“Without understanding who is good, who is bad”: how in the USA they call to reconsider the historical heritage

The Mississippi House of Representatives and Senate approved a bill to reject the state flag, which depicts the banner of the Confederation.

“Today we are better than we were yesterday,” the Mississippi Today local news portal quotes the speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and the author of the bill, Philip Gann. - Today, the future is rooted in the present. Today, together with the rest of the country's population, we can take a fresh look at our staff - with pride and hope. ”

Gann also added that, abandoning the flag with the banner of the Confederation, the residents of Mississippi allegedly do not betray the "historical heritage."

According to the adopted document, they will refuse the current state flag, and a special commission will be created to approve the new one. The new design is planned to be developed by September, and voting on it will be held in November. Until this time, the state will have no flag at all.

State Governor Tate Reeves promised to sign the bill. He announced this on his Twitter page. However, according to Reeves, changing the flag will not help to overcome fragmentation in society. He noted that the process of unification of the state will be more difficult than the fight against the consequences of tornadoes and floods, and even surpass the complexity of the fight against coronavirus.

The flag of Mississippi with the banner of the Confederation, under which the southerners fought during the Civil War in the USA (1861-1865), has existed in this form for more than 125 years. Amid protests against racism, Mississippi lawmakers began a discussion of Confederate symbolism.

• Mississippi Flag Change Protesters
• AFP
• © Rory Doyle

Last week, Walmart said the company would no longer hang state flags in stores because of Confederation symbols. It is reported by CNN.

The US Navy also announced on June 9 that it plans to ban the use of Confederate army flags at naval facilities, as well as on ships, planes and submarines. This was reported by the press service of the United States Navy.

History dismantling

Against the backdrop of the death of African-American George Floyd after being arrested by the police and the outbreak of mass protests, discussions about racial discrimination in the country intensified. In addition to flags with Confederate symbols, monuments were also targeted. In many US cities, demonstrators are increasingly demanding the dismantling of monuments that, in their opinion, personify racism, or are themselves trying to destroy them.

So, at the end of June in Washington, protesters attempted to demolish the monument to the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, but the police did not allow this, using pepper gas. Earlier, the American Museum of Natural History in New York announced a decision to dismantle the monument to the 26th US President Theodore Roosevelt. This initiative was supported by local authorities. However, the current head of the White House, Donald Trump, called this step “ridiculous” and urged not to clean up the historical object.

• Rally in defense of the monument to 26th US President Theodore Roosevelt near the Museum of Natural History in New York

The Governor of North Carolina decided to transfer monuments to Confederate activists from the Capitol in the capital to prevent protesters clashing near them. In New Orleans, activists demolished the bust of slave owner John McDonough and dumped him in the river.

After all these incidents, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a decree imposing long-term imprisonment for those involved in demolishing or damaging historic sites.

“After introducing a hard ten-year prison sentence for those who desecrate monuments, statues, and so on, and after many began to be arrested throughout the country, acts of vandalism completely stopped,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

However, calls and discussions in society about the demolition of historical sites continued. So, the locals of the city of Sitka in Alaska were divided into two camps: some collect signatures for the dismantling of the monument to the ruler of Russian settlements in North America in the late XVIII - early XIX centuries, Alexander Baranov, others - for its preservation. So far, the petition for the preservation of the statue is approximately 400 more votes than its demolition. However, the final decision will be made by local authorities. As stated in the Coordination Council of the organizations of Russian compatriots of the USA (KSORS), the liquidation of the object will mean "erasing the Russian historical heritage."

In addition, in the largest city of Alaska, Anchorage prepared a petition for the dismantling of the monument to the British navigator James Cook.

Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and tribal council chairman Aaron Leggett stated in a joint letter that "this monument is only one of many symbols that do not pay tribute to the indigenous people of Anchorage in a full and fair manner."

“As a result, as part of an intergovernmental relationship between the municipality of Anchorage and the village of the indigenous inhabitants of Eklutna, we are trying to establish a process that takes into account the key role and sovereign power of local tribes as we try to more fully and fairly reflect the past of Alaska,” a letter.

At the same time, Leggett does not believe that the dismantling of the monuments may solve something.

“I’m not so much interested in the dismantling of monuments, but how to get financing for the projects of toponymic names of places that we designated - these are about 26 objects in the municipality. It would be of great importance, ”he added.

Rewriting History

As a political scientist Sergei Sudakov, a correspondent of the Academy of Military Sciences, noted that even a few years ago in the United States “it was fashionable to put Confederate flags on cigars, on individual accessories and details of clothing,” but now the trend has changed.

“Now the Americans have decided to forget their story. They consider it so shameful that they just want to cross out without understanding who is good, who is bad, and also fit historical objects into a single comb. And ignorance is becoming a key driver of this process in the United States. If this continues to happen, we will once again witness how Americans rewrite their history with their own hands. And the chapters of textbooks that speak about the prowess of the Confederates will simply be withdrawn, ”the expert said.

• Protester Attempts To Demolish Andrew Jackson Monument
• Reuters
• © Joshua Roberts

In turn, the dean of the Faculty of World Politics at Moscow State University Andrei Sidorov emphasized that the trend for the revaluation of historical heritage was finally formed in the United States in the face of increased fragmentation of American society due to protests.

“Now it will not be the history of the USA, it will be the history of national minorities. Until recently, in the southern states, the Confederates were considered heroes, and the flag with the banner of the Confederation there was on a par with the national one. But now the situation has changed, and the history will be rewritten based on excessive suffering, including the African American population, ”the expert said in a conversation with RT.

Sudakov also predicted that if law enforcers did not “more stringently prosecute attempts to dismantle pedestals and other acts of their desecration, then this process will drag on for a long time.”

“Washington needs to stop those who are trying to forcibly change the course of history, to destroy the American heritage. Trump is trying to do this, but so far he has not succeeded, ”said the expert.

According to Sudakov, if the American authorities fail to cope with these destructive processes within the country, the United States "may lose its roots."

“In addition, the United States will receive a very serious blow in the form of reputation costs due to what is happening. And, of course, it will be extremely difficult to compensate for all this. The United States has long ceased to be like the good uncle Sam, and now it has completely turned into a gangster with a club, ”the expert said.

Activist measures such as demolition of monuments and the replacement of flags are unable to help combat racism in the United States, analysts say. According to them, American activists "should have fought against real cases of racism, and not against historical personalities who have long been dead."

“The reality is that it’s better to destroy the historical heritage, because this will be written in the press. A kind of moment of glory. And the fight against the living manifestations of racism is always a long process. And the heroes who will be engaged in this in a long struggle, they will most likely be invisible, ”Sudakov concluded.