ToppledNational styles of pulling down statues.
Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2003, at 11:14 AM ET
As I write this, 100 or so Iraqis are gathered in Baghdad's Firdos Square, trying to tear down an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. Three men have set up a ladder, climbed up the pillar, and draped a long rope, noose style, around the statue's neck. Now they have climbed down, and a few others, including one very beefy fellow, are swinging away at the pillar with a hammer. The task seems futile. The pillar is about 30 feet high and 6 feet or so in diameter. The statue stands about 30 feet on top of it. A couple of American Abrams tanks are loitering about; they could topple the thing in a minute, but they seem disinclined, for the moment—leaving the task, as they should, to the Iraqis.
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StumbleUponI am reminded of 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Baltic nations took their own hammers to their most prominent statues of Lenin. Much could be discerned about national style from the effort. In Lithuania, the most emotional of the republics, the crowd just went at it, using all tools at hand, bringing down Vladimir Ilyich with great gusto. In Latvia, some engineers assumed the task, judging the statue's material, pulling up a crane, and taking it down very systematically. In Estonia, the town leaders coolly hired a Finnish firm to do the job.
So, what are we to make of this fitful flailing in downtown Baghdad? The crowd is still milling around Firdos Square, but they have stopped trying to topple Saddam's monument. And now, here comes the American tank. The Iraqis are now tying a steel chain, no doubt U.S.-supplied, to the statue, and the Abrams M1 will serve as the toppler. Oh, no; it's getting worse. Marines are getting up on the statue to pull it down themselves. One of them has draped an American flag over Saddam's head. What a moron! The very picture of neo-colonialism, which will make front pages all over the Arab world. Now he's taking off the American flag. No doubt, someone from Centcom, watching CNN, phoned the officer on the scene to chew him out and remind him of the orders against such displays.
A big sigh. Is this scene a sad symbol of the Iraqi people's helplessness, after 30 years of brutal dictatorship, to master their own fate? Is this an equally sad symbol of America's inability to liberate without conquering? Will the Iraqis need outside forces to oust not merely Saddam but the figments of his rule? Will the Americans help them without too strong a stench of arrogance?
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Remarks from the Fray:
How easy it is for us to sit in front of our computers and call someone a moron. This is a member of the US military who is risking his life and has likely encountered some extremely dangerous and stressful situations in the past few weeks. I agree, it would have been better if it wasn't done and I further agree that that the Arab news will probably go nuts with it. The flag was on the statue for only a minute, and was replaced immediately afterwards with an old Iraq flag, but of course, Al-Jazeera is up to it's usual one-sided reporting. I would characterize what that soldier did as youthful exuberance. We may be old enough and far enough away from the situation to know better, but calling him a moron is greatly disrespectful. Also, if you are going to intelligently comment on the news, I would hope you learn the dramatic difference between an M1 (it has a large turret with a gun on the front) and an M88. An M88 recovery vehicle is what was used to bring the statue down. I'll refrain from calling the author of the piece a moron, and assume he made an honest mistake due to his exuberance and rush to get his story out.
--jfergie
(To reply, click here)
He provided a photo opportunity to the Arab world that's a symbol of American Colonialism. That image of our flag is now captured for eternity. The image can be used to recruit disaffected Middle Eastern youth into Taliban-like organizations. And, the beauty part is that it won't matter what spin we put on it -- there will always be that still image of our flag, the symbol of the conquerer on a foreign land. And, of course, the question that will be asked is, "If this was a spur of the moment thing, why was a soldier carrying a large flag in his kit?" That might make the spin a little harder to spin away from the idea that we were claiming this land for our own--and that is what placing one's flag on a land tends to symbolize. It makes it harder to push the point that we are freeing a people to rule themselves. Then there's the picture, an image frozen forever that can be placed in text books, used in recruiting pamphlets, and handily added to protest signs. Yes. You are so right. It was wrong of Kaplan to refer to the young soldier as a moron. Clearly, this was a brilliant move.
--DeaH
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