Levinson

With regime change comes monument change. Monuments are public reminders of the ideals and attributes the party in power wishes their citizens to embody. So changing regimes often need to erect new and demolish old forms of public remembrance, in effect, to legitimize their position and to discredit the old. Less often, atrocious events are encapsulated in stone so they might not be repeated. Sanford Levinson details this phenomenon in Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies.
After reading Levinson’s book, the title seemed much more poignant then I realized. Even today to signify something as permanent we say it is “written in stone.” But being written in stone does not always make something immortal. Engraved monuments are defaced, rewritten, and infused with different symbolism. Increasing enfranchisement of minorities and significant numbers of political transitions throughout Eastern Europe fuel this phenomenon. Levinson’s early example of the Liberty Monument in New Orleans is very telling. Erected following the violent ousting of the legal government of “carpetbaggers,” the structure memorializes the deaths of the racist White League involved in the “battle.” Obviously, and sadly, reflecting the majority opinion of the city. Left unmentioned were the police officers trying to do their jobs and the largely black militia members that were slain. During the New Deal, since public memory of the event had diminished, New Orleans proceeded to mount two plaques describing the event. Again, they were depressingly sympathetic to the bigoted and illegal “revolution.” As the black minority gained political and economic power they were able to contest the offensive monument. The plaques, written in stone, were obliterated and the entire monument was moved to a less commemorative location. This episode raises several questions: Should the monument remain as recognition of former regimes? Or remain as a reminder of how far society has progressed in race relations? Or should it be destroyed and removed from public memory? Or, finally, relocated to a museum making it a historical artifact of our nation’s, often troubled, past? These questions seem to probe our social makeup as a nation.
In an attempt to answer these questions Levinson focuses on Europe and the U.S. Radical regime change in Hungary, for example, often equates total destruction of previous commemoration. Shifting political power in a stable country and its relation to public memorials is more difficult to reconcile. The extensive commemoration of the Confederacy in the U. S. South is such a case and detailed thoroughly in the latter half of Written in Stone. Debates over the cause of secession also contrinute. Was it for states rights or for slavery? Many statues and monuments are said to honor the individual bravery of soldiers that fought for the Confederate cause. But do their disreputable actions, killing for the promulgation of a brutal institution, justify such a commemoration? Levinson promotes telling both sides of the story. Offsetting Austin’s commemoration to Jefferson Davis by honoring black peoples’ involvement in the Civil War and their contributions to the state since that time. But, Levinson points out, controversy may erupt over boiling down an entire people’s history to a few painful moments in time.
Unlike most people Levinson seems to encourage little molestation of controversial monuments. Not reinterpreting monuments actually promotes questions about them. One may be inspired to research a subject more if you are not told how to feel about it on a plaque. Many of the examples used portray events that are now reprehensible; it is necessary to remember them as to never repeat them. Leaving dark reminders out in the public prevent them from fading into our collective amnesia.
We reside in a free and democratic society where there are shifts in ideological makeup. Political power has been more equally dispersed, often called political correctness. However it may more appropriately called political awareness. What was once Custer’s Last Stand is now taught as the Battle of Little Bighorn. Was it an attempted massacre or a battle? Only personal reflection and discussion can satisfy this quandary for each of us, as individuals. We are left to realize our own responses to these public icons, while reminded that there can be no public agreement on public images in either a stable polity or a state in upheaval.