The Confederate Legacy Burns Bright: Shenandoah School Naming Controversy

A moral & political evil…a greater evil to the white man than to the black race…The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things…While we see the Course of the final abolition of human Slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands.

Historians debate the extent to which Robert E. Lee supported slavery. Source: NY Times

He neither apologized for nor spoke in favor of the practice of slavery. He probably opposed the institution. Yet in his mind the Creator had sanctioned slavery, and man had no moral right to challenge its existence. The good Christian slaveholder was one who treated his servants fairly and humanely at all times.

The first extract comprises quotations from Robert E. Lee, the military leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The second is a biographer’s summation of Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s views on the institution of slavery. Jackson was one of the South’s most gifted generals, his nickname arising from his refusal to back down, his fearlessness inspired by a fanatical religious faith.

Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson died in 1863 after suffering a mortal wound from friendly fire at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Source: Encyclopaedia Virginia

It would be reasonable to assume that Lee and Jackson had internally conflicting views of slavery, as opposed to many of their compatriots who wholeheartedly believed in the righteousness of the practice. Yet, these generals fought a bloody campaign in the name of preserving slavery, their loyalty to their native state of Virginia failing to mask the nature of their war.

A few days ago, the Shenandoah County School Board voted to restore the Confederate names of two schools in Quicksburg, Virginia. Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby-Lee Elementary have returned, only four years after being renamed in the wake of massive racial justice protests following the Police murder of George Floyd. Whilst many locals in this White-dominated area appear to favour the naming return, it was undertaken without public consultation.

Some protested in vain against the school renamings. Source: The Guardian

The naming of institutions after historical figures, likewise streets, not to mention the maintenance of statues, is a controversial topic. Few people from history are universally acclaimed, few are untainted. One person’s hero is another’s villain and passing judgement on whether to publicly commemorate an individual invites dispute.

For many in America’s South, Lee and Jackson – along with cavalry commander Turner Ashby, whose name also features in one school’s title – fought to uphold states’ rights, opposing the tyranny of a national government that refused to listen to their legitimate economic and political concerns. For others, they are symbols of a racist system that survived the Civil War and helped subjugate Blacks as second-class citizens in a country that proclaims itself the leader of the free world.

Turner Ashby won success in the Shenandoah Valley before dying in battle in 1862. Source: WVTF

In the USA, the legacy of the Confederacy has become increasingly politicised in recent years. Many who fly the Confederate flag or advocate the naming of schools after Confederate leaders probably have little idea about the causes of the Civil War, its bloody course, and the equally bloody Reconstruction that followed. They take pride in the anti-government connotations Confederate symbology carries, decrying a political class they believe has failed them. Moreover, they seek to direct their disenchantment against others, with Black people an often-convenient target. The ‘Heritage Not Hate’ moniker stamped on some Confederate flags is hard to buy.

Names and statues should not be reserved for the victors or the saintly. But whether you believe that naming schools after defeated Confederate generals is agreeable, the renaming of Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby-Lee Elementary is an overtly political act. These names were changed in 2020 to try and cool racial tensions and to recognise the offence they caused the Black community. To revoke this decision is a signal that racism is acceptable and will be permitted in Shenandoah County. It is an incendiary move that will further divide an already frayed populace, feeding into a warped political narrative in an election year that threatens chaos.

The historical significance of the Confederate flag and the Confederacy more broadly has become lost in a highly-charged political climate. Source: Daily Beast

‘A Lot of Cannibals’: Biden Gaffe Reinforces Mental Subjugation of the ‘Global South’

“A blurry moment”. That is how Papuan Prime Minister James Marape described President Joe Biden’s remark that his uncle had probably been eaten by cannibals after being shot down over New Guinea in World War Two (WWII). “There were a lot of cannibals” Biden said before a stunned audience as he paid tribute to the service record of his relative, whose body was never recovered.

Despite Biden’s comment, Prime Minister Marape said that the relationship between his country and the US remained strong. Source: CNN

Supporters of Biden are likely to have worn resigned looks after hearing this latest gaffe, during a hotly contested election year in which the President’s octogenarian status is being scrutinised for lapses of memory and judgement. Though this incident is unlikely to concern the average American voter, it alludes to challenges ahead. Moreover, it is a damning reminder of the contempt with which some Western leaders still treat poorer countries with remote populations, conjuring images of untamed savagery that stunt opportunities for growth and development.

There is historic documentation of cannibalism in Papua New Guinea and Oceania more generally. Ritual practices such as eating the body parts of those captured in war persisted into the 20^th century amongst some tribes, whilst a 2012 case of a ‘grisly cannibal cult’ demonstrate that such practices have not altogether ceased.

An 1839 colonial engraving of Australian Aboriginal ‘cannibals’. Source: ABE Books

Yet there are equally records of cannibalism by Europeans. For instance, after the 1098 capture of the Syrian city of Ma’arra, European crusaders ate the flesh of their Muslim enemies, potentially as a psychological fear tactic to terrify the infidel. This action became so infamous that it was a taboo subject in medieval Europe, washing the gloss from an otherwise heroic venture.

In Early Modern Europe, it was common practice for human body parts, blood, bone and even urine to be used in medicines. The cadavers of condemned criminals were stripped of sellable parts, mummies imported from Egypt for dissection in apothecaries. Perhaps because this did not involve the direct consumption of human meat it was deemed acceptable.

For at the same time, the Spaniards were partly justifying their conquest and subjugation of the New World on claims that the natives were ‘cannibals’, the Carib people providing convenient evidence. As the conquistadores spread into North and South America, savagery and cannibalism became interlinked, with the accounts of the conquerors littered with tales of bloody feasts in which limbs were hacked from bone and greedily devoured. The veracity of such accounts is suspect. In the European worldview the ‘Indians’ were cannibals, and this mindset became imbued and normalised in the psyche of those back in the Old World, helped by the vivid woodcuts of Theodor de Bry.

De Bry’s grisly woodcuts cemented European views of New World cannibals. Source: Meister Drucke

Archaeological evidence for cannibalism in European and Asian prehistory is strong and whilst this may at times have been linked with ritual practice or warfare, the overwhelming reason for consuming another human would have been hunger. Indeed, throughout every major war in history tales of cannibalism have arisen. For what would one do if the only tonic to death was eating another human?

The evidence for cannibalism in such extreme circumstances can be used to justify the degraded, barbaric nature of the act. And yet hypocrisy reigns when identifying the practice as one peculiarly linked to the world’s far-flung regions. Cultural practices change over millennia and societies develop at different speeds and in different ways. Because the Europeans came to dominate the world from the Middle Ages, their narrative continues to triumph. That cannibalism in 19^th century Papua New Guinea was associated with funereal rights – a show of love to consume the body of a loved one before it decayed into nothing – was irrelevant to foreign observers. It was a sign of savagery, a justification for subjugation.

Embalming of an Egyptian corpse. Many such corpses would be transported to Europe for consumption in medicines. Source: Smithsonian

Biden’s unhelpful comments reinforce the idea of barbarism in the states of the so-called ‘Global South’, an indicator that they may never be able to develop and prosper in line with Western values and, as such, are not worthy of support.