Brazil, controversy over the Confederate Day

When we talk about “politically correct” it is almost always done to condemn it, or at least to dissociate ourselves from its excesses. In reality, it doesn’t make much sense to dissociate oneself from such a far-reaching historical and cultural phenomenon, which has its roots in years, or centuries, of frustrations and to focus attention on a specific event concerning political correctness, on which one can (perhaps) say a few words: for several generations a cheerful, colorful and multiracial “Festa Confederada” of Southern expatriates over there has been held near San Paolo in Brazil, a party that has been suspended for two years due to the coronavirus but also for the controversy over the Confederate flag as a racist symbol. Now, the Old South of the United States was the land of black slavery, and this is an irrefutable historical fact. But having personally witnessed, years ago, a Confederada Party in Brazil, with a lot of country and rock music mixed with jazz and samba, with the men dancing in the uniform of General Lee’s soldiers, the women in sumptuous dresses a la Rossella O ‘ Hara, an infinity of Brazilian mixed couples of all shades of color, and many blacks and blacks dressed up as southerners and southerners, we would like to testify that racism is not really at home here, the Ku Klux Klan less than less, and sorry that the politically correct, however understandable and (perhaps) historically justifiable in many other cases, has come to threaten to extinguish this colorful and beautiful corner of the world.

La Stampa published articles on the Confederates in Brazil a few years ago. In short, the historical background is this: in 1865 the Old South of the United States found itself not only defeated in the wretched Secession war it had waged, but also physically destroyed. About ten thousand Southerners sought a new life in Brazil, which welcomed them and allowed them to found plantations and a small (American) town near San Paolo, on the territory of the municipality of Santa Bárbara d’Oeste. Over the next two centuries the community dispersed throughout Brazil, marriages with Brazilians of all colors gradually diluted their blood, and the original English language was lost; now in that of Americana we speak a grotesque Anglo / Portuguese with many endings in “ao – ao”. But many of the great-grandchildren gather every year in Americana for the Confederada Party, organized to once again bring the community together with typical Brazilian cheer.

Or rather, the festival was organized, but has been suspended for two years. In 2020 the fault was Covid, which is raging in Brazil, and in 2021 a second reason was added: the Brazilian newspapers reported the protests of politicians and intellectuals against the colors of the Confederate flag as a racist symbol; make your feast, it is now said, but without the flag and without the Southern uniforms. At the time of publishing there has been no official announcement of postponement or cancellation of the annual celebration, but the period in which it is traditionally held is the end of April, and that period has passed.

Now, not only the atmosphere of a multiracial village festival that we experienced by participating in it, but also other distinctions, lead us to break a lance for the Festa Confederada. It is true that in the United States some group of white supremacists (only a few) wave the Confederate banner, but that flag is not really their symbol, indeed for two centuries, alongside that of the Union, it was a symbol of national reconciliation post-Secession, because it is not the Southern flag, but the combat flag of the Confederate army. The distinction can be considered forced, goat wool, or hypocritical, yet in America the banner of the Southern Army has been honored for generations in school books, along with the figure of General Lee. The children of the North and the South were taught the value of closing old wounds. And in keeping with this spirit, the Rebel and Union flags fly side by side at the Confederation Festival as well. Among the readers of this article, maybe someone remembers the series of American TV series (1979-1985) starring Bo and Luke Duke who drive the “General Lee”, that is, a car with the Confederate colors painted on the roof? Neither the authors of the series, nor the actors, nor millions of viewers in America and around the world ever thought (in those years, but also long after, when Hollywood produced the film version in 2005) that it was a racist fetish, even knowing full well that that was the flag of the Old South. The “General Lee” (intended as a four-wheeled vehicle) was a guest of the Brazilian Confederada Party again in 2018 without causing controversy. But now it seems that history has been rewritten.

