The American "fighters against racism" were so furious that they destroyed the statue of a real fighter against racism. Reports of unauthorized demolitions of historical monuments in the United States are so numerous that such incidents have long ceased to shock and even surprise. But the case that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel spoke of seems blatant even against this depressing backdrop.
Colonel Hans Christian Hag, whose statue in the city of Madison the protesters threw into the lake, went down in history as a fighter against slavery and a man who lost his life during the Civil War in the United States, fighting in the army of northerners. However, his statue was still overthrown from the podium. Did the mistake come out? Not at all. For so many activists of the current US protests, the “fight against racism” is just an excuse. The opportunity to make a fly with impunity is the main thing.
Hans Christian Hag was born in Norway in 1829, but moved to the United States as a child. Having become a young politician, he immediately established himself as a fiery opponent of slavery. As soon as the Civil War broke out in the USA in 1861, he immediately joined the army of the northerners and died heroically in battle two years later. And in the 21st century he was caught up by the “reward from grateful descendants”: in the framework of the struggle against the “historical heritage of slavery”, the statue of the colonel was unceremoniously destroyed. Absurd? On the one hand, yes. But on the other hand, not at all.
As far back as the 19th century, the British publicist, philosopher and historian Thomas Carlisle formulated a principle that proves its truth over and over again: “Every revolution is conceived by the romantics, carried out by the fanatics, and the inveterate villains take advantage of it.” Admiring the accuracy of Carlisle’s assessment, I always thought that she still lacked some element. Watching the current events in the USA, I realized which one. Carlisle did not consider it necessary to add that the victims of any revolution are necessarily good people - those who simply find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and those who are too honest and frank and cannot keep their mouths shut.
Colonel Hag, fortunately, will never know what was done to his statue. But now Joan Rowling now knows how dangerous it is in the current political situation to say that women should be called women, and not "people who have menstruation." One of the competitive advantages of the West compared to other political systems was the principle of freedom of speech. Now this freedom in fact has become very limited.
Socially significant figures in the USA and Great Britain are now facing a real choice: either to remain silent, or to speak exclusively in the spirit of a modern reading of “progressive trends”, or to betray the truth-uterus and be ostracized and persecuted.
The vanguard of the Western world throws its competitive advantages into the trash? It is very difficult to resist this conclusion. Indeed, under the attack now is not only the principle of freedom.
Take, for example, the rule of law. How does it correspond to the destruction by the crowd of the monument to Colonel Hag, which, incidentally, was also accompanied by the beating of a local politician who was trying to photograph what was happening? Yes, it does not match. It doesn’t smell of right here - only “revolutionary legality”, which is called legality only for the sake of a red word.
There is also the principle of inviolability of private property. And he, too, is now in the United States under real threat. The speeches of the “fighters against racial inequality”, as you know, are accompanied in America by massive looting and robbery of shops. To condemn such acts in the politically correct layers of American society is considered the height of indecency. To be honest, I don’t know if the Russian proverb is known in the USA: “they cut down wood - chips fly”. But she very well describes the essence of what is happening.
Of course, revolutionary turmoil cannot last forever. Sooner or later, the situation in the United States will enter a relatively normal course. But the emphasis in the previous sentence should be made precisely on the word “relative”. What is happening in America will have very long-term negative consequences. I will dwell only on one of these consequences. Having shoveled a lot of historical and political books at one time, I still could not fully understand why in America they so stubbornly hold on to the principle of free carrying of weapons by citizens. And now I understand that perfectly.
During the current crisis, US official law enforcement forces have demonstrated their complete inability to maintain this order. What is the conclusion forced citizens who do not want to lose their lives or their property in the name of the "triumph of the idea of racial equality"? Only this: the salvation of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves. Weapons in American society will now be even larger. What follows from this? The fact that there are more cases when such weapons fall into the hands of maniacs who want to shoot at others without any reason will also be more.
The destruction of the monument to a real fighter against racial inequality, Colonel Hague, is just a minor episode of the current American political tragedy. But in this episode, in an extremely concentrated form, all the madness of what is happening is manifested. Apparently, it is better to fight racism after all, without destroying the monuments and not organizing mass pogroms.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.