Reexamining Confederate symbols displayed on flags and monuments in public spaces: Two fallacies in the heritage versus hate debate

Religion, Murder, and the Confederate Battle Flag in South Carolina Gerald R. Webster (bio) and Jonathan I. Leib (bio) Contentious debates over the meaning and appropriate display of Confederate symbols have been waged across the American South for the past three decades (Leib and Webster 2007). While these debates are clearly racialized, they are also imbued with religious arguments and fervor (Webster and Leib 2002, 2012). One major reason is the aggressive religiosity characterizing the South’s cultural landscape, in which religion plays a central role in social, economic and political relations (Webster 1997). While less well understood, it is also the case that many white southerners saw the Civil War as a religious conflict against Northern apostasy. As Wilson (1995, 19) states, “Ministers and churches . . . insisted that the Confederacy was a crusade against the evil empire of the Yankee. It was a holy war.” As a result, Confederate symbols like the battle flag and heroic figures like Robert E. Lee took on religious overtones that continue to exist today among traditional white southerners.1 The debate over the Confederate flag in South Carolina has been waged for over two decades, with particularly vitriolic arguments about the continued flying of the battle flag over the state capitol dome beginning in the latter part of the 1990s. In 2000, a legislative compromise led the state to move the battle flag off the capitol dome to a Confederate soldier’s monument on the state capitol grounds (Webster and Leib 2001, Leib and Webster 2004). The compromise was strongly criticized by many on both sides of the issue, with African American legislators supporting the compromise being characterized as “weak-kneed” and white supporters of the compromise labeled as “turncoats” (Webster and Leib 2001, 294). The debate over whether the battle flag should remain flying on public space on the South Carolina capitol’s grounds remained at a standstill for fifteen years, from May 2000 until July 2015. On Wednesday evening, June 17, 2015, a young white racist enamored with Confederate symbols, including the battle flag, joined a Bible study group of African American worshipers at the historic [End Page 29] Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. At approximately 9:00 pm he pulled a Glock 41 .45 caliber handgun from his pack and opened fire, killing nine while shouting racial epithets. The shooter used hollow-point bullets to cause the maximum damage to his victims. The shooter’s intention was to start a race war (Smith 2015). On July 10, 2015, twenty-three days after the Charleston murders, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the Confederate soldier’s monument on the South Carolina state capitol grounds. In this essay we examine the reasons for the battle flag’s removal with an emphasis on the South’s religiosity. We argue that religion is a central foundation for why the flag debates in the region have been so fervent. We further argue that the fact that the murders occurred in a church during a Bible study on a Wednesday evening was an important reason why South Carolina leaders were successful in removing the battle flag from the grounds of the state capitol. This paper first provides a brief overview of the South’s strong religiosity. We then examine the origins of the religious fervor associated with the Confederacy, major Confederate figures such as Robert E. Lee, and Confederate symbols such as the battle flag. The paper then concludes with a discussion of the role of religion in the reaction of political leaders and the removal of the flag from the state house grounds following the Charleston murders. The connection between religion and the battle flag is important given that the Southern states are generally regarded as being the most deeply religious, even “Christ-haunted” (Wood 2004) region of the United States, and that much of the American South is in the Bible Belt (Brunn, Webster and Archer 2011, Webster et al. 2015).2 National polls consistently find that church attendance is highest in the American South among U.S. regions. For example, a recent Gallup Poll found that 11 of the top 12 states in terms of the highest weekly church...

SACRED SYMBOL AS THEOLOGICAL TEXT

Psychological consequences of religious symbols in public space: Crucifix display at a public university