I have another personal memory. On a day in the 1990s, while in the United States, after visiting the battlefield of Bull Run, Virginia, I walked into an entirely black-run store, and here I bought a T-shirt with a large Confederate flag; the girl – black – who gave it to me certainly knew the history of her country, but evidently she didn’t think she was selling me a racist symbol; as for me, I had no problems wearing that T-shirt neither in America nor in Italy, in the 90s, while if I tried today, in America as in Italy, this would take on a meaning of challenge that no one would have at the time imagined. My personal impression is that history, in the meantime, has just been rewritten. And it will be perfectly right, sensitivities change, and I said from the beginning that opposing political correctness is a futile exercise. But it would be a shame if the unlikely Brazilian multiracial racists who speak in “ao-ao”, dressed as Southerners and Rossella O’Hara, were stolen the colors of the Confederada Party. Yet we must be sure that it will go just like that.

We cite three books which illustrate, from various points of view, the question of the Old South, the Secession and the Confederates (although not specifically of their Brazilian Celebration). To begin with, Mario Luraghi, “History of the American Civil War” (Rizzoli), is a classic on the subject, even better than what has been published in America, by an Italian author who in his academic life has also dealt with the subject. in many other volumes – which we are not going to mention, but which are actually all worth reading. Then a novel, not one of the best known on the subject: William Faulkner, “Gli invitti” (Einaudi), a very balanced writing, because John Brown is equidistant in attributing the roles of good and bad between slavers and anti-slavers: in in fact, in these pages they are all bad, nobody is saved. And finally, a book not translated into Italian, chosen from the immense English language production: Gabor S. Boritt (edited by), “Why the Confederacy Lost” (Oxford University Press), a collective volume on a strictly political-military topic.

Post scriptum: the indulgence towards the “politically correct” mentioned at the beginning of this article is a franchise that can be justified only towards those who have suffered real historical wrongs; but sometimes that’s not the case. For example, until recently even countries like Turkey or China have enjoyed in the West something similar to such an excess in the judgment on their past and their present, because (it is the undercurrent) they have suffered so much through our fault, and therefore (supposedly) they deserve infinite understanding regarding their subsequent acts, including human rights violations. But let’s start with Turkey. This is not a country formerly colonized by the West. The reality is that in its international relations Turkey has in fact always been an empire on an equal footing with Europe, and was also formally admitted to the Concerto of the European imperialist powers already at the time of the Crimean War, that is (even) from before. the Civil War that we have dealt with in this article; Turkey does not seem to have the roles of historical victim that it can claim, although its schoolbooks define the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922 as imperialist aggression, yet so far it has been discounted a bit ‘everything, from the Armenian genocide to violations of human rights, as if it were a country still intent on healing who knows what wounds and which therefore deserves infinite understanding and indulgence. But the historical franchises are starting to fall now that the Pope, the European Union and the American President Joe Biden have recognized the Armenian genocide as such; and this does not only concern the historiographical debate, it indicates the end of a position rent: after a tradition of inveterate acquiescence for a hundred years, Turkey’s political interlocutors become more demanding towards him, see Mario Draghi calling Erdogan dictator, and France which organizes European fleets to patrol the eastern Mediterranean waters unilaterally claimed by Turkey. A similar argument can be made for China, which is entitled to be considered a true victim of imperialism (just think of the opium wars), but for generations it has been a nuclear power with a permanent seat on the Security Council of the UN; it does not appear to be able to claim special indulgence from the West for its human rights violations. There are also those who maliciously point out (Federico Rampini recently did) that China replies to the American and European accusations by presenting the West as a racist and sexist hell precisely on the basis of the “politically correct” that predominates in the West itself, and to which a large part of Western politicians, academics and journalists are prone; how does the West throw the first stone if it systematically describes itself in these terms? If the statues of Southern generals are knocked down because they were slavers and racists, and by politicians and academics they say that it is right to do so, what can save the statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers of the States? United owners of hundreds of black slaves, as well as (in many cases) rapists of their female slaves? A Spartan once said that when a fire rages it should not be half burned, it should burn everything.