taken from them. And the state constitutions of the majority of the Confederate states, still available to read on-line — do in fact say explicitly and clearly that the state is going to or has seceded in order uphold the institution of slavery.
So fast-forward back to today. Who is right? Who is correct? Which narrative is the true “history” of the United States and the Civil War? What does that flag really mean, and what does our General Lee statue mean? Many people today ask: aren’t triumphant looking military figure statues supposed to be of people who won wars, not of people who lost them? The questions, opinions, conflicts, and debates are numerous and ongoing.
What are statues for? Do they matter at all? Who should get to say? These are only a few more of the debates that still have us divided these days in this country.
I think they are excellent questions that deserve discussion, because they pertain to our everyday lives. But I also think that an understanding of what “history” really is would help to cool the flames of anger that rage across the landscape. Because if we admit and embrace the non-certainty of “history,” and acknowledge that it is not a set of facts, but a story that attempts to use what we call facts as a foundation for a narrative, we would find the ounce of humility that might bring us back to the table to talk with one another. It might get us off the screaming streets-a-blaze, and out of the declare-your-version-categorically-correct-and-hate-on-all-others cyber-verse, and bring us face to face to speak with one another again. And that would be a good thing.
That would be an example for our children. I don’t have any of my own, but I’m pretty sure that the way many “adults” behave these days in the realm of socio-politics is not how we tell our youth that they should behave … ever. We hate, we spew, we name-call, we make fun-of. We don’t honor the humanity of those with whom we disagree. Instead we call them stupid. We toss their values and beliefs aside like dirty, stinky trash when they don’t align with ours. We paint huge swaths of the population with giant brushes — they are the bad guys. Because we think, I suppose, that then we can be done with it.
Well, how’s it working for us?
Above here is a photograph of me and my husband, several years before we got married. We’ve been a couple for twenty-seven years. When we met I was 19, and he was 21. My mother was a white German lady. My father was a darker-than-me Trinidadian man. No symbol, and no statue, and no screaming, gun-toting, torch wielding mobs will ever dampen the deep, deep love and connected-ness that my husband and I exist in every single minute of every single day. This is the existential reality that is not changed by whatever version of “history” people insist is the correct and true version. Our bond and the deep humanity we two continually recognize and honor in each other, and thrive on, is beyond all the noise and squabble. Thank the good universe that hosts us.
The problem with “history” and symbols is that they are what any one individual wants them to be. And thus, they can become dividers, and even reasons to go to war with each other — even on the normally quiet streets of a little city called Charlottesville, Virginia.
I am an optimist, so I believe we’ll figure this all out and that humans on Earth will evolve past all this — eventually. And for today, if I disagree with you, and you with me, my recognition of your soul as a precious thing will be more powerful than any hatred you think you have for me. Your insistence of the absolute truth of “history” and meaning — I’ll leave those to you — as epistemologically unsound (or sound) as they may be. The problem with “history” and symbols — as difficult as it makes things — also holds the potential for conversations, and compassion, and humility, and agreements-to-disagree. We can do this, people. We can do this.
Thank you for reading. Please write to me with your responses, reflections, questions, or concerns.
Love, light, peace, and power to you until next time.
Check out my books too https://gretavonkirchmann.com/my-books
[All text and 2nd photo by and copyright Greta von Kirchmann]
{Last photo Catherine Emery-Bricker]
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