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We
Pledge Allegiance, But To Which Flag?
July 3, 2002
By Patrick Ennis
The NAACP is still sponsoring a boycott of South Carolina,
due to the state's dogged devotion to the prominent display
of the beloved - at least in the south - Confederate flag.
The "Stars and Bars" as the flag is affectionately known in
the southern region is offensive to African-Americans, the
NAACP contends, because of the Confederacy's legacy of slavery.
And any overt expression of pride in a heritage which includes
such a cruel and divisive legacy is an affront to the descendants
of the victims of slavery, the NAACP reasons.
I am not an African-American. My own ancestors, though poor
and humble immigrants from Ireland and the Netherlands, were
never officially enslaved, so I won't pretend that I can understand
or empathize with the feelings of fellow Americans whose ancestors
were cruelly bought and sold as beasts of burden, abused,
worked mercilessly and often to death, and generally denied
any and all manner of human rights. But I have my own heartfelt
objection to the validation of the Confederacy and the principles
for which it stood, one that few of my countrymen, curiously,
seem to share.
I am a patriotic American. I see the Confederacy as a blatant
act of treason, surpassing anything John Walker Lindh, the
so-called "American Taliban," might be guilty of,
and surpassing by even more the pacifism of conscientious
objectors during the Vietnam War, whose supposed lack of loyalty
was loudly denounced by more "patriotic" Americans, many of
whom lived in the south, and doubtless by some with a Confederate
flag for a license plate on their cars and trucks.
For the sake of clarity, let's define treason. The American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines it as
"Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign,
especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against
it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies."
By contrast, American Heritage defines patriotism as "love
of and devotion to one's country"
Given the definitions, in what way can the Confederacy possibly
be considered anything other than the former, and the very
opposite of the latter? How can those who defend the legacy
of the Confederate south, with or without the slavery issue,
as part of "noble heritage" also defend the mandatory recitation
by schoolchildren of the Pledge of Allegiance (to the flag
of the United States of America)? How can they defend the
opposition many of them share to the burning of an American
flag, or their opposition to the United Nations, which often
advocates positions contrary to the stated preferences of
the United States, just as the Confederate leaders did when
they voted to secede from their nation in 1861? Perhaps they
should look up the definition of hypocrisy.
In its second quarter, 1998 issue, Southern Partisan Magazine,
a publication dedicated to the preservation of southern heritage
and "traditional southern values," then-Senator John Ashcroft
(R-MO), referring to the "demonization" of the Confederacy
by "revisionist historians," said "Your magazine also helps
set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that,
of defending Southern Patriots like Lee, Jackson, and Davis.
Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all
got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be
taught that these people were giving their lives, subcribing
their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda".
Southern patriots? Oh, please! Of course, Ashcroft is now
President Bush's Attorney General, and advised us all last
fall, in the earliest stages of the "war on terror," that
criticism of the President was "anti-patriotic." You'd think
that such a man, who is also responsible for the decision
to try the aforementioned Walker Lindh in one of the country's
most conservative districts (and guess what? It's in the south,
not far from the former Confederate capital of Richmond, Va!)
to better ensure his conviction, would have considered an
armed insurrection against and secession from one's own country,
for any reason, to be a "perverted agenda". (Note to Atty
Gen. Ashcroft: If Fort Sumpter had not been a military target,
please explain why the Confederate attack on it in 1861 would
not have been considered an act of terrorism)
Let us suppose, just for the sake of comparison, that the
citizens of California, Oregon, and Washington state finally
became fed up with their country's slavish devotion to free
markets and corporate welfare, and having moved even further
to the left ideologically, secede from the country and establish
a Marxist state on the west coast of what is now the U.S.,
complete with its own flag, system of government, constitution,
and armed forces. How would this be different?
Oh, I suppose there are those, including many in the conservative
southern states, who would bid good riddance to the "Left
Coast". But inevitably, the nascent Socialist State would
be brought back in to the American fold, by force, and its
leadership would be imprisoned and put on trial for treason.
Would this leadership be remembered 100 years later with reverence
rather than condemnation? Would its former flag still be flown
overtly on public property? Would those who still demonize
its legacy be derided as revisionist historians who kowtow
to the almighty God of political correctness? Somehow, I think
not.
And yet the African-American community is still the only
one voicing any opposition to the Stars and Bars, and even
they do so only on the grounds that the Confederacy represented
by that flag symbolizes racial oppression of their ancestors.
And as slavery was really only one of the issues that led
to the civil war, that point would seem debatable, but again,
I'm not African-American.
But what is not debatable is that the Confederate flag represents
probably the darkest four years in American history, when
the leadership of a large segment of the country so unequivocally,
and unpatriotically, rejected the policy and direction of
the American government that they decided to forcibly secede
from it, resulting in the deaths of thousands of citizens
from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. It was far deadlier
than the murderous attacks of al-Qaeda on Sept. 11.
As we celebrate another Independence Day, amid the renewed
patriotic fervor and national unity stirred by the ongoing
War on Terror, we should all take a moment to reflect on what
patriotism really means, and whether the legacy of the Confederacy,
which is a legacy not only of slavery but also of death, destruction,
and divisiveness, deserves any place of honor in American
history, or a place on the scrap heap of the painful memories
of colossal mistakes. As a patriotic American, I vote for
the latter.
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