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Time Heals All Wounds …Unless it Doesn’t

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by danielwalldammit in History, Narrative VIolence, Native American Themes

≈ 40 Comments

Tags

Accidental Racist, American Indians, History, Holocaust, Memory, Native Americans, The Long Walk, Time, Tragedy

http://www.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails.php?fileID=494

http://www.newmexicohistory.org

A career in Native American studies makes you the grammatical equivalent of a time machine. No sooner do people learn where you work, what you study, or what specific things you happen to be working on than they suddenly switch to past tense. Depending on the sympathies of the speaker, this may be accompanied by sad tones and slightly downcast eyes. Seriously, I’ve lost track of the number of times a few comments from me have led people to great moments of reflection about “what we have done to them.”

These moments of introspective time-travel usually leave me with a bit of motion sickness. See, the thing is that people go back to the past like this when I am talking about perfectly contemporary issues. When I worked on the Navajo Nation, simply telling folks what I do for a living was often enough to send their souls searching through history for resolution of collective sins, real or imagined. In most cases I don’t think folks had any real sense of the specifics in question, no real idea of just what Anglos had done to Navajos (or visa versa), for example. In most cases, I suspect the sudden trip to the past tense was filled with thoughts of generic cowboys and even more generic Indians, …who probably looked more like Lakota than Navajos anyway. In any event, the problem is simple enough; for far too many people Native Americans simply belong in the past tense, their issues are forever set in the past.

…and yes, I do wonder just how often Native Americans get this? Perhaps it’s a white thing after all. I don’t remember getting this effect in the presence of natives, just when it’s me talking to my own, so to speak.

Anyway, I figure it makes it a Hell of a lot easier to be sorry about something if it happened a few generations back. Try to talk to people about issues such as uranium poisoning, forced relocation, or any number of contemporary issues, and they are less certain that what ‘we’ are doing to ‘them’ isn’t somehow justified, or at least necessary, or at least, …hey let’s just change the subject! But folks are happy to talk about Custer. Wasn’t he a bastard!?!

Rarely do I get the sense that this sot of time warp is meant to provide historical perspective; often it strikes me as just one more way of changing the subject.

But of course somber regrets for crimes long forgotten are only the nice-guy half of this coin. Flip the quarter over and you get a range of narratives effectively using time to disclaim responsibility for these same crimes, perhaps even a comment to the effect that it’s best for Native Americans to put the past behind them. Occasionally people will actually tell me that reservations or casinos, etc. are attempts to pay for what ‘our ancestors’ did, and of course the point is always to suggest that such concessions are unfair to the rest of us.

And no, this time-to-forget theme is not limited to Native Americans. One has only to suffer his way through “The Accidental Racist” to hear Brad Paisley play precisely this shell game with history. I don’t have the stomach to parse the details of this terrible tune, but let’s just say that Brad is apparently paying for the mistakes of a southern past, and L.L. Cool Jay is happy to let bygones be bygones.

…Seriously, both of them should have known better.

It’s funny those who support the rebel flag are always prepared to discuss its significance in the civil war. Rarely do they want to comment on its use in opposition to the civil rights movement.  History textbooks probably don’t make this much easier, telling us that slavery ended with the close of the civil war. Sure they note the existence of debt peonage and Jim Crow Laws, etc., but that is a more complex story. The morality tale for most people ends at Appomattox. I suspect it is the story of slavery that many will imagine when they ask why African-Americans have trouble putting the past behind them. The notion that some folks can still remember when there was real danger in looking a white person in the eye just seems to escape a lot of people.

…most of them white.

But what’s past isn’t equally past for all people. I learned this very clearly out in Navajo country. The nadir or their historical narratives begins with the story of the Long Walk. In 1864 Kit Carson burned marched through Navajo country, burned their crops and destroyed their homes. He then waited for winter to bring them to him.

It worked.

The result was 4 years of internment at a place called Fort Sumner in Southeastern New Mexico. Many of those who started the “Long Walk” to Fort Sumner didn’t make it to the end.

