Sunday, November 27, 2011

The Civil War (sic) is Over. Let the Battle Flag Be.

Via SHNV

Over the past several months, the NAACP has launched a campaign against the Confederate Battle Flag by protesting its presence at the South Carolina statehouse. Governor Nikki Haley did not respond to the demands of the NAACP to remove it. In a similar matter, black protesters have called for the removal of the Battle Flag from a Georgian cemetery that happens to have interred the bones of Confederate soldiers. And now, most recently, Republican presidential candidate Governor Rick Perry of Texas has become the newest target of the NAACP over whether the Battle Flag should appear on license plates. In the end, Perry decided against the idea.

Facts remain: there was indeed a Civil War, and one cannot just simply wish it -- or its symbols -- away. Yet it seems that the NAACP and their friends wish to delete a symbol that, while controversial and complex in what it does or does not stand for, is still seen by many Southerners as a cultural symbol with no racial overtones.

Do the NAACP and their allies also wish to blacklist Robert E. Lee and everyone else who, from the standpoint of the South, fought for the rights of Southern states to be free from a federal government that they saw as tyrannical, and that transcended just the issue of slavery? And if the Battle Flag is deemed as a "Southern Swastika" that should be banned, will Stone Mountain -- the memorial for Confederate war veterans -- be the next symbol removed?

It is hard not to see the battle to do away with Southern symbols from the Civil War as nothing more than the first step in an all-out deconstruction of America in toto. It should be remembered that it was under the Stars and Stripes that Africans were taken here as slaves -- not the 1861-1865 Southern flags. Perhaps we should ban "Old Glory" as a racist symbol as well?

The destruction of Stone Mountain, should it come to pass -- and it should not be unthinkable in today's America -- would be no different from the Taliban's destruction of the Buddhist statues ten years ago at Bamiyan.

No comments:

Post a Comment