| | |
| | |
|
This argument has some immediate appeal. The war irrevocably altered America's position in world politics, and it has left its mark, indelibly, on our history since. It was the truly "defining" event for a generation of Americans - and, indeed, for their children (though these children are only now coming to see it). Almost overnight, the war upended Americans' understanding of our nation's responsibilities to the world. At the war's start America possessed modest military might and, recalling the gruesome fiasco of the First World War, considered itself permanently purged of the temptation to meddle in international disputes beyond this hemisphere. By war's end - six long years, and yet a mere six years - America wielded the most powerful military force in the history of humanity and had taken the first long steps toward its present capacity as chief world champion of representative government. Five and a half decades have transformed but not lifted the responsibilities attendant upon this role; nor have they altered Americans' basic willingness to shoulder them. In global terms, the war was the central event in the central political struggle of the century: the struggle over whether governments are to be accountable to people or people to governments. Unlike World War I, which was really a European conflict, the Second was the first truly "world" war. Says historian John Keegan:
Simply, because the war did not make us who we are. Certainly the war was everything set forth above and more. But the Mall is consecrated to American fundamentals, and the war did not fundamentally contribute either to the establishment of our political institutions or to the formation of our national character. To the contrary, it was the fully formed and mature American character, nurtured by our mature institutions, that enabled Americans' inspired performance in that war. So far from being a truly formative influence on our democracy, the war is more accurately seen as the first major international expression of America's particular democratic spirit. In the American story the war is important, but it is not central. The honored promenade on which the memorial is to be built is rightly reserved for commemoration of people and institutions that are truly essential to America's existence as a federal republic. Thus the monument to Washington, of whom it could be said that while his leadership in war made an American national existence possible, his character in office demonstrated that it was possible. Thus the memorial to Lincoln, the indispensable person who, both by means of and in spite of the Civil War, guided the nation through its hour of greatest peril. Thus the Capitol building, seat of the first branch of government and reminder that we are meant to be governed by law rather than by men. (The White House, seat of the second and inferior branch of government, appropriately lies off the main axis of the Mall.) Memorial advocates complain that opponents have exaggerated the site's physical expanse - but themselves employ distinctly fuzzy math to minimize it. The memorial's official website declares, punctiliously, that only 30 percent of the 7.4-acre site will be "hard surface." Was this innocuous figure arrived at by not counting the Rainbow Pool itself, or the grass panels set in the stone plaza? One cannot know from viewing the official website, whose various graphics do not include detailed plans or comprehensive aerial views. Nor, for that matter, do the websites of the American Battle Monuments Commission or the National Capital Planning Commission. But it is not the scale of the structure that really offends sensible people's sensibilities (though the graphics available on opponents' web pages do leave an alarming impression of the thing's dimensions). Rather, it is the act of putting any such monument, large or small, in this singular space. The Second World War, though central to world history, simply does not rank a place in the center of America's principal public shrine. |
|
Copyright © 2008 National Coalition to Save Our Mall Inc. All Rights Reserved |
he rationale for placing the memorial in this space is that the war was the central human and political event of the twentieth century; that America's role in it was decisive; that the sacrifices made by soldiers and civilians are incalculable; and that the rewards of their supreme effort are invaluable.
To be sure, the war had democratic consequences at home. Recognition of the valor of African-American soldiers contributed to the ultimate integration of the armed forces after the war; this in turn spurred momentum for a fuller integration of society at large. Large numbers of women experienced working (or rather, career) life for the first time during the war, and they would not forget it when they returned (sometimes sorrowfully) to their "proper sphere" at war's end. But these salutary consequences were just that - consequences, not part of the war itself. And they were, it must be said, almost entirely unintended by the architects of the nation's war effort.