source |
by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
I thought the title might get your attention. An institution would not fair too well with a name like that. Adolph Hitler was a fascist and a mass murderer. The NAZI’s as they were called, believed Slavs, Romany (Gypsies) Jews and blacks were sub human sending some 12 million people to gas chambers, six million of them Jews.
I thought the title might get your attention. An institution would not fair too well with a name like that. Adolph Hitler was a fascist and a mass murderer. The NAZI’s as they were called, believed Slavs, Romany (Gypsies) Jews and blacks were sub human sending some 12 million people to gas chambers, six million of them Jews.
Hitler endorsed a philosophy that murdered workers’ leaders, the mentally ill, and gay people. Some of the first deportations were trade union leaders, communists (Stalinists) and socialists. The National Socialist philosophy, its adherents and intellectuals, conducted medical experiments on human beings of the “sub human” races. They conducted experiments like giving a mother electric shocks if she refused to electrocute her child. They wanted to see how much pain she could take before she killed her own offspring.
So why do we have a city and university named after Jeffery Amherst, or 1st Baron Amherst as he
was known? Amherst was a colonial
officer of the British Army who was the first governor of what was to become
Canada and was the British Crown’s governor of Virginia. Amherst College in Massachusetts is named
after the Baron and there are numerous towns and public places in Canada named
after him.
Amherst, like all of
his class saw workers as lesser humans as well.
How can a miner, a peasant, a guild member not be of lower
intelligence? The ruling class has to
justify its social rank; it must validate its rule. In order to subjugate the
masses of another nation or country; they have to be demonized. The working
class that provides the cannon fodder for imperialist ventures must be
convinced that it is in their interests to defend what little they have against foreigners. The Irish were referred to
as “White Chimpanzees” in the British
bourgeois press of the time. Cromwell wanted to slaughter the entire race. In
my lifetime, the Irish were still being portrayed as lazy, stupid, dirty and
promiscuous.
Amherst was a
vicious racist as well. He had no love for the native population in the
colonies, both in the America’s and Australia. Amherst supported the policy of
selling or supplying the Native American population smallpox infected
blankets. He was quite creative in his
desire to commit genocide in the America’s supporting any “other method that can
serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race.”.
We live in a class society, governed as we are by that class
of people that own the means of producing and distributing the necessities of
life. So it should comes as no surprise
that their institutions, the airports, libraries and other public institutions
are named after the leaders of that class.
What worker with an ounce of class-consciousness would name a public
institution after Reagan or the imbecile Bush or other members, politicians or
leaders of the ruling class?
In the ruthless competition between the capitalist classes
of the various nations states, there breaks out at times open warfare. This was particularly so prior to the advent
of nuclear weaponry and the ability of some of the major players, the US in
particular, to blow up the entire world.
Nuclear weapons have undoubtedly made the likelihood of wars between
nations states more complicated for fear it all goes up. The US’s recent predatory wars are not wars
at all but turkey shoots. The warmongers
at the Pentagon didn’t invade North Korea. Instead, we are amidst a period of
never ending regional conflict fanned in particular by a substantially weaker though armed to
the teeth US capitalism; but all the major players are involved.
For Europeans, workers and the ruling class, the name
Hitler, represents all that is evil, one of the greatest threats to civilization,
bourgeois democracy and the rule of capital, (excepting communism of course). For Western (and many eastern) Europeans, the
name Stalin is not too popular either although for a while he was in such favor
with the US ruling class that he appeared on the front page of Life Magazine.
For Native American historians and others more aware of
their own history, Jeffrey Amherst must surely occupy a similar place, a cruel,
vicious invader bent on wiping out an entire culture. Cromwell has a similar affect on the Irish.
He wanted to wipe them all out and wreaked havoc with his invasion of that
country.
Yet I’ll wager that if there was a campaign to change a
place name like Amherst, there would be much opposition. The white ruling class would lead the
campaign whipping up fear among workers of European descent that “our” culture
is threatened by this assault on “our” history and “our” past. But Amherst is their historical figure, not
mine. Yes they teach “white history” but it is the history of the white
capitalist class, the same way Black
History Month tends to focus on black American entrepreneurs, artists, or inventors, or
literary figures not that these are not an important part of history but the
rich militant history of workers, the huge battles, strikes and violent struggles in the face of
brutal oppression from the bosses, this is hidden.
I’ll wager most people can go from Kindergarten through 12 grade in the US education system and know nothing about the great 1877 uprising, the Flint occupation, the strikes of Latino, Japanese and other workers in California, the wars against the lumber barons and mining corporations or the Seattle General Strike of 1919 when workers controlled that city for 5 days.
I’ll wager most people can go from Kindergarten through 12 grade in the US education system and know nothing about the great 1877 uprising, the Flint occupation, the strikes of Latino, Japanese and other workers in California, the wars against the lumber barons and mining corporations or the Seattle General Strike of 1919 when workers controlled that city for 5 days.
The ruling class writes history from its point of view, we
know that. But we have the ability today
with the Internet to find out so much more about our history, and from the
comfort of our own homes. Working class
people have our own heroes, many of them will have to be discovered, many of
them are nameless yet made great sacrifices on our behalf. * They are from all
different nationalities and cultures. What worker with an ounce of
class-consciousness would support naming a public institution after people like
Ronald Reagan? The heroes of the ruling
class in this country have historically waged the most vicious assault on the
rights of workers and the rights of specially oppressed minorities and the
ethnic groups.
United We Stand is an OK slogan depending with whom we stand,
our class, or those of the same color, religion or ethnicity regardless of
social position. In the case of the Native Americans, a simple act that would
cost the rest of us nothing, standing with them on their objection to the name
Redskins for a sports franchise, would a be an important act of solidarity
strengthening us all.
Objecting to public institutions and places being named
after individuals who had no respect for workers in general and committed
genocidal acts against Native Americans in particular would be even better.
* In Mother Jones’
autobiography she mentions Big Mary Septak.
She ran a boarding house for workers and led whole troops of women
against the Pinkerton’s and hired thugs of the ruling class in order to defend
the workers fighting for democratic rights, independent unions and freedom. In a genuine workers’ democracy, people like
Big Mary Septak will have a library or perhaps an airport (especially in
Pennsylvania) named after her.
No comments:
Post a Comment