This article is a writing based on a research on tolerance and diversity in Tangerang City. The objectives of this writing is to describe social relations between groups with different ethnic and religious backgrounds by unfolding and reflecting boundaries of identity built by these groups. This writing argues that decentralization as a context, in which tolerance, ethnic identity and democratization has worked as a new arena for repositioning and redefintion the relations between groups at local level. The State (in this particular is the Local Government) is actually play a role as an agent that reconstructs the relations between ethnic and religious groups; and some of their “policies” has created social exclusion in public spaces. As the research unfold, Tangerang’s City vision to build “akhlaqul karimah” society (a society with pious religious attitudes), has contibuted to the shaping of social relations of the groups with different ethnic and religious backgrounds that shares living spaces in Tangerang, as the local government tries to “color” the city identity by expressing certain religious symbols in open public spaces. The result is a form of social exclusion, experienced and felt by ethnic (and religious) groups, which are the minority in political, economical and socio-cultural arena in Tangerang City. Keywords: social exclusion, Tangerang City vision, identity symbols in public spaces

The paper presents recent Danish debates about so-called ‘grand-mosques’ in Copenhagen as examples of political controversies over religious symbols in public space. Following a discussion of in what sense mosques will be religious symbols, and what ‘public space’ can mean, the paper investigates freedom of religion as a general principle for how public authorities ought to relate to religion with particular focus on the regulation of religious symbols in public space. Freedom of religion can be understood in different ways, e.g. as based on religious neutrality, as an expression of religious toleration, or as grounded on respect. Thee paper argues that freedom of religion in Denmark is more plausibly understood as a relation of collective but only partial recognition and that religious symbols in public space should be discussed within this framework.

Public space is one of the most accessible areas to the public eye. Placing any sign in a public space within a given territory creates a linguistic landscape environment. One of the essential functions of a linguistic landscape is representing a certain given territory's symbolic meaning. This symbolic meaning may represent local ideology or identity and local/national authority's power. This phenomenon occurs in Kuta village, Badung Regency, Bali Province, Indonesia. Due to a lack of local identity, all public sign in Bali is oblique to put Balinese scripts transliteration above all Latin scripts as mandated by Bali's Governor Regulation no. 80/2018. This authority's power of language use over public space is one of Bali's government's efforts to gain its local identity in public space through public signs. This study aims to further analyse the transliteration of Latin script to Balinese script in public signs in Kuta village, as previous research indicates some mistakes and irregularity. This analysis is needed to identify, refine and regulate the transliteration procedure since Balinese script is a syllabic system different from Latin script. The finding showed that some issues must be maintained and regulated to have a good transliteration of Balinese script in public space as a landmark of Balinese identity in Bali's public spaces.

This article aims to explain state regulations and media perspectives in Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia regarding the use of the hijab as a religious symbol in public spaces. The influence of globalization has increased diversity in the media landscape in the public sphere, going beyond traditional face-to-face interactions and encompassing the vast realm of the Internet. While Muslim women in secular Western countries face bans on wearing the hijab in public spaces, Muslim women in Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia face challenges regarding their style of wearing the hijab in public spaces. This research is qualitative research based on the study of public space and religion. The analysis was carried out in three Southeast Asian countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam, which have Muslim populations with different characteristics. Indonesia and Malaysia are multicultural regions but are dominated by Muslims, and Brunei is a country with a Muslim majority. These three countries have different patterns of managing religion in public spaces. Religious symbols in public spaces reflect the relationship between public space phenomena, the state, and the social context in a region. Social media has expanded the public sphere, providing greater opportunities for religious groups to present their arguments or engage in da'wah (religious outreach).