When my friends, students, and coworkers told me their stories about the long walk, what struck me most about their narratives was the way they always began.  They almost always began with a clear reference to some family member. These weren’t simply stories about something that happened to their ancestors; they were stories about the death of a Great Aunt or the trials of a Great Great Grandmother. People telling me these stories consistently anchored narratives of the long walk in their own relationship to one of those who had been through it. These were not stories about an event over a hundred years ago; they were intensely personal stories of family tragedy.

I’ve heard similar stories, …from my high school history teacher, for example. A native of Georgia, her account of Sherman’s march included a great grandmother’s efforts to save a family heirloom (she stuck it on a wall in the hopes Union troops wouldn’t notice). When I taught briefly at a Jewish private school in Houston, I heard such stories from survivors of the Holocaust. More importantly, my students heard those stories. They hear them every year, directly from the survivors, and in countless other contexts throughout the year. I’ve heard such tragic narratives from Inupiat speaking about the horrors of influenza epidemics brought by whalers and the trials of the boarding schools. Exposure to virgin soil epidemics is hardly ancient history on the North slope, and most any native can tell you about some elder who was punished for speaking her own language at the schools. What all these narratives have in common isn’t simply tragedy; it’s direct personal connection to the suffering.

People don’t just forget these sorts of events. They keep them alive; they keep them personal. The suffering becomes part of the meaning of history, and part of the personal identity of those that have been through it, of their children, and their children’s children.

Whether or not such stories should be kept alive in that way is a whole other question, a rather ironic one at that. The suggestion that people subjected to injustice ought somehow to simply move on has more than a trace of might-makes-right in it. It is an attempt to suggest that certain horrors are simply an accomplished fact, as are the long term consequences; land lost, buildings and nations built for the benefit of someone else, and whole scores of missing family – aunts and uncles not present and cousins never born. Yet some people say that it would be best to just move on; accept all of this and focus on the future.

Best for whom?

In any event, it seems those with such tragedy in their past rarely (if ever) take such advice. They remember! They remember with a passion. Here we have at least a trace of poetic justice. It seems to me quite fitting that those hoping the descendants of tragedy would accept the consequences as an accomplished fact should run square up against one other uncomfortable and very stubborn fact, namely that folks just don’t forget such things.

They really don’t.

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Bonus Super-Villain: This Girl is Nasty in Real Life and on Screen!

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by danielwalldammit in History, Movie Villainy, Movies

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

Anna Rosmus, Deviance, Germany, History, Holocaust, Memory, Nazis, Villainy, World War II

1990-the-nasty-girl-poster1What makes Sonia Rosenberger so nasty? It isn’t what you would think, or even what the cover of The Nasty Girl would seem to suggest. Precocious though she may be, Sonia’s crimes are those of an historian. She earned the title in her hometown by asking the wrong questions about its history.

I love her.

Sonia’s journey into super-villainy began with an essay contest. As a young student at a Catholic school in Germany, Sonia decided to enter into a national writing contest. She had two topics to choose from; “The concept of Europe” and “My Hometown During the Third Reich.” Sonia’s teacher sensibly encouraged her to go with the first topic, but Sonia had been brought up to believe that the good people of her home town had resisted the Nazis. How could she pass up the opportunity to reveal the heroics of her friends and neighbors?

Please don’t fault Sonia for the innocence of her original intentions! Even the dark flowers of villainy take some time to bloom.

You see it wasn’t long before it became clear to Sonia that something was amiss. Everyone in town seemed to agree that the only true Nazi had been the mayor, but she could not quite seem to get her hands on his files at the local library. What little information she could find on Professor Juckenack, the great hero of the resistance, turned out to be an essay in support of Nazi racial politics. And no-one could seem to remember the concentration camp in town, at least not without a little needling on the subject, in which case they were quick to point out that it was far better than all the others. …the camp that didn’t exist, that is.

Something was amiss!

So, you might wonder what would a good girl wold do upon finding such a mystery? What should a good girl do upon discovering that the people she most looked up to seemed to be damned uncomfortable whenever she tried to talk to them about her personal project? Well, I personally have no idea what a good girl would do about such a quandary, but I can tell you what this bad Betty did.

