The Rise of the American ISIS:
Cultural Cleansing Gone Wild
Published in Marietta Daily Journal May 28, 2017
There he dangled from a crane,
dishonored in mid-air, the distinguished Southern gentleman, Robert E. Lee. On Friday, May 19, the city of New Orleans
removed the statue of Lee from Liberty Place on Lee Circle.
New Orleans has besmirched a historical figure
whose 20-foot tall statue has stood since 1884.
Lee was no Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.
He was a gentle, honored military man, a product of his own times as we
all are. A West Point graduate, he also
served as West Point’s Superintendent.
But he was a Confederate, and although respected by Union General Grant
and President Lincoln as well, he had to go.
That’s the mood of the cleansers and
revisionist historians these days. Deny
history, delete memory, destroy artifacts and statues if you don’t like whom
they tell of.
Lincoln was disappointed that Lee
would not accept his offer to lead the Union army, but never questioned the
sincerity or the reason for Lee’s refusal.
Grant admired Lee as well.
Practically all biographies of Grant and Lee describe their
conversations at Appomattox as cordial and respectful.
Lee inherited slaves but freed them after his
father’s death and before the Emancipation Proclamation. Grant owned slaves too and kept a personal
slave. Shall our cultural cleansers, then,
go to Point Pleasant, Ohio and smash the Grant museum? Or to D.C. and put the crane to the
magnificent Grant Memorial? If you’ve noticed, cultural cleansing is always
selective.
Incidentally, under dark of night
New Orleans also removed the statues of Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard. Davis I have studied extensively. He was not an evil man. Ask any major historian about Davis, a U.S.
Senator, Secretary of War, and distinguished soldier in the Mexican War.
On my desk in my home sit two small
flags extending from the same small black stand. One is the American flag to which I pledge
total allegiance and which reminds me daily that representative democracy is
still an experiment.
The
other is the Confederate flag. It
reminds me of ancestors, mere “boys” at the time, none of whom ever owned a
slave, never personally defended slavery, but fought for the region they lived
in and loved. I doubt that young Rebs
felt passionately either way about slavery.
Many of them were dirt poor and viewed rich landowners and the plantation
class as their oppressors.
On
my bookshelf lined with biographies of our presidents is imminent historian
William Cooper’s biography of Jefferson Davis.
It’s where it belongs chronologically, right between Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Davis was my great-grandfather’s president
for only a short time, but a president still, as surely as was Lincoln and all
the other presidents under whom my great-grandfather lived. Facts are facts.
If my Confederate flag and my Davis
biography placement make me a racist, why did I as a 23 year old teacher
volunteer to teach at a black school to help advance integration in Meridian,
Mississippi? Why do I admire Martin
Luther King? If my home state hasn’t
made great strides in race, why does Mississippi have more black elected public
officials today than any other state in the nation? As was the case with the
election of President Obama, those officials had to get a large percentage of
the white vote to get elected.
The word “racist” is the label for
anyone who doesn’t agree with the labelers.
It has also led to ISIS-like cultural cleansing that defies belief.
Part of ISIS strategy has been the
removal or destruction of artifacts, libraries, and statues that celebrate
history ISIS doesn’t like. This strategy
is exactly the same as that of those who are bent on ridding the nation of all
things Confederate.
Of
course New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu delivered the fashionable, obligatory
apology. As the Lee statue was being removed, Landrieu
apologized for slavery. This business of apologizing for something you never
did is absolutely self-righteous and self-serving.
New Orleans has always been known
for its diversity, but not so much now.
Turns out there is some diversity the city won’t allow.
The same is true for Henry County,
GA whose commission recently required the removal of Confederate flags in a
county Civil War Museum! Not to compare
the stars and bars to the swastika, but don’t the cleansers know that some
Holocaust museums display the swastika for educational purposes?
With apologies to Edmund Burke,
cultural cleansing will continue as long as good people do nothing. And to any and all memory erasers, my own
response is NEVER!
Roger
Hines
5/24/17
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