Taking Down the Flag Is Just a StartToward the Memory-Work of Racial Reconciliation in White Supremacist America Joshua F.J. Inwood (bio) and Derek Alderman (bio) On 17 June 2015 Dylann Roof, a self-avowed white supremacist, walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and sat down for a Bible study. After spending forty-five minutes attending the service, he pulled a Glock 41 .45 caliber handgun from his backpack and opened fire, killing nine people. Roof then fled and was ultimately arrested twenty-four hours later in North Carolina. Of the nine killed the oldest was 87 year old Susie Jackson, and the youngest was 26 year old Tywanza Sanders. After his arrest Roof claimed that he assassinated the members of Emanuel AME Church in the hopes of igniting a broader race war. Indeed, photographs later emerged and went viral of Roof engaged in racist exhibitions and hate speech in the past, in particular the flying of the controversial and insensitive Confederate battle flag. In the aftermath of the Charleston massacre, we saw renewed efforts to remove Confederate symbols from across the South’s public spaces, with South Carolina legislators finally voting to remove the flag from the state capitol grounds. In addition, the nation witnessed the grace of survivors in forgiving Roof. These were meaningful and symbolic steps that, thankfully, had the opposite effect than the one the white supremacist shooter had intended. While it is undeniably tragic that nine innocent people had to die before political leaders realized what many African Americans have known and lived with for generations, it is also indicative of a nation that whitewashes the connections between the material realities of white supremacy and its grounding in historical memory. The Confederate flag is a highly charged reminder of legacies of racism that have long been employed by racists to intimidate the black community and to oppose those struggling for racial equality. The banner of the secessionist, pro-slavery southern government had largely faded from memory and sight in the years after the Civil War, but it reappeared not coincidentally after World War II as a symbol of [End Page 9] conservative white resistance to what was then the nascent Civil Rights Movement. African Americans who famously protested segregated bussing in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 have vivid memories of being pelted with balloons filled with urine, which were thrown from cars and trucks decorated with Confederate flags. In 1959, in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, school officials in Fairfax, Virginia named and opened a new high school after Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart (Shapiro 2015). Many communities carried out similar not-so-subtle strategies of defending white supremacy under the guise of southern heritage and pride. The landscape has retained major traces of these racist symbols and, as a result of the Charleston Massacre, these symbols are being challenged well beyond the removal of the Confederate flag. As activists and others from across the United States recognize, challenging the legitimacy of publicly displaying Confederate flags and other symbols that legitimize the defense of slavery and white supremacy is certainly the right thing to do. Yet these calls should not be mistaken for a solution to structural inequality. In particular, while state legislators from across the South should be applauded for taking down Confederate symbols, that is not the same thing as addressing the deeply entrenched social and spatial conditions that allow white supremacy to permeate not just the Charleston AME church but wider swaths of American life. This contradictory reality—addressing the symbols of a racist heritage without challenging the foundational histories and geographies of racism—raises questions about the relationship between violence, race and memory (Tyner et al. 2014). These questions are seldom discussed in our post-Charleston Nine social world. Recently, Karen Till has argued that progressive change requires a direct engagement with the trauma of “memory work” in which “individuals and groups may confront and take responsibility for the failures of the democratic state and its violences” (Till 2012, pg. 7). In particular, she highlights the place-based practices of local citizens, activists, educators, artists, and even performers in carrying out the physical, political, and...

This research explored the relationships between beliefs about the Confederate flag’s symbolism, masculine honor beliefs (MHB), and attitudes toward removing Confederate symbols and memorials from public areas. Participants from across the United States (N = 206) responded to questionnaires assessing their MHB, beliefs that the Confederate flag symbolizes remembrance, rebellion, and racism, and reported their attitudes about Confederate symbols. Results demonstrated positive associations between beliefs that the Confederate flag stands for remembrance and rebellion, MHB, and support for the Confederate flag. Those who believe the flag symbolizes racism were most in favor of removing Confederate symbols from public spaces whereas those who believe the flag is a symbol of remembrance followed by those with higher levels of MHB most oppose their removal. Findings provide insights into how This research explored the relationships between beliefs about the Confederate flag’s symbolism, masculine honor beliefs (MHB), and attitudes toward removing Confederate symbols and memorials from public areas. Participants from across the United States (N = 206) responded to questionnaires assessing their MHB, beliefs that the Confederate flag symbolizes remembrance, rebellion, and racism, and reported their attitudes about Confederate symbols. Results demonstrated positive associations between beliefs that the Confederate flag stands for remembrance and rebellion, MHB, and support for the Confederate flag. Those who believe the flag symbolizes racism were most in favor of removing Confederate symbols from public spaces whereas those who believe the flag is a symbol of remembrance followed by those with higher levels of MHB most oppose their removal. Findings provide insights into how ideas about masculine honor influence perceptions of important social issues and may explain the acceptance of aggressive measures to protect the Confederate symbols.ideas about masculine honor influence perceptions of important social issues and may explain the acceptance of aggressive measures to protect the Confederate symbols.

