Many of the people with whom I spoke, particularly in Siberia, were
the victims, or the children of the victims of exactly this kind of
forced mass movement to subject populations. More than that a
Russian serf, prior to Communism was tied to the land, by both
tradition, and law and, after Communism, was tied to a specific place
by law. You could not come in to Moscow without an internal
passport, for instance. One suffering should never be used to trump
another, that just another form of projection, but I think it is fair
to note that Russian suffering really takes place on a scale that is
really almost impossible to comprehend. Between the Nazis, and
Stalin, 35 million people died, getting on to a third of the
population, in the space of about 25 years.
But all of this is essentially besides the point I was trying to
make: most people care less about politics than they do stability, a
place in the social fabric, regular meals, etc. What we mean by
freedom today would have been incomprehensible to most in the 18th,
or even the 19th century -- and in some places, into the 21st
century. The words are sometimes the same, but the cultural context
is very different. It seems very bad history, indeed, to impose
present day perspectives on other times and places, analytical
techniques for sure, but not moral judgments. God knows the war in
Iraq should make that clear enough.
-- Stephan
On 12 Jun 2007, at 14:30, Anita Wills wrote:
> I would not compare slaves to people who were under an oppressive
> regime. I doubt that these people were shipped in from thousands of
> miles away to labor on plantations. Besides that there are the
> writings of slaves who escaped, such as one of my ancestors, Josiah
> Henson, who wrote narrative about his life as a slave. He wrote
> that narrative from Canada where he was living the life of a free
> man, after being a slave in Maryland. Instead of quoting the WPA
> narratives, maybe you should read the writings of slaves who were
> able to escape.
>
> Anita
>
>> From: "Stephan A. Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia
>> history <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)
>> Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:22:47 -0400
>>
>> Melinda's is the most insightful comment I have yet read about
>> this, and I speak from considerable direct personal experience.
>> From 1981 to 1993 I went to what is now the former Soviet Union
>> so often I maintained an apartment there, and have made perhaps a
>> dosen trips subsequently. I had stumbled across the WPA archives
>> during the course of research to write John Warner's 1976
>> bicentennial address (he was the head of the commission) and been
>> very struck by their nostalgic tone in so many instances. Having
>> grown up in the civil rights movement, and having been arrested a
>> number of times in the south for nonviolent demonstrations, at
>> the time I could not reconcile the discongruity. But, almost 15
>> years later, I saw its mirror, in the people of Russia and East
>> Germany, and it gave me insight into the slave narratives. Time
>> and again I would talk to Russians, and East Germans and,
>> somewhere during the conversation, they would compare their post-
>> Communist world unfavorably to their present "free" state. This
>> was particularly true if they had lost status, or been cast
>> adrift to an uncertain day-to-day existence.
>>
>> The cold truth is that many, perhaps even most, people want,
>> above all else, a stable life style, with enough food, a place to
>> sleep, steady work to do, and a social fabric in which they play
>> a recognized role. History abounds in examples of this truth,
>> even though it is very hard for many of us today to swallow, not
>> least because it seems so politically incorrect. But there it is.
>>
>> -- Stephan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Stephan A. Schwartz
>> Email:
>> [log in to unmask]
>> Personal Website:
>> www.stephanaschwartz.com
>> Schwartzreport:
>> www.schwartzreport.net
>> Explore Schwartzreport:
>> www.explorejournal.com
>> Schwartzreport Annual Conference:
>> www.schwartzreportconference.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12 Jun 2007, at 08:07, Melinda Skinner wrote:
>>
>>> On reading some of the WPA narratives of former slaves who
>>> recalled their enslaved lives fondly, I thought of the people in
>>> the Soviet Union who, after its break-up and the end of the
>>> communist regime, were devastated and wanted to go back to the
>>> way things had been. It was difficult for some of them to know
>>> how to live within the new "freedom." Surely, it would be hard
>>> to adjust to being responsible for everything after living your
>>> entire life as the property/ward of the master/state. If your
>>> master had not been cruel, it may not have seemed so bad when
>>> you looked back with the perspective of trying to make it in a
>>> difficult, racist world.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Melinda C. P. Skinner
>>> Richmond, VA
>>>
>>>
>>> -------------- Original message ----------------------
>>> From: Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Kevin, thank you for your reply. For me, George Washington
>>>> remains the
>>>> exemplar, the maximum leader. The more you study him, in almost
>>>> any aspect,
>>>> the more you have to admire him. In researching Washington as an
>>>> emancipator, I was astonished to find how deeply biographers
>>>> and historians
>>>> had buried that aspect of his life and career. It just didn't
>>>> fit with the
>>>> received wisdom that slavery was "just the accepted system,"
>>>> unchallenged, a
>>>> venerable practice enshrined in law, sanctioned by the Bible,
>>>> and carried
>>>> out as much as possible on a humane basis. Washington's views
>>>> and actions
>>>> don't fit that grid at all--"they don't compute." We like to
>>>> think that
>>>> "they didn't know any better; we can't judge them." But if you
>>>> look at what
>>>> Washington did and contended against, you find that he was not
>>>> fighting
>>>> against ignorance and indifference, but against profit. The
>>>> modern analogy I
>>>> use is: getting Thomas Jefferson to give up slavery is like
>>>> getting Dick
>>>> Cheney to quit pumping oil.
>>>>
>>>> Henry Wiencek
>
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