I just finished listening to
Shalimar the Clown, as I rolled into the Crow Nation and the Battlefield of General Custer and Sitting Bull. Perhaps the novel put me in a dark mood about the whole thing. Perhaps it is also my nature to purposefully not visit battlefields and war sites, yet I drove here on the urging of a kind woman I bought homemade bar-b-que sauce from. As
Shalimar concluded, i felt waves of shock and horror, and tears of injustice; it covered a number of social and political issues, and described in detail the methods of holocausts and ethnic cleansings in recent history. Maybe that is why when I looked at the battlefield, I saw a place where a people stood up, faught, and for a moment, won the battle against being cleansed from their homelands, from the face of the earth. And I was a little angry it didn't help them in the long run. I was angry that the site was not a celebration of their victory, but a mourning of the defeat of these troops, a memorial for this fallen general. I was confused. I suppose I was supposed to feel patriotic pride for those fallen men, but weren't the winners the Americans too? Wasn't the spirit that won the day that day (133rd anniversary next Thursday) the same that won our Revolution? Yet we do not celebrate them the same way.
As I sat in the McDonalds later, seeking my WiFi fix, I saw the people of the reservation, fattening their children in the American Way on French Fries. They are living on the reservation that Sitting Bull fought to be free of (a concentration camp? a relocation camp? a zoo?). And McDonalds moved in to feed the captive audience. Is that is American spirit?
Afterword:
I want to point out that the Americans had restraint when it came to the ethnic cleansing of the countryside. People are still alive and live to tell the tale. Their culture may be altered completely, to something unrecognizable from what it was. But perhaps culture is supposed to be fluid, adjusting with the times. It still feels too forced.
Interesting comparison. Thought provoking. I love Rushdie. I bought your mom Shalimar, but I don't think she finished it. I haven't read it either. Need to catch up.
ReplyDeleteCuster was a complex fool. You know, he was a huge animal lover (so was Hitler, to put him in company), he'd make his regiment march out of their way to avoid a nesting ground. Sorry he died, but I think Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull were the hero. Even a few years after the event a lot of "Americans" did as well and flocked for their autographs at store appearances and wild west shows.
I had the opportunity to meet a survivor of the Battle when I was young. My dad took me to meet a 100 year old Souix when I was 7 or 8. Red Fox was a nephew of Crazy Horse and had watched the fight as a boy. He was peddling his autobiography detailing the events after that - the incarceration, the exploitation, and some good times (a very good read if you'd like to borrow it).
I don't think that American actions are cleansed in anyway because there are survivors (I'm 1/16th or so survivor), but they are ameliorated to some extent by our acknowledgment and our opposition to see such things repeated. Something the current perpetrators don't get, "we did this, it was bad, it haunts us to this day, you don't want to live with that "I try to explain that to Chinese who say "you guys are no better because you did XYZ thing 50 or 100 years ago."
At the UCI b-school graduation the commencement speaker was a 4 star general (head of US and UN joint command in South Korea). His subject was integrity and the extreme difficulty of recapture credibility when you've failed to live up to your principals (his context was working on rebuilding the Army after Vietnam). It was a very enjoyable speech and illuminating for everyone on national, corporate, and personal levels.
thanks for sharing.
greg