This chapter explores two cases representing the category of government-endorsed religious symbols in public spaces. It explores (section 3.1.1) the Bladensburg Cross case, in which the US Supreme Court decided that the cross does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The chapter then discusses the Lautsi case (section 3.1.2), in which the Italian government defended its policy mandating the placement of the crucifix in public schools in Italy before the European Court of Human Rights. It then explores the importance of public spaces (section 3.2) defined as publicly owned spaces used by the public. It explores (section 3.3) the view that governmental endorsement of religious symbols in public spaces fits within a majoritarian model. This view—“the religious majoritarian approach” (RMA)—is defined and analyzed. Subsequently, the chapter presents (section 3.4) critiques of this approach. It concludes (section 3.5) that, while the RMA is ill-advised, it is permissible within the contours of democratic politics.

The article compares, on the issues of religious symbols in public space, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and that of the US Supreme Court. The enquiry aims at outlining a comparison between the contents of the decisions, not between the Courts: one is a constitutional court, the other an international court which in the late decades has been a breakthrough in the European system of guarantees. The main points emerged through the comparison are: first of all, the European Court, unlike the US SC, is clearly engaged in building a European secularism that leaves religious symbols outside the public space. The Strasbourg Court adopts a conception of secularism which, in principle, is very different from American secularism. Secondly, although in different ways, both Courts employ arguments based on tradition and history, to the detriment of individual and minority interests. Thirdly, there is a certain deference towards the choices made by national authorities: for the critics of the Roberts Court, this attitude deserves to be stigmatized in a constitutional jurisdiction.

The exercise of competence in the field of adapting street names and public venues to the standards set out in the provisions of the Act of April 1, 2016 on the prohibition of promoting communism or other totalitarian system by the names of organisational units, commune auxiliary units, buildings, public utility facilities and devices and monuments requires assessment of the facts and subsumption made in the context of the interpretation of certain facts from the point of view of their symbolic meaning. Therefore, it can be concluded that public administration bodies take into account the category of a symbol, which in the context of the provisions on street renaming is a specific legal category. It is a category that determines the legality of actions taken both by the authority responsible for assigning a given name and by the authority supervising the application of these regulations. The provisions of the act also apply to the visual impact on public space and spaces with the status of public accessibility of monuments, or more precisely, the content of which these monuments are personified. The analysis of the jurisprudence issued on the exercise of competences regulated by this Act leads to the identification of a number of contexts of the referent of the symbol in the case of assessing whether the name of the street or the values embodied by the monument symbolise communism or other totalitarian system. Thus, we can distinguish: the context of social awareness of the existence of the designate, the context of the date, the context of the person and the context of historical facts, as regards the designations of symbols of communism or other totalitarian system, which should be taken into account as premises for assessing the legality of the actions of administrative bodies in the context of their assessment facts, subsumption and imperative actions. Both the authorities exercising the competence to name streets and assessing the symbolism carried by monuments, as well as the authorities exercising the competence to assess the legality of the actions of the deciding authorities in this subject, should take into account the context-criteria indicated here as determinants of whether a given name or monument actually symbolises communism or other totalitarian regime.An important issue is the “range” of influence coupled with the issue of symbol awareness. Thus, we can distinguish symbols identified in a broad social context and exclusive symbols — legible only to a narrow group of people. On the other hand, regardless of the territorial (local or universal) impact of a symbol as a phenomenon in the public space — there must be general agreement as to its symbolic meaning, or even universal awareness of this fact.

This paper should draw a picture of the German constitutional system of the relationship between state and Religion, on the examples of the most discussed religious symbols in public space: Islamic headscarf and christian cross. German constitutional law includes the rules about the relationship between state and religious communities. It is based on three principles: neutrality, tolerance and parity. According to that, there is no state church. As well the state is not allowed to identify with one particular religious community. On the other hand, the constitution asks the German state to encourage religious life. Therefore, the protection of freedom of religion is understood in an ample way. The religious communities have more rights than other registered societies. All this is distilled in the term positive neutrality of religion.

