...one nation, indivisible...

BY ADAM GIULIANO

The Union Jack--the flag of Great Britain-- does not fly high above Yale; nor does it fly anywhere, that I have been able to determine, in this fair city of New Haven. There are no government-maintained monuments to the fallen Redcoats, nor are there any anthems now sung in the United States that allude to our affinity for King George. Despite the fact that both the University and the city existed under the rule of English kings, and were influenced by them, we have long since broken formal ideological ties with that era.

Unlike the Union Jack, the "Stars and Bars" of the Confederacy still flies above the State House of South Carolina. A vicious battle is being fought over the question of moving the flag to a state memorial for soldiers who served in the Confederate army. Until this past January, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia" was that state's anthem, a tune built largely around an idealized vision of plantation slavery. In fact, a number of Southern state and local governments maintain monuments to the Confederac in the form of war memorials, state anthems, and even university mascots like the Mississippi "Rebel." Unlike with the Revolution, the two ideologies that were last pitched in formal battle 132years ago still live side by side, protected by the support of state governments.

What we have here are two wars, each largely colored by a conflict of ideology in which we might agree there emerged a general "winner" and a "loser." Some might argue the Civil War was peculiar because it pitted American against American, but we must not lose sight of the fact that the Revolution pitted British against British, colonial rebel against colonial loyalist. The real differences between the wars lie in our perceptions of the struggles. It is a safe bet to say that the average modern American identifies with the revolutionaries. However, battles over issues like Georgia's inclusion of the Stars and Bars in its state flag proves that a divide still exists between those of us who see ourselves as heirs of the Confederacy or of the Union.

We need to recognize that current struggles are ones into which all of us should enter, because they affect how our society shapes itself. By employing Confederate symbols, Southern state governments are trampling upon the ideals which the Civil War had seemed to vindicate. True, even in victory the Union suffered from racism and severe near-sightedness.

Despite the Union's failings, though, it is more its legacy than that of the Confederacy's from which our society and government have developed. Not just Southern rebels, but millions of slaves, Northern soldiers, and Southern Unionists suffered, fought, and even died in a war whose resolution has led to our own society. For astate government to hold onto monuments, anthems, and pennants in memorial tothe Confederate ideals degrades the sacrifices made by all Americans, then and now. It is not an issue of genetics, for just as there are descendants of British loyalists alive today so too are there descendants of Confederate soldiers; their lineage makes them no more or less American. It is an issue of ideology, of what kind of a nation we seek to envision ourselves as.

By celebrating the symbols of one past, we are choosing to do so at the expense of another. In this way, the battles now fought very much involve those of us who live physically removed from them, because we are in fact and must continue to be one nation and not a confederation of states.

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