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VIEW FROM THE PEW
When or why did flag-waving become so belligerent and bellicose? We are about to join a global TV-watching marathon as the Olympic Games get underway. News media are already primed to expect how the traditional display of winners’ patriotic pride may be used as a platform for athletes to vent about the flaws of our country and Hawaii surfers’ pride in their own special ethnic culture. Ironic isn’t it, a worldwide stage for dissent provided by a tradition of respect.
I’ve always taken flag-waving as an upbeat, exuberant, positive thing but then, I’ve only done it on a small, personal scale. I brought the Stars and Stripes out for Memorial Day and Independence Day. It’s not exactly an activity that is trending in my neighborhood but I’m sure it is if you live closer to a military base.
There was a time when I’d do the same thing for all federal holidays but then it became oh-so politically incorrect to celebrate Columbus Day. Forget the amazing voyage of the Santa Maria boldly going where no one had gone before; it opened mankind’s vision to the vastness of the planet earth. Christopher Columbus died 14 years after this first famous voyage but is used now as a symbol of centuries of exploitation by European colonizers who claimed the land and mistreated the indigenous people who already occupied this “New World.”
Truth is, that explorer had documented incidents of brutality to natives on the Caribbean islands where he spent a short time during his four voyages from Spain. By the way, he raised a flag on the first island he found, a banner of Spanish king Ferdinand, claiming the land for Spain and renaming the island, called Guanahani by its inhabitants, San Salvador meaning Christ the Savior.
History is being edited and statues romanticizing his feat as a discoverer were being taken down even before the recent wave of deleting Confederate generals from the landscape. One current effort to remove a Columbus statue in Syracuse, New York, was mentioned in a recent Catholic News Service story; the city’s mayor is being delayed by a court challenge and pushback from Italian Americans who honor C.C. as an iconic Italian. Watch for breaking news as statues become targets on Oct. 11, the federal Columbus Day holiday which was established in 1937.
Actually, the focus of the June 7 CNS story was on Syracuse Catholic Bishop Douglas Lucia who wants to persuade Pope Francis to “re-examine” Vatican documents dating back to the late 1400s which empowered the Christian nations of Europe to colonize other lands. Bishop Lucia, whose diocesan offices are on the ancestral land of the Onondaga Nation, is the first American bishop to publicly call for the Catholic Church to admit the lethal legacy of those “papal bulls,” according to the story by Renee K. Gadoua, a reporter with the Syracuse diocesan newspaper. The bishop said when Native Americans had their lands taken away “they became second-class citizens. This was white supremacy.” His concerns echo those from other faith-based groups including Catholic women’s religious organizations calling for the Vatican to repudiate the papal bulls and apologize to indigenous people for their fallout.
Looking back at those documents with which the Vatican backed the actions of powerful monarchs is a reminder that the hierarchy has a long history of entanglement with secular politics and ideology which we see playing out even today in the USA. Of course, the noble goal was to bring the teaching of Jesus to people, and Christianity did take root in South and Central America despite the cruelty of the conquerors who accompanied missionaries. But talk about mixed messages.
Thoughts of the timeline of history swirled in my head after Mass two weeks ago. The Gospel reading was about a momentous event in our faith’s history, an expedition of discovery that has shaped our world ever since. Jesus sent his apostles on the road to do what he had been doing. It was their trial run as missionaries and they measured up to the challenge, preaching a message of God’s love, healing the sick and driving out demons. The evangelist Mark gave intimate details of Jesus’ instructions to travel light: sandals, a walking stick, one tunic and no extra clothes, no food, no sack, no money. Accept hospitality where it is offered. If you’re not welcome, leave that place and give them a message by shaking its dust off your feet.
The story’s details
As a storyteller myself, I’m prone to analyze why another one would go into minute detail in his tale. Here was a very specific instruction to not seek comfort but focus on your mission. Catholic school kids grow up on stories about people who followed in those disciples’ footsteps down through the years, dedicated humble lives of thousands of men and women evangelizers, the vow of poverty taken by members of religious orders, hardship posts in desolate locations, St. Francis, Mother Teresa, Father Damien.
I imagine those words were earmarked in Bibles carried by missionaries to America, slogging through strange lands, building churches and bringing their version of civilization and the teaching of Jesus. They faced death, danger and hostility, were definitely not always welcomed. They believed they brought the great gift of God’s word so they didn’t shake the dust from their sandals and go away. It’s not politically correct to tell their story or praise their dedication in this time of super awareness of wrongs suffered by indigenous people.
