[Federalist] The attack on normalcy, traditions, and history in America intensified in 2020 with Covid-19 lockdowns and the riots catalyzed by the death of George Floyd. When destruction then turned under the Congressional Naming Commission to the icons associated with the Confederacy of the Civil War period, the Reconciliation Monument in Arlington Cemetery came into the crosshairs. It was removed from Arlington on Dec. 16, 2023, despite longstanding traditions and laws against desecrating gravesites. The Reconciliation Monument was the last work of the sculptor Moses Ezekiel, and he chose the monument’s location as his burial ground, making the monument his headstone.
Jewish, gay, Southern — despite those apparent handicaps he was one of the most fashionable sculptors of the age. In his youth the first Jewish cadet at the Virginia Military Institute, he fought with his classmates for the Confederacy, and is buried at the foot of his sculpture in Arlington, the inscription reading simply "Moses J. Ezekiel Sergeant of Company C Battalion of Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute".
Now with the Trump administration’s priority to revive Americans’ appreciation of their heritage, this somewhat obscure monument is in the spotlight. And for good reason, because the Reconciliation Monument can serve as the catalyst and spiritual portal that bring America back to its origin in greatness as the nation of “e pluribus unum” — meaning one out of many.
In a recent post on X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated that the reinstatement of the 1914 Reconciliation Monument, which celebrates the bringing together of the South and the North after decades of post-Civil War division, was important because it fosters the unity of America, and its removal by “woke lemmings” in 2023 was inconsistent with honesty and openness about the past. The secretary added: “Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history — we honor it.” The Reconciliation Monument is projected to be restored to Arlington in 2027.
Most Americans may not realize the full cultural and spiritual significance of restoring this monument to its rightful place in Arlington Cemetery. In this time of intense spiritual warfare against traditional values and constitutional America, we certainly need to preserve and restore historical monuments. But we also need to go on the offense and uphold the American values that inspired these great markers of history. And the Reconciliation Monument compels such action better than any other monument in Arlington and beyond.
HISTORY AND MEANING OF THE MONUMENT
The Reconciliation Monument, called by some the Confederate Monument, displays four cinerary urns (one for each year of the Civil War), a frieze of 14 shields representing the 11 Confederate states and the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and 32 life-sized action figures. Most prominent is a Romanesque woman in a flowing gown with a plow and a pruning hook. Lower on the base is inscribed Isaiah 2:4: “They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” Also prominent are two black figures: an enslaved man following his white owner to war and an enslaved woman depicted as a “mammy” holding a white officer’s child. While critics can say that such portrayal romanticizes slavery, these figures are shown as enslaved individuals in subservient roles, reflecting an historically accurate view of slavery in America at that time.
More than any other monument in Arlington Cemetery, the Reconciliation Monument captures the essence of what makes America great: the willingness to see our faults, forgiving our transgressors, the quest for unity, and the celebration of beauty and freedom. Also noteworthy is that while some have called it the Christmas Monument because of the Christian values it represents, the Reconciliation Monument was conceived, designed, and executed by the distinguished Jewish sculptor Ezekiel, who had served in the Civil War. In the foremost rank of American sculptors, Ezekiel made the ideals of the spiritual and godly, the Greek sense of beauty, and the American outlook of freedom uniquely visible through his sculptural works.
[Federalist] By now you might have seen a video clip circulating on social media of a defiant and terrified young Scottish girl wielding a knife and a hatchet to fend off the advances of a migrant man who allegedly had been harassing her and her younger sister. You can hear the fear and anger in their voices, a mix of desperation and rage and confusion. You can also hear the man’s voice, taunting them. At one point one of the girls cries out, “Don’t touch my little sister, she’s only twelve!”
You might also have heard how the story ended: the police arrested the girl for possession of a bladed weapon. They didn’t detain or even investigate the migrant man.
The entire sordid history of Britain’s civic collapse — stretching back decades to the Rotherham rape gangs scandal and forward to today — is in some ways contained in the striking image of this wisp of a girl with knife and hatchet in hand, facing down a predatory migrant. She is clearly desperate, abandoned by the adults who were supposed to protect her, sold out by the political leaders who were supposed to maintain the cohesion and safety of her city, reduced at last to brandishing crude weapons to defend herself from foreign men brought to her native land against her will.
It’s a scene that encapsulates the total loss of legitimacy of the British government and a portent of what comes next: civil war.
This isn’t hyperbole. Britain right now shows all the signs of descending into sustained civil conflict and eventually open civil war. The ruling elites have broken the social compact by importing mass numbers of foreigners who are hostile to the native population. The government has repeatedly and consistently signaled to the ethnic white majority that there is indeed a two-tiered system of justice — and that they are on the lower tier. Political leaders and public officials have criminalized dissent from their agenda and sent police to harass and arrest people in their homes for criticizing the government.
Worst and most stomach-turning of all, the British ruling class has failed to adequately acknowledge or take appropriate action in response to the Pakistani rape gangs scandal — a scandal which is ongoing, a festering wound in the British body politic. Just this week, Rupert Lowe, a member of Parliament and the chair of the Rape Gang Inquiry, released a statement saying the inquiry had identified 85 local authorities “in which the gang-based sexual exploitation of children is taking place, or has historically done so.” The inquiry, says Lowe, has identified “patterns of targeted exploitation by predominantly Pakistani males, combined with gross negligence from public bodies.”
Most telling, however, was the map that Lowe released with his statement, showing exactly where these rape gangs are. It should come as no surprise that they are mostly in working class, economically downscale regions of Britain, where de-industrialization has gutted entire communities, created high unemployment, high rates of child poverty, and left young British girls vulnerable to predation by Pakistani rape gangs.
One of the really stomach-churning aspects of all this is how the maps confirm that class division plays a major role in the perpetuation of these rape gangs. The ruling class of British society has let this happen because the migrant gangs target working class girls, whom the establishment elites see as expendable. From the political leadership in Parliament down to the police precinct level, the response to the mass rape of British girls by Pakistani migrants was to do nothing, say almost nothing, turn a blind eye for the sake of “community relations,” avoid anything that might seem racist — even as foreign predators were raping and abusing white girls, en masse, for decades.
As it happens, the Scottish girl in the viral video clip is from Dundee, one of those post-industrial, impoverished British cities struggling with pervasive unemployment, youth poverty, and social decay. It’s also one of the red areas on Lowe’s map that show where rape gangs operate. What happened there is happening all over the country. Girls who have had to endure constant harassment — and worse — from migrant men are beginning to speak out, and they are all saying the same thing: I am not safe, I am in distress, I am being hunted. Embedded in their plea is a damning question: Why will no one protect me?
All of this is intolerable, it is too much, and it will lead inexorably to rebellion and bloodshed and war. You don’t have to take my word for it. Back in February, Louise Perry posted a much-discussed podcast with David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World at King’s College London. Betz is not a kook. He’s a specialist in the study of insurgency and counterinsurgency, information warfare, cyberwarfare, and propaganda, who has advised the British government and military over the course of a long career.
A 14-year-old girl in Scotland has been charged with possession of a knife after viral footage showed her and another minor being approached and filmed by at least one foreign man.
The girl brandishes a knife and an axe before walking away from the scene.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
