Tag: statue genocide

bookmark_borderRubbing salt in the wounds

Posted on by Marissa

As part of the senseless war against every person and thing from history that is unique or different, there has been a concerted effort to obliterate the legacy of Christopher Columbus. One of the most despicable instances of this has taken place in the city of Columbus, Ohio. Reprehensibly, the city decided to remove two beautiful statues of the Italian hero: one outside city hall and one at a community college. Making this even more disgusting is the fact that the statue at city hall was gifted by Columbus’s hometown of Genoa, Italy in 1955. Genoa and Columbus were considered sister cities until the latter decided to spit in the face of the Italian-American community by repudiating both its Italian counterpart and its namesake. 

A recent column by Theodore Decker of the Columbus Dispatch makes light of this situation in a way that I find offensive and disrespectful to those who have been hurt by the city’s actions. The column is titled, “Amid a raging storm, Columbus finds a safe harbor on Statehouse lawn.” Thinking that perhaps some entity had actually decided to think for itself and keep a Columbus statue in place, I clicked on the article. Unfortunately, the title was somewhat deceptive. Far from having announced the intention to let Columbus stay, the Ohio state government had determined that the city’s only remaining statue of its namesake, located outside the State House, will likely be obliterated along with the other two; there will just be a five-year process to make the decision official.

In the column, Decker pokes fun at Columbus and portrays the heartless and bigoted assault on him as something neutral or even positive. “Columbus the man, as you know, has taken a bit of a blow to his reputation, what with the pretty much indisputable allegations of genocide and all,” Decker writes. The allegations of genocide are actually very disputable; see this paper by the Sons of Italy, for example. Additionally, Decker points out in a flippant and almost gleeful tone that the explorer has “fallen from grace,” that the two statues of him were “swiftly vanquished,” that the city’s “love affair with Columbus the man was fading,” and that his reputation has been “tainted by, well, the complexities that accompany historical reality.” And he jokes that the statues were moved to “the city’s top-secret government base, Area 1492.”

Making matters worse, Decker seems to take delight in the fact that one of the few people with the courage to defend Columbus – State Rep. Larry Householder – happened to be arrested for money laundering. “Nobody is perfect,” Householder pointed out in defense of Columbus. Decker takes a dismissive tone towards this comment, but it is actually an important and meaningful point. The attitude of the anti-statue crowd is, indeed, that anyone who is not perfect by their standards should be destroyed. This ideology is disturbing because of its bigotry and intolerance, because of the inconsistency with which it is applied, and because it strips the world of everything meaningful, distinctive, and interesting. Householder is therefore correct to take a stand against it.

But this point is lost on Decker, who seems to care about nothing but reveling in the misfortune of others. I don’t get what the money laundering charges against Householder have to do with Columbus, and I don’t see the purpose of pointing them out, other than to further stigmatize and inflict additional pain on those who are already on the minority side of an issue. What is the point of writing a column that consists solely of kicking people who are already down and rubbing salt into the wounds of people who are already hurting? The brutal campaign of destruction against Columbus is not funny. It is a vicious assault on a brave and remarkable man who is unable to defend himself. Seeing a man who I love and admire being treated this way is heartbreaking, infuriating, and soul-crushing. To make light of these despicable actions demonstrates a complete lack of empathy for those who have been harmed. No matter what imperfections Christopher Columbus might have had, it is indisputable that he risked his life for what he believed in. Has Decker ever sailed into uncharted territory, braved sickness and starvation, interacted with people from a completely unknown civilization, and established a settlement in a foreign land? My guess would be no. Instead, it appears that he does nothing but sit on his butt writing columns that ridicule and insult people. He should consider actually fighting for something that he believes in, or attempting to contribute something positive to the world, as opposed to gleefully pointing out the flaws of others and delighting in their misfortune.

bookmark_borderThoughts on the destruction of Frederik V statue in Copenhagen

Posted on by Marissa

A few months ago, a group of artists stole a bust of King Frederick V from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and dumped it into Copenhagen Harbor. By the time the statue was found, it was ruined beyond repair, its head and neck eaten away by the water.

Frederick’s crime? Ruling over a country that had colonies and participated in the slave trade and sugar trade. At the time of Frederick’s rule (from 1746-1766), Denmark had several colonies, including the Danish West Indies, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and minor outposts in India and Ghana. Denmark abolished the slave trade in 1792 and ceded most of its colonies by the 20th century. 

According to a New York Times article, the group said in a statement: “We want an art world that relates to and takes responsibility — not only for the actions of the past, but for the ways in which colonialism is still active today.” They added that they wanted to demonstrate solidarity with people affected by colonialism and to spark dialogue with Denmark’s institutions. Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, a professor at the academy, was fired for her role in the statue’s destruction. According to the Times, she said that she “hoped to trigger a broader reflection on cultural institutions’ role during the colonial period” and to draw attention to existing laws that some people consider to be “harsh and discriminatory.”

People have every right to hold and express any opinions they wish about colonialism, slavery, discrimination, or any other topic. But to steal and destroy a work of art is never OK. It is the ultimate in arrogance to presume that your beliefs give you the right to steal and destroy the property of others, particularly when the property in question is a beautiful and irreplaceable statue. Destroying a work of art is an act of aggression, not only against the institution or individual that owns it but also against the artist whose skills and hard work created it and anyone in the world who loves and admires it. Aggressing against others is not an acceptable way of starting a dialogue with them or inspiring reflection. It is ironic that this act of vandalism was motivated by a desire to protest against harsh and discriminatory laws. In my opinion, destroying a work of art is one of the harshest actions someone could take, and it is also discriminatory against people who do not share your beliefs.

