The Battle of the Battle of Liberty Place

White League propaganda. These are the fellows honored by the Battle monument.... (Wikimedia Commons)

When the Battle of Liberty Place monument, a memorial honoring those who died in an attempt to overthrow the city government after the Civil War, came down two weeks ago, contractors did the work in the middle of the night wearing kevlar and face masks.

WaPo: Tensions rise....

8/16:  I wrote the following in January.  While I think what I originally wrote is more nuanced, honest and well-meaning than what I've heard from various "unite the right" types in Charlottesville, I'm bummed to hear some of the same things I wrote coming out of those hate-twisted mouths (that Vice video for example).  Unlike the POTUS, I will not hesitate nor mitigate, I thoroughly repudiate those neo-Nazi über-trolls, and any similar arguments are coming from and heading towards an entirely different place than those dudes'....

It irks me a bit that this article conveys the message that everybody against removing Confederate memorials are either racists and/or apologists for slavery.  Camo-clad, pistol-packin', Trump-lovin', flag-wavin' good ole boys sittin' on the porch with a moon-pie in one hand and a Mason jar of RC Cola in the other.  That said, take a good look at that cartoon.  One would hope that the Liberty Place monument's defenders are ignorant of exactly what it was they are defending when it comes to this particular chicken-fried obelisk.  Sadly, I can't escape the fact that many of them know exactly what it means.  David Duke certainly did when he tried to hold a rally there.  And I'd bet the phoned-in threats that made spiriting it away like thieves in the night a necessity weren't made by kindly old ladies dividing their Golden Years between the Daughters of the Confederacy and the flower-arranging club.

I think that somehow contextualizing these kinds of monuments would be better than just taking them away in the dead of night.  Are we eventually going to take down any memorial to the Confederate war dead?  If you look at the history behind the Liberty Place monument, and the literal white supremacist messages inscribed upon it, it's hard to lament its removal.  But its presence at least reminded people of the events which it honored, and those are events worth remembering.  I would suggest a kind of counter monument that incorporated the original, a way to re-interpret both the event itself and the earlier monument that sought to glorify it.  Becoming a kind of monument about a monument.  A meta-monument.  Or shit, just take it down and put it in a museum.  But doesn't stealing it away under cover of darkness send a message of fear, or give the impression that there's more support for it than there actually is?

It's like the KKK gravestone in Deland, Florida I've written about.  It would be a forgotten bit of local folklore if removed.  As it is, the stone radiates a kind of forlorn air, covered as it is with the stains of piss and beer bottles, perhaps other effluvia.  It reeks of defeat.  At worst, neglected; at best, covered with marks of loathing for what it represents, pooh stains on a white sheet.  The dank drapery of a defunct douche-bag.  But trying to erase history is always a bad move.  That grave inspired a lot of research on my part, edging me me towards investigating many facets of African-American history I might not otherwise have been motivated to learn about.  I felt I had to counteract a monument to the despicable.

Some kind of interpretive stelae for the Liberty Place monument may have been more powerful than a midnight removal.  Imagine coming across a glorious obelisk and then learning it carried blatant messages of white supremacy and sought to honor a white supremacist army?  A good number of people would check it out, learn something about how the end of the Civil War didn't necessarily mean the end of racial bloodshed and armed civil strife.  About how the League operated in the open, explicitly agitating for the overthrow of the Reconstructionist government and then trying to make it happen through intimidation, murder and in Liberty Place, armed insurrection.  And where they failed in violence, they succeeded through democracy.  Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1876, two years later.

So now they're preparing the removal of statues to Generals Lee and Beauregard and President Jefferson Davis, and the situation is fraught with tension, primed for some kind of violent reaction.  Interesting story.  I wrote about the decision to remove the statues back in 2016 and had some more cogent comments.  As a historian, I'm simply loathe to cover up the past, no matter how loathsome.  Although I'm not really torn up about it, I do think it would be a shame if the next targets are monuments to Confederate war dead.  People should be able to honor their ancestors.  I know, why would I bother to defend these people?  I just don't "get it".  I do get it, but this kind of controversy doesn't do nuance very well.  Some of those soldiers were despicable men, but many of the grunts were just kids, protecting their lands and their sovereignty.  Call me naive, but I've always been in the "better to let ten guilty men go free than convict once innocent man" camp.  One of the pitfalls of actually believing in the ideals of the Founding Fathers.  Beauregard and Lee I could care less about.  History will remember them.  But who will remember those poor young dudes they led to the slaughter?

