I used to work in international democracy promotion. One day during the end of the Bush years I became disillusioned with it all - it was so hypocritical as we bombed the hell out of the very countries we wanted to "give" democracy to. So I quit.
I wanted to go to Europe to get away from the US for awhile, but the only places I could afford to go to were Romania and Bulgaria and a thimble full of others, so I decided to go to Bulgaria for a few months. But I had originally planned to visit a friend in Austria, so I decided to fly into Budapest and train down to Bulgaria. I bought a roundtrip ticket.
ANYwho, I did all my Bulgaria stuff (read about it here if you want), and set off to return the US, broke and pretty much in despair that I didn't know what was next. I ended the trip in Budapest. On the train there I sat in a cabin with two Kurds with fake passports who didn't speak English and didn't know I understood some of what they were saying because I was proficient in Arabic and Kurdish shares many words. One of them had to help me get back to Budapest when a train strike stopped the trains outside the city. Like in the middle of stops. Despite not speaking a common language he managed to get me to the right place.
I wanted to go to Europe to get away from the US for awhile, but the only places I could afford to go to were Romania and Bulgaria and a thimble full of others, so I decided to go to Bulgaria for a few months. But I had originally planned to visit a friend in Austria, so I decided to fly into Budapest and train down to Bulgaria. I bought a roundtrip ticket.
ANYwho, I did all my Bulgaria stuff (read about it here if you want), and set off to return the US, broke and pretty much in despair that I didn't know what was next. I ended the trip in Budapest. On the train there I sat in a cabin with two Kurds with fake passports who didn't speak English and didn't know I understood some of what they were saying because I was proficient in Arabic and Kurdish shares many words. One of them had to help me get back to Budapest when a train strike stopped the trains outside the city. Like in the middle of stops. Despite not speaking a common language he managed to get me to the right place.
But that isn't the point of this post. One of the things I wanted to see was the Statue Park where they put many of the Communist era statues as a way to remember the past. Remember, not celebrate it. Moscow has one, too. Statues put up by oppressors shouldn't be held in reverence, not in the former USSR and its satellites, not in Germany, and not in the US South, where one of mankind's greatest atrocities took place on a widespread scale, leaving behind a legacy of consequences and brutalities.
That is not something to glorify.
Put up a statue park, tear down the confederate monuments to injustice and treachery, and put them in an outdoor museum so we don't forget the past, lest we be condemned to repeat it. You're either a confederate or an American. You cannot be both.
Here are some photos of the statue park outside Budapest.
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