By James Bowman on 2.15.07 @ 12:05AM
For Virginia's posturing pols, sorry seems to be the easiest word.
In the state of Virginia, where I live, they are this year
celebrating the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of English
settlers, at Jamestown, in what was to become the United States of
America. Well, "celebrating" may not be exactly the right word, for
as part of the state's commemoration of the event, the House of
Delegates has unanimously voted to express its "profound regret"
for the institution of slavery, which existed here between 1619 and
1865. "Contrition" is the word used in a rival resolution in the
state Senate, and the difference between them, if any, will
doubtless be hammered out in a House-Senate conference. I, for one,
can't wait to find out just how sorry we're all meant to be.
This semi-apology seemed to me a bad idea for a number of
reasons, not the least of which was what those unpracticed in the
ways of gestural politics might have thought was the obvious one,
namely that the people doing the apologizing were not actually the
ones who had done the wrong. Nor, for that matter, were those they
were apologizing to the ones to whom the wrong had been done. Both
were long dead and long past caring. But it's never too late for
politicians to find new ways to feel good about themselves by
apologizing on others' behalf. For good measure, the legislature
added a stout condemnation of the "egregious wrongs" which had been
done by white Europeans to the indigenous population.
Both apologies -- if that is what they were -- must be judged to
have fallen foul of the same objection, namely that of the regicide
and fratricide, King Claudius, in Hamlet, who asked, "May
one be pardoned and retain the offense?" Obviously not.
America is what it is, to an extent that must be forever
incalculable, because chattel slavery existed here for more than
two hundred years -- just as it is in an even more direct way on
account of the military defeat and subsequent assimilation of the
American Indians. We couldn't change this even if we tried, and
there is zero chance that we're going to try because, on the whole,
both the descendants of slaves and the descendants of slave-owners
like America the way it is.
Well, there's a lot to like about it. Americans of all colors
and heritages are incomparably freer and more prosperous than
almost any other people in the world. Could that also have
something to do with the history which included slavery? Why no
mention of the fact that the culture that enslaved Africans also
freed them -- and in defiance of what was then and still is the
common practice in many other parts of the world where that
culture's writ does not run? A much more commonsensical view of
slavery was expressed by the black Washington Post
reporter Keith Richburg a decade ago when he emerged from a sojourn
among present-day Africans and said: "Thank God my ancestor got
out, because, now, I am not one of them. In short, thank God I'm an
American."
But the apology debate was not really about slavery at all, as
quickly became apparent when its focus shifted to the scandal of
Delegate Frank Hargrove who said that slavery had long ceased to
exist and "black citizens should get over it." And he added: "Are
we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?" There
then ensued the now-customary ritual of offense-and-apology which
went on very much as usual even though there was no formal apology
from Delegate Hargrove. I would like to have thought that he
recognized, as the media never does, that his own apology would be
as much an exercise in moral posturing as the one he was objecting
to, but he then went on to substitute for it a bit of posturing of
his own in the form of a resolution to make June 19th, the
anniversary of the day when the last slaves were freed in 1865, a
state holiday.
These are examples of the extent to which all our politics has
now been reduced to moral posturing, though a much less potentially
dangerous one than the proposed resolution in the U.S. Congress
against President Bush's troop "surge" in Iraq. Those, like
Virginia's Republican Senator John Warner, who are sponsoring or
will vote for this shameful and cowardly motion -- designed only so
that those associated with it cannot (in their own view) be blamed
for anything bad that happens as a result of the surge -- could not
but have known that it will accomplish nothing save the
demoralization of American forces and the encouragement of the
enemy. But this was of no importance to them in comparison with the
urgent need to get on record their own precious opinions.
It's the same mentality, as I pointed
out in this space two weeks ago, shown by Sen. Jim Webb in the
Democrats' reply to the President's State of the Union address.
Senator Webb is also from Virginia, I'm sorry to say -- the state
that they used to call "the mother of presidents." Now it's
beginning to look as if you'd have to describe it as the mother of
prigs, poltroons and poseurs.
topics:
Military, Iraq, NATO, Africa