In any event, the people have spoken, the monuments will fall.  I really do hope they do something though, to explain the story of Liberty Place.  That was pretty messed up.  The White League that initiated the insurrection was a nasty bunch.  The whole business had started in 1872 over a disputed election and had already led to one conflict, or massacre, at Colfax, where 150 freedmen were killed by a white militia.  At least 50 of them had been killed after having been taken prisoner.  These were not the gallant warriors of myth, and many of these militiamen were part of the White League that later tried to capture New Orleans, and succeeded, until Federal troops moved in and ousted them.  No one was ever prosecuted.  The 1891 monument interpreted the ensuing events in order to honor the insurrectionists and in 1932 the city added an inscription stating that the election of 1876 vindicated the insurrectionists, recognizing white supremacy in the South.  No tears here to see it go, but mightn't it have served a better role as a kind of elaborate public urinal?

If the vow to set these statues in a museum is honored, I think the public would be better served than placing them in secret warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant and the alien cadaver.  The monument is a powerful shock to our modern sensibilities, which is a good sign that times have changed.  That they had to take such extraordinary precautions to remove it shows just how much times haven't.

So I guess this is a contradictory mass of feelings about the issue after all.  Many people want them removed and I think I want them to stay for the very same reasons.  A question, then, not of the goal, but of the strategy on how to attain it.  Or maybe not.  I don't want people to forget this stuff.  I want them to remember....

#JeSuisCharlie III: Solidarité

Both the NYT and WaPo are part of my daily news-gathering routine, so they are often both open in my navigator.

I captured this screen-shot quite by accident while trying to figure out how the "Imp écran" (French keyboard!) button works best when there's a second screen (vital when I do translating work) jacked into my laptop.

Anyway, seeing this image pop up unexpectedly made me feel compelled to follow the dictates of chance and share it.

The Gid and I don't want to live in a world where we censor ourselves out of fear -- either fear of insulting someone or fear of reprisals.  I'll go out on a limb and guess most artists and writers feel the same aversion.  So, in solidarity with our extended tribe, on the day Charlie Hebdo bravely hits the newsstands, we'll say "Je Suis Charlie" -- "Nous Sommes Charlie" -- here on LoS one last time.

It ain't much, but it's something.

#JeSuisCharlie II: Lois de Silence Clameur

Charlie Hebdo, Répresent, Répresent!!

#JeSuisCharlie

Bietan jarrai

Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) is a Basque nationalist group which up until now has advocated independence by any means necessary. Apparently, they've recently announced an indefinite ceasefire and promised to try their hand at democratic participation in order to respect the opinions of the majority of Basques. This wouldn't be the first time. The last such ceasefire ended after a few months with a bombing that killed two hapless Ecuadorians.

But we're not here to go into that. We're more concerned with the image above. There's a comical aspect beside the ominous tone; it's almost a parody of political terrorist gestures. It's also just so darn occult-y.

What caught our eye, given our obsession recently with the serpent and rod symbolism, is their logo with serpent and axe. The motto Bietan jarrai means "Keep up on both" and refers to the symbols; the snake represents politics and the axe, armed struggle. As in "bury the hatchet...in your head!"

There is also something potent in the image of three men, killers ostensibly, echoing the three hoboes from the grassy knoll or the ruffians who killed Hiram Abiff....not to mention those "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys....

Seriously though, we're willing to bet there is some kind of more esoteric meaning to this symbol and we're hereby soliciting theories....

For Moses, the serpent on a Tau cross led to victory over illness; for Christians, the serpent on the Cross represents Christ's victory over Original Sin and thus, the Devil.

Maybe it's this simple: The snake on the axe represents victory. Maybe not.

Terror Below -- The Sea

In my previous posting, I suggested that we are especially terrified by terrors below because we are instinctually programmed to expect attacks from above and beside, but never below. Yet as descendants from tree-dwelling monkeys, we carry genetical programming that does anticipate attack from below ... In other words, there’s this residual fear of attack from below, but that residual has been buried (so to speak) -- until it necessarily arises.

