the similarities of the american south and middle east

So, that's right, I'm working on more research, so time for another philosophical post. Read all the way to the end and get an update on my goings-on!

Over the summer, I am working on a continuation of my research and writing on French postcard photography of native Algerians during its rule of the former colony of Algiers. Since it deals directly with West-East conflict, it's very timely, even though Algeria claimed independence in the late '30's. I have just now started a collection of essays discussing the ongoing Western/Muslim interchange and social ramifications of colonialism's past. It's beginning to occur to me that Southerners can identify and empathize with the residents of the Maghreb (Muslim North Africa).

Some of you may remember my paper this past semester on the Virginian photographer Sally Mann. To recap for the majority of you out there, the paper explored how Mann's psychological biography supports interpretation of both peaceful rest/healing and death in her work. An aspect of this argument relies on her self-admitted closeness, both individually and as a Southerner, with the echoes of the Civil War and reactions to attack, occupation and demoralizing defeat of a geographically bound cultural group. I've always been strongly attracted to the idea of Southern cultural identity. When I was studying in Florence, Italy for a semester as an undergraduate, my friends, mostly Midwesterners, were amazed at how virulent we can be about our uniqueness and the continued breakdown in our minds along the Mason-Dixon line, the historical boundary demarking states who supported slavery and Southern independence over a century ago.

When I was a teenager, my county had one large and overcrowded high school. The range of diversity was to me at the time spectacular: farmers from the north, blue and white collar workers from the towns, and children of the surrounding university-driven cities. A county with a colonial history on the edge of an education and medicine triumvirate and a large and active alumni chapter of the Future Farmers of America, our high school had it's fair share of rebel flag clothing, paraphernalia, and even a few incendiary inscriptions dedicated to the KKK. The issue of race relations is a whole 'nother musing, and I want to bring particular attention to the use of the rebel flag as a symbol of cultural unity and individuality from the rest of the United States. Just as we see globalization erasing traditional cultural boundaries, individual countries are also becoming more unified and losing their sense of regional diversity. The South is proud of its roots in farming, it closeness to the land and ability to subsist by one's own hand. There is a great sense of family, of hospitality, of respect and politeness. Our forebears were Irish, English, Scottish, and African, creating a cuisine of soul food and sweet tea that no Southerner in their right mind would turn their mouths against. It's also a land marred by great poverty. Even during the time of slavery, the grand plantations you've seen in Gone with the Wind represented a tiny percent of the population. Economic disparity was always an issue, and the Civil War destroyed much of what was the economy. A culture so full of pride has been ordered to try to repress all of their culturally unique attributes, both the good and the bad, in an attempt to morally rectify and cleanse the region for the horrible atrocities of slavery and segregation. Rather than nurturing relations, this has created a reactionary swing of those who are tired of being made to feel shame for who they are, who have begun to cling not only to the positive aspects of their society but also continuing ideas of racial superiority.

When I speak of this cultural oppression, I mean in the thoughts and actions of the Northern United States as a whole. It is amazing to me how views on the Civil War differ between the two sides to this day. Bill Simmons, a sportswriter for ESPN hailing from Boston, recently made mention in a recent article to the "Great Civil War." I can't tell you how many times I have heard the same tragic conflict referred to as the "War of Northern Aggression" and Reconstruction as "The Rape of the South." While the South was never a colony of the North and always shared a more less comparable status, the events of the mid-nineteenth century set up a new hierarchy. The South bore the brunt of the devastation of the fighting, and the legislation of "Reconstruction" acted in a similar manner to the Treaty of Versailles for Germany, to economically hinder the region from building itself, thereby hoping to eliminate the possibility of armed defense and making the South economically dependent upon its neighbors to the North. The situation enabled profit-seeking entrepreneurs to take advantage of those licking their wounds and funnel the money made northwards. One group of people occupying another on grounds of moral superiority, beating said occupants into submission, then appropriating the resources for their own betterment, leaving behind a legacy of bitterness and financial hardships.

Can you think of any other replications of this exact situation? Iraq may have come immediately to mind, but the history of Western Imperialism gives us more plentiful examples. Let me make crystal clear that I am in no way condoning slavery or the more hierarchical relationship of the white to black existent for centuries in the South. The conquest of native peoples during the golden age of imperialism allows for much greater sympathy on the part of the native peoples, as they were merely used as inconsequential pawns on the behalf of Europe, and hardly in a state to defend themselves properly, greatly different from the situation of the Southern United States. The similarities I am more interested in are in the state of relations upon the occupation's termination. And while Southerners enjoyed much more freedom and a higher standard of living than those under the imperial boot, Southerners are perhaps the only Caucasian group in American that has a historical precedent in any way similar to those of the Arab, Berber and Jewish Algerians. I am not attempting to raise sympathy for white supremacists, or to say that the analogy is stronger between Algerians and Southern whites than to the former slaves and Native Americans of the South. I am calling out to my Southern community to take their feelings of anger, shame and pride and apply them to the Muslims who have for so long suffered at the hands of their captors. Set aside the false notions of Islam spread in the Bible Belt and furthered by the aggrandizing of fundamentalist Muslim political parties and terrorist groups. Rather than a call to arms, this a call to understanding. A call to try to see the deeper problems which have caused the current distrust and resentment of the West and stop trying to pretend like it doesn't exist.