h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today's US statue madness report, courtesy of the Raleigh (North Carolina) News and Observer, and other reliable sources, including but not limited to archive.org. (I am nothing if not thorough.)

DATELINE: DURHAM, North Carolina. (Full disclosure: until a couple of years ago, I lived there.) After the crowd vandalised the Confederate statue, several arrests were made for vandalism, because they didn't have a permit to vandalise statues. A large number of protesters thereupon lined up at the police station and claimed to have been involved. This is known as the 'I Am Spartacus' form of protest. I smell students.

The KKK announced yesterday that it was marching in Durham to fuss about 'their' statue (it wasn't their statue, of course), but didn't show up. That's an old trick: pretend you're going to cause a riot, so the other side shows up in force and causes one for you. A lot of protesters showed up, but no KKK. They burned a Confederate flag, posted on Twitter, sang a few songs, and went peacefully home to the air conditioning. The heat index in Durham was 107F, which is not conducive to strenuous politicising.

Also yesterday, somebody damaged the statue of Robert E Lee which was in a niche in Duke University's chapel. (The chapel has a lot of niches with historical figures.) Today, the university's president - who rejoices in the name of Vincent Price - announced they'd removed General Lee.

http://www.newsobserver.com/latest-news/article168160037.html

I applaud this wise decision for several reasons, not least because Robert E Lee was the president of a different university: Washington University, now called Washington and Lee, in Lexington, Virginia. Now, if he'd been Duke's president, that would be a different story. Washington and Lee can keep their statues, Lee is buried there.

I also like what President Price said:

'...we will use the next year to explore various aspects of Duke's history and ambitions through teaching and scholarship. This will include an exhibition in the Library; a campus conversation about controversy and injustice in Duke’s history; and a forum to explore academic freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly in the university. Further information about these programs will be forthcoming.'

Good choice.

Over in CHAPEL HILL: This town, along with Raleigh, forms one of the points of Research Triangle Park, the high-tech region of the Southeast US. Chapel Hill also has a university, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The students at UNCCH have petitioned the local authorities to remove Silent Sam, the Confederate statue, before anything else happens - to him, or them, or Chapel Hill.

Meanwhile, in ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, up in the mountains: Dr Wesley Fennell, a local photographer and former NAACP president, asked the city council to consider replacing their Confederate monument with a better one: he wants them to honour the Quakers who resisted the Confederacy and the war.

http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/local/randolph-county-man-requests-removal-of-courthouse-confederate-monument/463215222

This is a splendid idea, IMHO. I've been wanting this for a long time. Yes, I know, Quakers don't want monuments. They're above earthly pomp. But I think we need one.

Talking points:

1. Putting up a Confederate statue actually falsifies Randolph County's history. At least 90% of voters in Randolph County *opposed* secession in 1861. The newspaper's right: I checked.

2. The Quakers in North Carolina did astoundingly brave things during that horrendous period of history. They not only opposed slavery, but they refused to fight in a war.

How hard did they refuse to fight? Some of them were tortured by their fellow humans, sometimes to death. Don't believe me? I thought not. There are eyewitness accounts. Try 'Southern Heroes', by FG Cartland. I have other sources bookmarked, if you think he's making it up.

http://archive.org/details/southernheroes00cart

When we talk about 'telling the whole story', how about we get that in there? People who think their Southern 'heritage' necessarily involves the glossy, official story involving romantic plantation owners' kids who'd read too much Walter Scott, really need to know more about the real history of the region. Especially about the mountain people, and the Quakers, and the maroon communities, and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, and the war resisters hiding in caves in the Tennessee Cumberland Plateau, and...

See what I mean? Any history is a lot more complicated once you get started studying it. And sure, maybe nobody's got time for that stuff right now.

But unless they have got time to sort all that out, could they pretty please with sugar on top go argue about something that's happening right now? And quit turning our complicated past into a sound bite? There's a reason why we have academic historians, people. And why you're supposed to pay attention in class.

Or stop demonstrating and go watch 'Cold Mountain' again. The pluses on that are you get to see Jude Law and Nicole Kidman try to avoid the Civil War, and you can enjoy some Carpathian scenery. Which makes about as much sense as the Twitter generation's take on history, so there you are. And the music's better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vri7zLa44uc

Fascinating stuff - thanks Dmitri - I really enjoy reading these!

I wonder where 'Cold Mountain's Oscar-winning writer & director is from?

<BB<

Sneaky booger. I had to look that up.

Well, he's a really good director, and he did Charles Fraser proud.