I suggested that this argument is especially pertinent to the sea. On the land we might presumably safely assume that nothing can attack from beneath us, but on the ocean, we ought to expect it, right?

Yet we find terrors beneath the surface of the ocean especially horrifying.

There’s this whole sense of the impossibility of boating, for example. “My God!” one ought to reasonably realize, "I’m barely suspended above miles of depths full of horrors, held barely in suspension by surface tension!" It’s the same terror that so many people feel when flying: "Wake up!" we scream inside. "My God! Falling is just pretend! We’re going to fall!"

Vertigo, that dizzying horror we feel on the edge of cliff, ought to be present in every trip on a boat. I suspect that it is there, but shoved back into the back of our minds ready to be reawakened as soon as something surfaces.

Compound this with the true horrors of the deep: sharks, giant squid, whale so big that they should see us as mere squashable gnats…

No wonder, then, that so many horror films and Greek legends have picked up our terrors from below when skimming the surface of those great unknown seas....

Anyhow, in the next couple of postings I want to first examine the more unexpected horrors of terrors beneath us while we are land, followed by an examination of related mythology.

Terror Below

Humans, we’re told, are a species of ape. Descended from monkeys, tree dwellers, evolved to expect danger from three dimensions—some monkeys have three distinct instinctual danger cries: one for eagles swooping from above, another for snake slithering along the branches, and a third for jaguars, leaping from below. Humans, on the other hand, have one cry: “Heads up!”

No surprise as our species migrated to ground where danger from below is seemly eliminated. But consider three personal tales. First, a great uncle, working for the CCC in Florida during the 30s. Out for a hike in the swamps and he steps on a gator. It lunges, grabs his leg, and starts to spin; this is its instinctual means of breaking limbs which it will follow by releasing the leg, grabbing the shocked victim’s torso, and dragging it below for drowning. My uncle, however, is a Florida cracker, having once with my grandfather captured baby alligators for the zoo and placed them in their rain barrel for temporary safe keepings, much to my great-grandmother’s alarm. So my uncle drops into a roll with the gator, spinning his body so that his legs are not broken, and when the gator lets go to grab his torso, he leaps up and limps off safely back to camp. “Boys,” he announces bleeding, “I been gator bit.” He wears the scar with pride for a lifetime.

Consider, secondly, a good friend who was bit and nearly killed by a rattlesnake as a youngster, also in Florida. When I know him, during cross country in high school, his snake-spotting skills border on E.S.P. On the surface of the tale, this does not sound like death from below, but consider the snake beneath those sticks where your foot is very nearly planted….

Finally (thirdly) consider the horrifying occurrence of my wife, seven months pregnant, getting up to pee for the third time in the night. “Pissss,” and suddenly there’s this squeaking. Her urethra clenches and the pee stops and the squeaking stops. She starts to pee again and the squeaking starts again. “I guess,” she thinks, “that pregnant ladies must squeak when they pee. Huh—nobody told me about that.” Stops peeing, reaches behind to flush the toilet, and turns around … just in time to see a bat swirling down the toilet. And then my son was born with wings and fangs!!! Okay—just kidding on the last bit—but seriously, there’s a horror tale in there, no?

My “heads up” example was, of course, a joke. But try this simple thought experiment. Imagine yourself in a crowd. Yell, “look out!!!” How many people in your imagination looked slightly upward or scanned left and right, turned around? More importantly, how many people looked down?

I have, perhaps, misconsidered the sailor. But the long and short of all this is that there is something instinctually terrifying about danger from below. Above—a pop fly to center field while we’re distracted by picking our nose?—we can deal with that. Sideways—a fist to the face?—well it hurts, but it’s the kind of danger we’re programmed to receive. But attack from *below*?!? Danger Will Robinson! Does not compute!

In some upcoming postings, I will take a look at few real-life animals that dwell below, before looking to fiction and the mythological. Danger still lurks from below, and our primordial instincts cringe. No wonder, then, that we equate hell and Gog and Magog with the Underneath?