She dug deeper!

Despite hints, pleas, and even threats, Sonia just kept pressing on in pursuit of the unwelcome truth. Hell, she even kept at it after someone chucked a brick through her car window. Trust me, that was just the beginning. Sonia ignored the advice of neighbors, parents, and even her husband in her pursuit of the truth, sacrificing health and safety in an effort to learn just what had really happened in her hometown during the Nazi years.

I ask you, would a good girl do that? Not a chance!

Left with no other options, Sonia sued the town to gain access to the mayor’s old documents, and when the town changed its laws to prevent her from getting access yet again, …she just sued the town again. She acted as her own lawyer in both ventures, by the way. (Yeah, she’s just that bad-ass.) And do I need to say that she won the second case too? That’s right; good guys don’t always win. Sometimes they get their butts kicked by villainous nasty girls.

Twice!

I’m not even going to tell you what Sonia did when the town library pretended to lose the mayor’s files in yet another effort to hide the truth from her villainous campaign. Suffice to say this juggernaut of naughtiness would not be dissuaded! You know what else I’m not going to tell you? What Sonia found out about Professor Juckenack and his activities under the Third Reich. Nor will I tell you what happened when he sued her for writing about it in her book on the subject. I’m not going to tell you, because I’m feeling a little bad myself today. (Sonia has inspired me to evil.) And if you want to know the answers to these questions, well then you are just going to have to come over to the dark side and dig a little yourself.

Ha!

RosmusPassau300pxwBut you know what the best part of this story is? It is actually based on the life of a real person. her name is Anna Rosmus of Passau, Germany, and she is every bit as wicked as the celluloid creation she inspired. Anna didn’t stop with one book about her hometown, she turned her tireless pursuit of unwelcome truths into a career in scholarship, much of it dedicated to ensuring that the memorials to this painful chapter in German history would not be forgotten, neglected, concealed from the public, or outright defaced. Time and again, Dr. Rosmus has called attention to realities good decent folk would just as soon forget.

Who would do such a thing?

Only a nasty girl.

A very nasty girl indeed!

***

(The image of Anna Rosmus is from http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133c/133cPrevYears/133c04/133c04l17-NaziPast70s80s.htm)

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Godwin Gets a Gun: Joe Worzelbacher Shoots a Nazi, …or a Tomato!

23 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by danielwalldammit in Politics

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

German History, Gun COntrol, Guns, Holocaust, Nazis, Ohio, Second Amendment

So, I just saw this campaign video from Joe “The Plumber” Worzelbacher (He’s Running for a House Seat in Ohio), and I swear a little part of me just died. It’s not like I was expecting much from Joe, or from the political opportunists intent on helping him stretch his fifteen minutes (and the collective Hell that goes with it) just a little longer. But Damn! If stupid really does burn, then the state of Ohio needs to open a new hospital wing just to deal the fall-out from this particular idiot-bomb.

So, Godwin’s Law aside, what’s wrong with this ad?

I’m going to say right off the bat that I don’t know enough about the Armenian Holocaust to really deal with it properly. I will add that I would be damned surprised if Joe did either, or the idiot who wrote his speech in this video, whoever that may have been and whatever drug he may have been taking at the time.

On one level, Joe’s argument really presents a very simple exercise in fallacy recognition. He mentions two laws followed by two genocides. Joe offers no analysis in support of his contention that they are linked, but he does fire off a couple rounds while giving us time to let the obvious connection sink in. …and my gosh golly aren’t we all impressed!

This is a Post Hoc fallacy, pure and simple. Done.

It should be added that Joe has subsequently denied he was claiming gun control caused the Holocaust, and then he went on to explain that it could never have happened without disarming the people first. (Actually, Joe attributes this particular claim to Hitler, so I suppose he still has grounds for plausible deniability on the matter, but of course the question is why does he bring it up if he doesn’t intend to advance the claim?) Seriously, this is the rhetoric of a complete coward. If he can’t make up his mind whether or not he means to say gun control made the Holocaust possible, then he really ought to shut his festering gob.