I suppose it’s also not polite or pious of me to observe that down through history, church leaders strayed pretty far from the humility advised in Mark 6:7-13. The more institutional Christianity became, the more comfortable it became to match the monarchs. That simple tunic idea sure has evolved, ceremonial gear of gilt embroidery and lace carried down from the Middle Ages, flashy designer suits of rock-star televangelists preaching prosperity is godly. Fashion and faith, better steer out of that territory.
Speaking of territory, thank God mapmakers did not choose to name this country after Columbus. Can you imagine the chaos of expunging history with a name change? I mean, deleting insensitive words from the names of sports teams is a piece of cake.
Lucky for us, the continents of the western hemisphere were named after Amerigo Vespucci, another Italian explorer who reached the coast of Brazil and realized it was a continent. Columbus didn’t deserve a namesake anyway, he viewed his discoveries as a passage to Asia and didn’t see the big picture.
Continuing my fixation about Columbus, did you know there’s an Irish tale to be told about him? You know I’d find my ethnic link if I could. It was a chicken-skin moment while on a trip to Ireland ages ago. At the waterfront of the west coast city of Galway, there is a monument with the inscription: “On these shores around 1477, the Genoa sailor Cristoforo Colombo found sure signs of land beyond the Atlantic.” The sculpture was presented to Galway by Genoa, Columbus’ hometown, in 1992 for the 500th anniversary of his first voyage. Whoa, we were standing where the discoverer might have walked; it was a memory that my aunt and I tried to work into conversations for years!
The Galway landmark was the target of graffiti artists last year while the Black Lives Matter movement was resonating around the globe. The Galway county council declined proposals to do what Americans were doing, saying the monument marking a fact of history and appropriately located next to the city’s historical museum, will stay.
As for what “sure signs” it refers to, there’s scholarly theories and written evidence that Irish sailors were in the C.C. crew. By the time Columbus sailed the ocean blue, the Vikings had ventured around and beyond Ireland for 500-plus years. They had settlements in Greenland — 1,600 miles from Galway — and Leif Erickson had sailed further west and landed in what is now Newfoundland, the guy who “discovered” North America, after all.
Hawaii’s politics dodged the movement to debase Columbus because they recrafted that holiday as “Discoverers Day.” It includes Capt. James Cook, the Brit who found these islands and set the path for the European and American haole hordes who followed. We don’t admire him so much either anymore. But we absolutely love those first explorers from the South Pacific because they got here first, a millennium before Cook, and planted what became the Hawaiian culture. But, since they were immigrants, do their descendants meet the definition of indigenous people?
Any angst about formal flag-flying on Oct. 11 can just chill since it’s no longer a formal state holiday anyway. It was switched out of the calendar of paid days off for government workers for a January holiday honoring 20th Century civil rights crusader Martin Luther King Jr.
So back to the subject of belligerent waving. It’s become the thing to do, gather on a freeway overpass or the State Capitol sidewalk to declare your political belief or oppose the other guy’s opinion under the auspices of your American flag. Stick your Hawaii state flag or the sovereignty alternative banner on the back of your pickup truck for a road rally to create a traffic jam. Oh, and be sure the flag is upside down so everyone gets that you are really, really angry.
Statehood Day was actually once a Stars and Stripes kind of holiday, does anyone else remember? But the narrative has changed since the anniversary of the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani focused Hawaiian sovereignty advocates. I guess I was naive not to get the political correctness drift. I put up my American flag on Aug. 20 a few years ago. Then, when I drove down my street later in the day, I couldn’t understand what those guys in a neighboring carport were shouting but I was pretty sure it wasn’t about clucking hens. A quiet neighbor made a discreet suggestion when I returned home. God forbid that I be seen as belligerent and bellicose; I took the flag down. I am not proud of that. So I respect the sensibilities of my neighbor and don’t fly the flag.
But I am proud that Hawaii is the 50th state. It is affirmed in news headlines almost daily. The newspaper puts an American flag on every obituary of a military veteran, names of every ethnicity. Perhaps they should do the same on every story about extra unemployment insurance and housing supplements, child tax benefits, food stamp and welfare benefits, support programs for the elderly, mentally ill, disabled, homeless, all kinds of emergency aid paid for by fellow USA citizens. Definitely, they should flag every story covering disgruntled and disaffected people shouting out on the streets; and maybe add a footnote reminder to each story about how their freedom of speech came to be guaranteed.