The Academy Council, which owned the bust, condemned its destruction and implored people not to impose the norms of the present on people from the past. An opinion piece in the Danish newspaper Berlingske wrote: “The methods of identity politics are intolerance, exclusion, cancel culture, and physical destruction.” It described the mindset as “nothing must be left, everything existing must be leveled.”

This is 100% correct. Hypocritically, it is the people who profess to value tolerance and inclusion who are the most exclusive and intolerant. It is the people who profess to value kindness, justice, and human decency who perpetrate vicious acts of destruction against those with whom they disagree. 

Art history professor Mathias Danbolt, according to the NYT article, criticized people who use “the logic of deflection” and complained that “the scandal is never about the visual, political or cultural history of colonialism” but instead about the destruction of the statues. I disagree with his take. The destruction of statues and other priceless works of art is the real problem. To treat it as such is not deflection, but recognition of how truly heinous and atrocious it is. History contains a nearly infinite number of people and events, some good, some bad, some just, some unjust, and some in between. In my opinion, no event in history compares in brutality, injustice, and sheer awfulness to the statue genocide perpetrated during 2020 and 2021. Most people likely disagree with me on this. If you consider colonialism and slavery to be bigger problems than statue genocide, you have a right to your opinions, but I have a right to mine as well. It is not deflection to have a different opinion about which injustices are the most worthy of criticism and condemnation.

bookmark_borderAlabama votes to save statues

Posted on by Marissa

In this era of all-out assault against everything Confederate, statues will remain relatively safe in Alabama, at least for the time being. This week, Alabama’s House Judiciary Committee voted down legislation that would weaken the protections in the the 2017 Memorial Preservation Act, which forbids cities and towns from taking down monuments over 40 years old and fines them $25,000 for doing so. 

Rep. Juandalynn Givan, who sponsored the legislation, characterized it as a “reasonable compromise” and said that opposition was motivated by racism, according to the Associated Press. “We are in the state of Alabama and there is still much to be done with regards to the issues of the Confederacy and the beliefs of those individuals who believe in the Confederate monuments, in the Confederate flag,” she said. “Dr. Maya Angelou once said, ‘When people show you who they are, believe them.’ They have shown who they are.”

These sentiments are deeply wrong for numerous reasons. First of all, opposition to removing statues is not motivated by racism. It is motivated by the fact that a world without statues honoring a wide variety of historical figures, including Confederate ones, is not a world worth living in. As someone on the autism spectrum who loves historical figures more than anything else in the world, I have spent more days than I can count over the past year crying, screaming, and being completely overcome by grief and despair because of the devastating destruction that has taken place. The enormity of the damage that Givan and those who share her beliefs have inflicted is impossible to convey in words. There is nothing racist about opposing the complete destruction of everything good in the world.

With respect to Givan’s claim that her legislation is a reasonable compromise: when a person or group of people is attempting to obliterate from the world everything that makes life worth living, compromise is not the appropriate response. The only reasonable option is to restore all of the Confederate statues and symbols that have been taken away. Opening up the possibility for removing even more statues should not even be considered an option.

Additionally, it is disturbing to read Givan’s comments about “the beliefs of those individuals who believe in the Confederate monuments, in the Confederate flag” and how “there is still much to be done” about this. What kind of person views the existence of people with dissenting opinions as a problem to be solved? This is totalitarian and is the ultimate in bigotry and intolerance.

Finally, it is true that opponents of Givan’s legislation “have shown who they are.” They have shown that, unlike Givan and supporters of the legislation, they believe in tolerance and inclusion. They believe in honoring a diverse array of historical figures. They believe in a world that actually contains beauty, goodness, and things that make life worth living. I’m not sure why Givan considers this a bad thing. 

According to the AP article, Rep. Mike Holmes, a brave defender of statues, was asked about “the feelings of slave descendants” and replied that there is no proof the Civil War was about slavery or white supremacy. He is 100% right. I would add an additional response of my own: the feelings of slave defendants matter the same amount as the feelings of anyone else. The fact that someone was descended from slaves does not give that person the right to inflict unbearable agony on other people. The fact that someone was descended from slaves does not give that person the right to obliterate all beauty, all goodness, all uniqueness, all diversity, and all hope from the world. It does not give a person the right to trample on the rights of those with different backgrounds, values, and beliefs.

The Southern Poverty Law Center issued a statement complaining that “these dehumanizing symbols of pain and oppression continue to serve as backdrops to important government buildings, halls of justice, public parks, and U.S. military properties.” They also complained that “preservation laws prohibit communities from making their own decisions about what they want to see in their public spaces.”

To call Confederate statues “dehumanizing” is the farthest thing possible from the truth. Confederate statues are beautiful, wonderful, amazing, glorious, and inspiring. It is their destruction that is truly dehumanizing. Removing statues divests the world of everything that makes life worth living. It destroys hope. It treats people like me, who love history, as if our feelings do not matter, as if our wishes do not matter, and as if our happiness does not matter. Anyone who does not see this has no soul.

On the SPLC’s other point, prohibiting communities from making decisions about which statues should be allowed to exist is actually precisely what the law should do. No one should be able to remove any statue, ever, because that violates the rights of the people who like the statue. Once a statue is built, it should remain forever, and no one should be able to take it down. Therefore, Alabama’s Memorial Preservation Act is morally right, and all states should enact similar laws. It is excellent news that this law is staying in place.