Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
I can see that it's still a very contentious issue in a country that isn't mine and I don't want to disrespect the feelings of Americans. Everyone can see that the Civil War was a huge tragedy; huge partly because the country was so evenly divided, and at the time Lee was a military hero to many Americans. The Civil War is now part of American history, as in fact is the statue itself. How long has it been standing there without exciting comment? Why not leave historical memorials in place, even if they commemorate things or people that are controvertial by modern standards of thinking? Another way to show disdain for Robert E. Lee would be to put a new, dated, plaque under the statue explaining when the statue was put up and how his cause is now largely discredited, but please leave your historical artifacts in place.
When a dictator is overthrown, it's very common that his statues are destroyed in the excitement of victory, but that doesn't apply in this case and imo no country should go around smashing up the monuments it doesn't approve of.
|
The monuments aren't being smashed up, they're being moved to museums or put in storage. And just for context, many of these monuments were erected decades after the war as statements of white supremacy. Here's the plaque that was originally on a monument recently removed from New Orleans:
The descendants of Confederates always cry about how moving these statues hurts their precious little feelings, but what about the descendants of the people the Confederates enslaved? Why should they have to endure monuments to the atrocities committed against their ancestors? I say take them down and put them in a museum, they should never have been erected in the first place.