Dismantling a hateful past

The enduring power of symbolism and the different ways in which society deals with it.

One of the evasions often indulged is that there can be several legitimate versions of the past. There may be many interpretations but clinging to a particular, one-eyed perspective leads to bad history and dishonest politics. Versions of history friendly to a single cause are, like Kellyanne Conway’s alternative facts, usually bunkum offered as reality.

In July 2015, following the murder of nine churchgoers in Charleston by a white supremacist, South Carolina voted to remove the deeply symbolic Confederate flag from statehouse grounds.

That process continued yesterday when New Orleans removed the first of four Confederate monuments.

The Liberty Place monument, dedicated to whites who tried to topple a biracial post-Civil War government, was dismantled by workers wearing bulletproof vests, helmets and scarves to hide their faces. Statues of Robert E Lee, PGT Beauregard and Jefferson Davis are to be removed too.

Many societies deal with the symbols of a discredited past in different ways. Budapest corralled the symbols of its communist nightmare in Memento Park. Germany does not have monuments honouring Nazis.

Any suggestion that we might review how we publicly honour those who usurped democracy would be shouted down but then that is inevitable as we, unlike South Carolina and New Orleans, retain a romantic view of those who rejected the principles of democracy and peace.