The stars and bars are coming down in the USA. NASCAR will not have confederate symbols. Bubba Wallace, the only black top tier driver, has been asking for this for a long time. (https://www.cbssports.com/nascar/news/nascar-bans-confederate-flags-and-removes-guidelines-requiring-standing-for-national-anthem/)
President of the American South during the War between the States (1861-1865), Jefferson Davis, is no longer the hero for many in this troubling time. His statue will be removed from the state capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky and has already gone from Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the South during that war. (https://www.wlky.com/article/confederate-statue-will-be-removed-from-kentuckys-capitol-jefferson-davis/32852555)
Revisiting the assumptions and the conclusions of previous histories is what historians have done since time immemorial. Thusydides had his views of the Peloponnesian War in 430 BCE or so. I'm sure moderns would reevaluate it in history of the world classes. That's how history works and gets reworked. I read a great quote by a Civil War historian I'll never forget. (https://www.paperbackswap.com/Historians-Who-Make-Stupid-Mistakes/topic/251390/) He said, if you want to be an expert on a subject only read one book. "If you want to be an expert on the Civil War, only read one book. If you read another book then you will discover that the second author does not always agree with the first. So you will have to read a third book to find out who is right. After 3,000 books you are just getting started." He writes often in that thread about mistakes made by this one or that one.
This from the Telegraph in the UK, on Friday:
"Fuelled by last weekend's events in Bristol, where protesters took it upon themselves to pull down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston and dispose of it in a nearby river, the protests have only gained more attention. The removal of more statues followed, including one of Robert Milligan, another slave trader in Canary Wharf this week.” (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/12/attempting-revise-british-history-dangerous-telegraph-readers/)
Arthur Schlesinger wrote this in 1986, "American historians call revisionism...a readiness to challenge official explanations. No one should be surprised by this phenomenon. Every war in American history has been followed, in due course, by skeptical reassessments of supposedly sacred assumptions . . . for [historical] revisionism is an essential part of the process, by which history, through the posing of new problems and the investigation of new possibilities, enlarges its perspectives and enriches its insights." (The Cycles of American history)
When FOX-news presenter, Harris Faulkner, interviewed President Trump on Thursday, she brought up his quote about looting and shooting. The Washington Post commented here. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/12/trump-fox-protest-faulkner/) Harris asked the president if he knew the source of the quote.
“I think Philadelphia,” he said. “The mayor of Philadelphia.”
“No,” Faulkner interrupted, cutting the president off again. “It comes from 1967.”
The host went on to inform Trump that the words were first uttered by Walter Headley, the Miami police chief who held a news conference in 1967 “declaring war” on criminals as armed robberies and unrest consumed black neighborhoods in the city. Headley warned at the time that officers would use shotguns and dogs, adding, “We don’t mind being accused of police brutality.”
I intend nothing political in this commentary today about any person, whether Jeff Davis, Bubba Wallace, Donald Trump or anyone! My thinking today is all about revisionism. And I worry that we might tear down something in anger or frustration. Alternatively, we might guard something in historic honour which should have been gone long ago.
Take Babi Yar in Ukraine, for instance. The Jewish news in Australia is reporting this week about controversy there just outside Kiev. (https://plus61j.net.au/panel-picks/controversy-surrounds-memorial-project-planned-babi-yar/) The venue is infamous for the murder of over 30,000 Jewish people in 1941 in a three-day span. It's a horrible history, and now there will be conversation and re-enactments of the story. Will the historians find fault with its message? Will they be 'faithful to the story' as it's retold after the memorials are built and re-told?
That's the question of revisionism.
A man in Iraq, whose family shrank by 14 members due to Saddam Hussein's murderous ways, was involved in the toppling of the statue of Saddam. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9wC6W7EJpg) But now he sees the evils of the current regime and he is rethinking the toppling.
Maybe we have to let some serious time separate us from the history we want to revisit. Like the US Civil War. 160 years is probably enough to reconsider the honour we extend to heroes of the American South who were slave owners and such. Yes, the information is probably all in, and we can revisit and revise our historical Honor Roll. Thus, goodbye Jefferson Davis, and many others. See this from the Washington Post. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/with-virginias-effort-to-remove-lee-statue-on-hold-protesters-topple-confederate-figures/2020/06/11/4cc88d2a-abf5-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html)
The Carmelite nuns of Auschwitz have had a continuing controversy with the historical world. Set up in 1984, the convent of maybe a dozen sisters, one of whom survived the camp there, the sisters wanted to name the place after Edith Stein. Problem is Edith was a Jewess who converted to Catholicism and was later beatified. Naming the convent after her brought loud outcries from the Jewish community and the sisters dropped that idea. I remember in the 1990s when some of the nuns were asked to leave that convent. Uproars from around the globe caused more considerations. They left. How will history record the place in 20 years? In 100 years?
My point today is to get us thinking and discussing the issue of revisionism. What will they be saying about John Kennedy or Jeffrey Epstein or Jefferson Davis in 20 years?
When I prop all this up against the history of the Newer Testament, I'm ever grateful for the rigorous treatment of the writers in putting in enough data to help us, 2000 years later, to evaluate the book and the stories themselves. Jesus really did live. He really did die. He really did rise from the dead. Corroboration has happened. History there is settled. And if you trust the message, your own life will be settled. Faith does that.
Shabbat shalom.
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