“Removing a monument
doesn’t remove the history. It removes the myth.”
That was the last phrase
on the last slide as John Bodnar concluded his remarks at “Monuments, Memory,
and Meaning after Charlottesville.”
Bodnar was one of four IU
historians who spoke [7] and discussed at the Monroe County Library Monday
evening, Sept. 19. The other three were Maria Bucur [4], Michelle Moyd [5], and
Edward Lilenthal.
Here is what I learned:
There are three phases in the
life of a statue [landscape monument] or other monument/memorial.
The first is mourning. The
suffering of the war or event is new and real. This is the time when statues of
suffering rather than heroism are raised. [1] Most Confederate memorials in the
early years after The Civil War were driven by white women who had lost sons
and husbands and were grieving. [2] This is the “lest we forget” phase. We are
in that now with 9/11 memorials.
The second phase is
forgetting. “Lest we forget” is replaced with “Let’s forget.” Nobody wants to
be responsible for all the deaths and misery. Who can white Southerners blame
for 200,000 white deaths? So the myth begins, symbolized by the monuments.
These were heroic figures, fighting an heroic battle. The point is not slavery
or other social issues but heroism in the face of the foe. Nobody is
responsible. It just sort of happened and we reacted with courage. [6]
Finally, the myth is
complete. It was a noble but lost cause. It’s just history, something to
cherish. [3] Also, since it was a noble but lost cause, it is a myth we can use
to revive old passions.
Monuments are not
primarily historical; they are primarily mythical.
JRMcF
Yes, I know, the footnotes
are out of order… or are they?
1] There are
statues that depict not the heroism of war but its suffering. They are raised
in the early mourning period. Bodnar
showed a slide from a New Mexico town. Because a New Mexico National Guard unit
was sent to the Philippines in WWII, many New Mexico towns have statues
depicting American soldiers in great agony on the Bataan death march. Those were
their boys, and that is what they
want to remember.
2] For blacks, however,
the main memorials at this time were celebrations of emancipation, even though
there were black deaths to mourn, too.
3] Not everyone gets
caught up in the nobility of lost causes, though. My author friend, Elaine
Palencia, went to Oxford, MS to tour the William Faulkner sites. She was
looking at the Confederate monument statue when an old guy came up to her and
said, “You know what that is?” He spat and said, “It’s a prize for second
place.”
4] Bucur focused primarily
on how Romania dealt with the statues of WWII dictator, Ion Antonescu.
5] Moye focused on the
controversy about the statue of a black soldier [Askari] in service of the
British in colonial times, in Dar es Salaam.
6] Even well-intentioned
memorials participate in this. Bodnor noted that Tom Brokaw depicts “the
greatest generation” in a war in which nobody died.
7] Although Helen is no
historian, she was glad we went. She’s quite interested in the topic. But she
was discouraged by the speaking competence. “I had no idea that four faculty
members at IU would not be able to speak any better than that.” She knows that
content is more important than delivery, and she liked the content, what she
could get of it. But all four, Bodnor the least, did their content a disservice
by inadequate volume and enunciation, stumbling reading of their own material,
and far too many “ums,” [I began to think we were in a monastery.] The problem
for Helen may be that she hears the excellent Jimmy Moore speak every Sunday
and unconsciously her bar has been raised higher than most.
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