Ironically, today is Afghan Independence Day, commemorating the day in 1919 that Afghanistan was granted independence from Britain. The repressive Taliban regime has now retaken control of the country after 20 years of American occupation (following 10 years of Soviet occupation) and even as the U.S. scrambles to get its citizens and Afghan allies out of the country, the regime is replacing the liberty and freedom of Independence Day with Sharia Law and religious fanaticism.
Let's see, what else? On this date in 1955, Hurricane Diane caused severe flooding in the northeastern United States, killing 200 people. Today, the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred are passing over New England, with forecasts of 1 to 3 inches of rain, with isolated storms locally dropping as much as 5 inches of rain.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Henri has stopped circling the island of Bermuda and is heading toward New England. Henri is expected to become a hurricane sometime on Friday, and pass over Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts sometime early Sunday morning.
But the news I want to talk about today is the decision by the City of Atlanta to remove the statue commemorating 90 unknown Confederate soldiers from the city's historic Oakland Cemetery. The statue, popularly known as "The Lion," is one of many Confederate monuments the city is trying to decommission.
My problem is that I kind of like the statue. I certainly don't like it's depiction of a Confederate flag, or its symbolic glorification of the CSA, slavery, and institutional racism. No, for all those reasons and more, the statue has to go and the City made the right decision.
I've visited Oakland cemetery many times. Perhaps I've gotten kind of used to seeing the statue, because its shock value has worn off on me. I enjoy the peacefulness of the cemetery, the artistic statuary, and the history. Yes, there are Confederate generals buried there, but also six Georgia Governors, 27 Atlanta mayors (including Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor), writer Margaret Mitchell, and golfer Bobby Jones. On Britney's first visit to Atlanta, I took her to Oakland Cemetery and shot the picture of The Lion shown above.
The lion is near the main entrance to Oakland Cemetery and is one of the first major sculptures one encounters there. It makes a dramatic first impression - the detail in the curly mane, the chiseled abs in the midriff, the dangling paw. Is it dying or already dead? With time one forgets what it represents. And even though they were on the wrong side of history and morality, there's still the tragedy of the 90 dead soldiers buried there who've never even been properly identified.
Yes, it has to go, but is it wrong for me to miss it, not because of the vile things it represents, but due to some combination of artistic appreciation and nostalgia?
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