Wednesday, February 5, 2003

When in college I had the opportunity to travel to Athens, Greece, and visit the National Archeological Museum. There I was startled to discover ancient Greek artifacts bearing the swastika. Wasn't this symbol the product of the darkened mind of a 20th century Austrian painter?

As it turns out, the symbol known as the swastika enjoys some 3,000 years of history in cultures around the world.

It has variously stood for life, health, prosperity, good luck and even as a representation of the sun. Hitler, of course, simply appropriated this otherwise benign symbol and, perhaps, changed its meaning forever.

If I were to appear in public wearing a t-shirt adorned with the swastika, I would fail to persuade you of its appropriateness by appeal to its pre-Hitlerian meaning.

Whatever the swastika has symbolized through the ages, it now stands almost universally for hatred, racism and even genocide. At least such are the connotations in the minds of the vast majority of our contemporaries.

This change of meaning is possible because of a general principle: meaning is not inherent in things but is conferred by rational minds. Meaning follows usage.

To put this more formally, a symbol S has meaning M if and only if someone believes that S has M. This, of course, allows that a symbol may mean different things to different people, though the Nazi appropriation of the swastika has rendered its meaning all but monolithic.

Consider the current "Hatred or Heritage?" debate over the 1956 Georgia state flag. Flag defenders often urge that the Confederate battle flag which takes up two-thirds of the Georgia flag symbolizes a Southern heritage, which they wish to keep alive. It represents the noble and principled Robert E. Lee and the heroic soldiers who served under him against overwhelming odds. The men in General Pickett's division who marched into almost certain death for the sake of their cause carried that flag.

Defenders of the flag observe that 90 percent of such men were not slaveholders, and therefore should not be thought of as defending slavery.

Rather, they were defending their way of life from what they perceived to be an oppressive federal government that threatened the liberties guaranteed them by the Constitution.

Some contemporary flag defenders still defend states' rights over against perceived encroachments of the federal government. Even for such advocates of the flag and states' rights, at least for some such advocates, issues of race are quite beside the point.

Unfortunately, the familiar Confederate battle flag represents something other than nobility and valor in the minds of many. Some see it as a symbol of racial oppression.

This, of course, stems from the observation that, even if the War Between the States was not about slavery, it was certainly precipitated by the slavery issue and resulted in the abolition of that institution.

Had those who carried that flag prevailed then, at best, the peculiar institution would have died a slow natural death. It is no work of creative fiction that leads many, African-Americans in particular, to forge a conceptual link between that symbol and this sad chapter of American history.

One may argue that the presence of the battle flag represents only those nobler parts of our Southern heritage, but the fact remains that some 28.7 percent of Georgia's population are unlikely to see it as representing a heritage that they wish to keep alive.

One may observe (rightly) that the pre-1956 Georgia state flag was directly inspired by the "Stars and Bars," the official flag of the Confederacy.

The argument often advanced upon the heels of this observation is that there is nothing particularly offensive about the 1956 flag since its predecessor bore similar historic connections to the Confederate cause.

The problem with this argument, however, is that it overlooks the significance that the battle flag came to acquire in the century following the war.

It flew at the segregationist Dixiecrat convention of 1948 and, in the intervening decade or so, came to be associated more and more with racism and the issue of segregation.

Further, the Confederate battle flag has been appropriated by a variety of white supremacist hate groups, chiefly the KKK, over the years, and therefore has naturally come to be associated with racial hatred and apartheid.

At least one recent flag defender retorts here that the Klan has flown the U.S. flag at its rallies and marches. He asks, "Why is that flag not regarded as 'divisive' as well?" My answer is that, in flying both flags, the Klan is stating that they want an America that is tempered by their racist ideals.

It is common for Klansmen to regard themselves as patriots, defending constitutional liberties under attack by the federal government and, perhaps, the political left.

For me, the decisive consideration against the 1956 flag is precisely the fact that it is the 1956 flag. If the Klan is one hate group that has appropriated the Confederate battle flag, the 1956 Georgia Assembly is another.

Make no mistake about it: the 1956 flag was unfurled in defiance of federal antisegregation laws as well as a thumbing of the nose to the then-fledgling civil rights movement.

Barely a month before signing the flag into effect, Gov. Marvin S. Griffin said, in his State of the State address, "There will be no mixing of the races in the public schools and college classrooms of Georgia anywhere or at any time as long as I am governor."

His predecessor, Herman Talmadge had warned that "blood will flow in the streets of Atlanta" as a result of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that effectively struck down segregation in the public schools.

Flag defenders may tell you that the 1956 flag was created to commemorate the Civil War centennial that was then five years in the future. This is worse than implausible.

The bill that brought us that flag is immersed within a series of acts of the Georgia Assembly that were overtly racist, from their participation in the segregationist Southern Manifesto to the Interposition Resolution of 1957.

Indeed, Denmark Groover, in addressing the 1956 General Assembly, boasted that the new flag would "... serve notice that we intend to uphold what we stood for, will stand for, and will fight for." It was a repentant Denmark Groover who addressed a similar assembly in 2001 in favor of striking the colors that he had had a hand in hoisting some 45 years earlier.

Opposition to the 1956 flag is not yet another silly appeal to political correctness. Nor is it trivial: either our flags are statements of who we are and intend to be or they might as well be sewn into laundry bags.

This flag will forever be associated in the minds of many with the Georgia of such opponents to civil rights as Lester (Axe Handle-in-Hand) Maddox. It is the official flag of Georgian apartheid.

Those committed to the dignity and equality of humanity should oppose its reinstatement.

Mark D. Linville, Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy

Atlanta Christian College