Commemorations of the Confederacy remain pervasive throughout the Southern U.S. Historians have long established that many of these symbols were erected during the Jim Crow era to reinforce white political dominance in public spaces. Yet, little is known about how these enduring symbols shape perceptions among people of different racial identities today. This study examines Confederate monuments where they are most prominently placed: courthouse grounds. Using an original survey experiment of Black, white, and Latino Southerners, it investigates whether the presence of a Confederate monument in front of a courthouse influences feelings of personal safety and welcomeness, as well as perceptions of the fairness of the court system. Findings reveal that a Confederate monument made Black and Latino Southerners feel less safe and welcome at the courthouse and led Black Southerners to perceive the court system as less fair toward people like them. In contrast, Confederate monuments had no overall effect on white Southerners’ perceptions of courthouses or the judicial system. These results underscore the role of contentious symbols in reinforcing inequalities in public spaces.

Surveying Memory:The Past in Black and White Larry J. Griffin (bio) and Peggy G. Hargis (bio) This much we know; the past is not really, can never be, past at all. It is recalcitrant, stubbornly refusing to go away or be discarded. It haunts recovery and sabotages amnesia. The past reminds—makes—us who we are and, sometimes, when we acknowledge that past, it also makes us wish we were not who we are. It fuels death and destruction, and it spurs acts of sacrifice and greatness. It renews, even, paradoxically, as it defies newness. In its inevitability, the past is always everywhere, persisting into the present and thus presaging the future. The past is memorialized in monuments, museums, days on the calendar, and sacred and quasi-sacred commemorative rituals; it is packaged and sold as heritage tourism; it is continually discussed, endlessly represented in various media, extensively used to judge the morality or immorality of today, and repeatedly drawn on as a repository of moral and practical lessons. To take only the most topical example of the last point—that is, the past as lesson—the first President Bush is reported to have said at the conclusion of the 1991 Gulf War: "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!" (qtd in Herring 104). Meanwhile, the second President Bush, now ensnared in another war in Iraq, is increasingly reminded, by critics and events alike, that the "Vietnam syndrome," like it or not, is alive and well and that the term "quagmire" perhaps [End Page 42] has more than mere historical resonance. So, to repeat, now quoting William Faulkner, "the past is never dead, it is not even past" (85). In their many guises, memory studies have insightfully exploited this existential, orienting truth, a truth perhaps best expressed by Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit. "Memory," he says, "is not knowledge of the past, it is knowledge from the past" (14). Not exactly the academic study of history—although it is often practiced with great skill by historians such as Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, David Blight, and John Bodnar—scholarly inquiry into memory, perhaps especially the exploration of collective and social memory, has proffered new questions about and interpretations of how individuals and collectivities are both constituted by the past and mobilize it for present-day projects. Place, purpose, and identity; the meaning of national symbols; collective guilt and personal shame; ethnic and racial conflict; the invention of traditions; repentance, reconciliation, and redemption—all of this and much more—now routinely motivate the research of a large and growing number of interdisciplinary memory scholars.1 Given that the American South, more than any other region in the country, visibly carries its sorrowful past on its shoulders, it is not surprising that the region has become a focus of memory research. The South's past is continually recreated and renewed from within and without in media, from the hundreds of newspaper articles across the nation reflecting on the horrors of racial segregation and the legacy of the civil rights movement, and films such as Mississippi Burning and Freedom Song, to the recent truth-and-reconciliation-type trials of perpetrators of civil rightsera assassinations and church bombings in Mississippi and Alabama, to the seemingly endless debate over the meaning and proper public role (if any) of such Confederate symbols as the St. Andrew's cross. It is a past, largely sanitized in some memory sites, which can be experienced in Williamsburg, Natchez, Charleston, New Orleans, San Antonio, and dozens of other towns and cities promoting heritage tourism. It is also a past, less sanitized to be sure, in Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, and Montgomery, in which one can not only experience what is no longer but can also witness to the world about what should have never been—a past of racial barbarism.2 The past, it seems, is always present in the South, and southerners repeatedly express genuine interest in their region's history. In a Southern Focus Poll, fielded by the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina during the fall of 1994, slightly more than two-thirds of all southerners strongly...