Irony of Ironies, Joe thinks his critics are pushing a political agenda. (And seriously, how lacking in self-consciousness do you have to be to make such an accusation about people critical of YOUR OWN POLITICAL CAMPAIGN ADD?) Joe also says that his critics must hate history, because apparently they don’t want to hear it. One of Joe’s spokesman (Phil Christofanelli) adds that Joe is a student of history. …yeah right! The prospect that Joe’s critics may just know more about the subject than he or his speech writer does seems to escape these guys, …or perhaps they are simply hoping that prospect will escape Ohio voters.

But of course Joe isn’t the only happy hustler to trot this line of powdered camel dung out and offer us a straw. It’s a fairly conventional line of bullshit from the gun lobby and assorted gun enthusiasts, …actually, I should say from the less intelligent and completely dishonest members of gun-toting crowd. Seriously, there are decent and intelligent gun-owning folks out there. You can tell who they are because they are not the ones laying this line of crap down on the table and expecting you tor snort it.

But lets sort through a few specifics, shall we? Near as I can tell Joe was actually talking about a gun control law passed in 1938, but let’s not quibble over that detail. No, let’s quibble over the fact that Germany had already passed gun control laws in 1919, 1920, and 1928. Each of these laws modified the legal options for gun ownership in different ways, and there is no clear reason to choose the 1938 law as the smoking gun (pun intended) for Nazi gun control. Joe’s sophisticated periodization is little other than an ad hoc choice of the date most convenient to his own narrative (much as his choice of 1939 as the beginning of the holocaust-according-to-Joe). Joe picked the most convenient date for his own story, and that was about it.

Did I mention this argument is pure camel dung?

Okay, but let’s think about this for a minute. 1938(9)? What had already happened in Germany by that point? Well, let’s see. On the basis of the 1932 elections, Hitler had been appointed Chancellor in January of 1933. This was followed soon after by a suspicious fire in the Reichstag (German parliamentary building) that February. The following day President Hindenburg granted Hitler emergency powers, and in March the German Parliament (under great pressure from the Nazi party) signed away the bulk of its powers to Hitler in a law known as the Enabling Act. In effect, the democratic institutions of Weimar Germany had already come to a pretty full stop by the end of 1934, 5 years before the key to everything in Joe’s gun-induced euphoria.

…and of course by this time the Nazis were already locking up their political enemies.

In late June and early July of 1934, Nazi leadership killed about a hundred of their own in a fascinating little purge known as the “Night of the Long Knives.” By early August Hitler had fused the offices of President and Chancellor, thus making himself, …well, der Fuhrer. And with that Nazi leadership is in pretty much full swing, the law is what they say it is at this point in history, …4-5 years before the law Joe offers as the key to it all.

The Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935, installing legal repression of Jews throughout Germany, 4 years before the terrible law which Joe wants us to believe made it all possible.

By 1939, the Nazis had already been using concentration camps for 6 years. They weren’t killing people in mass yet, but they were already working them to death in large numbers, and when push came to shove, yes, they were already killing people. Italy had already invaded Ethiopia, the Japanese had already taken Manchuria, and Francisco Franco had already seized power in Spain, all with the support of Germany. Hitler had already seized Austria and begun his push for the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

Despite all the crimes the Nazis had already committed, all the freedoms they had already taken away, Joe wants us to think a law passed in 1938(9) made it all possible. It’s amazing! It is completely asinine to suggest that private German citizens were in a position to stop Nazi atrocities in 1938, let alone to suggest the largely unarmed Jewish population, could have managed it. This is not history. This is fantasy.

So, just remember this the next time one of these smug little idiots decides to illustrate the Dunning-Kruger Effect by giving you the pop-gun and bubble-gum history of the Holocaust, conveniently simplified for the benefit of the American gun-lobby. There is only one way to make that argument, and that is to be so damned ignorant about the history in question that you just don’t know any better.

Apparently, Joe doesn’t know any better.

He’s hoping a lot of people in Ohio don’t either.

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