Black Lives Matter vs the real truth

 #BLM. It's the new call to arms across the world. And rightly so, though I believe that #CLM (Coloured Lives Matter) might be more representative of the real situation, and frankly, #ALM (All Lives Matter) is really the need of the century.

However, my musing is not about the actual denomination, but on how it is being used as a battering ram against history. Breasts are being beaten, homilies delivered, statuary destroyed, legislation passed, flags redesigned and there is a collective weeping and gnashing of teeth. All absolutely correct. 

But how far back must and should we go in time and geography in our penance, our repentance, our remorse? In atoning for old sins, because, as the saying goes, they do cast long shadows? And should shadows overshadow reason? Should atonement be selective? Or should we wipe every slate clean and return to whatever roots we can snuffle up? Is there a cut-off point when we can sit back and wipe our brows, if not the slate? Witness this: 

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/john-wayne-son-responds-resolution-airport-renamed

John Wayne, the cowboy’s cowboy, back in 1971 had said in an interview with Playboy (!) magazine: “I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.” 

All right. So sadly, it wasn't true 'True Grit'. (John Wayne won his only Oscar as Best Actor for this film in 1969, out-shadowing a stellar line-up: Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman). So why stop at renaming the airport and trashing his statue? Why not take back his statuette while you're at it? 

He’s also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hmm. The bin calls. And according to one biographer, “John Wayne personified for millions the nation's frontier heritage.” Double Hmm. 

Why double hmm? “Frontier heritage”. That’s a clarion call to arms if ever there was one. Because if ever there is a set of historical wrongs that need to be righted, it is led by the Spanish Inquisition of the Americas which led directly to the genocide of the Native Americans by the white settlers from Europe and the importation of slaves...which is where #BLM has sprung from.

“Contact between Europeans and Native Americans led to a demographic disaster of unprecedented proportions. Many of the epidemic diseases that were well established in the Old World were absent from the Americas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The catastrophic epidemics that accompanied the European conquest of the New World decimated the indigenous population of the Americas. Influenza, smallpox, measles, venereal diseases and typhus fever were among the first European diseases imported to the Americas. During the first hundred years of contact with Europeans, Native Americans were trapped in a virtual web of new diseases. European diseases, seeds, weeds, and animals irreversibly transformed the original biological and social landscape of the Americas. By 1518, the Native American demographic catastrophe and the demands of Spanish settlers for labour led to the importation of slaves from Africa. Thus, the Americas quickly became the site of the mixing of the peoples and infectious agents of previously separate continents.”   https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/impact-european-diseases-native-americans

These problems that arose for the Native Americans would only get worse in the 19th century, leading to greater confinement and the extermination of native people. Unfortunately, the colonial era was neither the start nor the end of the long, dark history of treatment of Native Americans by Europeans and their descendants throughout the history of the United States. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/native-americans-colonial-america/

It took Europeans, disease, guns and horses less than 300 years to destroy a way of life that had been going on for at least 20,000 years. Although many Native American groups are trying to regain their cultural identity, it will never be the same.  https://www.chino.k12.ca.us/cms/lib8/CA01902308/Centricity/domain/2247/unit%202/Native%20North%20Americans.doc%20unit%202.pdf

Native Americans have long criticised this sculpture, the iconic Mount Rushmore, in part because it was built on what had been Indigenous land. And more recently, amid a nationwide movement against racism that has toppled statues commemorating Confederate generals and other historical figures, some activists have called for Mount Rushmore to close. So what's to stop this being next on the destruction agenda?  

And then let’s take a look at Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the USA, whose portrait adorns the $ 2 bill (yes, there is one) and the nickel; he wrote that “all men are created equal,” and yet enslaved more than six hundred people over the course of his life. Although he made some legislative attempts against slavery and at times bemoaned its existence, he also profited directly from the institution of slavery and wrote that he suspected black people to be inferior to white people in his "Notes on the State of Virginia."  Now what does one do with him?  

To what inevitable, though assumedly uncomfortable, conclusions do these blinding revelations lead us? You are well equipped to arrive at them.

Finally, why stop in the West? Why not a detour back here in India, just for a little getaway off the beaten track, where we are currently witnessing the stultifying backlash by sections of society ably marshalled by the powers-that-be on the ‘invaders’ and ‘rulers’ of the past 1000 years, who came with armies of thousands and yet overwhelmed kingdoms of millions. Let’s peek into some of the years before the Slave (!) Dynasty. 

The venerated Mauryan Empire ~321-185 BCE: The Mauryan Empire was the first power to unite most of the Indian subcontinent, and at its peak stretched from Afghanistan in the north-west, east almost to the mouth of the Ganges and south as far as modern Mysore. Now, how do you imagine this ‘unification’ took place? Amicably? People dancing in the streets? Or was there bloodshed and rape, looting and destruction? 

Even Ashoka, the last great Mauryan emperor, who conquered the coastal kingdom of Kalinga (c.271-261 BC), was so horrified by the human cost of the war (150000 killed on either side) that he renounced aggressive war. But of his two main emblems, the Ashoka Chakra is on our national flag, and the Ashokan Lions form the national Emblem of India. 

All rulers of the time kept slaves, tortured enemies and prisoners, had harems and inflicted much pain on those they conquered. That was the way of life then...and in fact across the world in every possible kingdom and country.

Leopold II of Belgium (another statue in the bin) was just doing what he’d been taught…mercilessly subjugate the conquered.

It was par for the course amongst the African tribes as well, as it was amongst the white people in Europe too, when they fought their interminable wars. 

And in our Incredible India, those who have been at the receiving end of caste bigotry for and discrimination for millennia and with no end in sight will wonder what the fuss is about. It is so deep-rooted it erupts even thousands of miles away. Witness this current news, hot off the press yesterday: “California sues Cisco for bias based on Indian caste system”. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/california-sues-cisco-for-bias-based-on-indian-caste-system/articleshow/76751258.cms

Human history is a ceaseless litany of war, conquest, pain, persecution and ‘the winner-takes-all’ policy. Everyone followed it. And if ‘taking a knee’ is needed for one George Floyd, then we should be perpetually on our knees for the millions of humans (and wildlife and other species) slaughtered over the centuries in the pursuit of human power and pelf. 

Finally, I believe #BLM actually exacerbates the problem by highlighting daily the very differences which civil rights leaders and people of integrity have tried to eliminate for centuries. It is a pyrrhic victory. 

So back to my original question: where does one cast the last stone and at whom, and who will break the last statue, rename the last airport and confiscate the last award?