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Pollak: South Africa Shows That Societies That Erase Their History Doom Their Future
by Joel B. Pollak

Excerpt:

A few years ago, left-wing students attacked the statue of Cecil John Rhodes that stood at the entrance to the University of Cape Town, where I earned a master’s degree in Jewish Studies.

Once that was removed, the students burned artwork, attacking anything that looked like it was European in origin.

One of the paintings they burned was, in fact, the work of a black anti-apartheid artist. He had painted a protester holding a sign with the now-quaint slogan: “No to violence.”

These new fights opened up old wounds and racial divisions, at a time when the country ought to have been unifiying — when children were hungry and people were literally dying in the streets of a preventable disease.

That is not to say all of the statues or street names should have been kept. One major street in Cape Town was named for a Nazi sympathizer in the old ruling party. It was belatedly renamed for a liberation hero. That was long overdue.

My favorite story of a bad statue disappearing was that of apartheid-era figure J. G. Strijdom, whose giant head collapsed of its own weight in 2001, falling into a giant hole.

Otherwise, the obsession with replacing history was a waste of energy.

Here in the U.S., the sudden obsession with replacing statues and renaming things is a similar distraction for the left from its failure to solve the lingering social problems of cities that Democrats have governed for generations.

It is easier to tear down a statue than to confront the teachers’ unions that have a stranglehold on public education; easier to confront a vainglorious bronze pillar than to take on the environmental lobby that blocks factories or new housing developments.

People describe the current upheaval as feeling something like a civil war. And it is — within the left. These are leftists rising up against leftists.

They want so many new rules and regulations to create a more just society — but then demand the abolition of the police that are necessary to enforce the law. They demand economic justice — but then loot and burn stores owned by minorities and immigrants in inner city neighborhoods. The Democratic Party does nothing to stop it.

Full article:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/23/pollak-south-africa-shows-that-societies-that-erase-their-history-doom-their-future/

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