When Commemorative Statues & Public Art Offends
New Denver & Nelson, BC: Lessons on Homage, Pilgrimage & Sensitivity
Sep 11, 2008
Nelson and New Denver, in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada, are pilgrimage sites because of the region's historical complicity in human rights outrages. When these small urban centers attempted to erect commemorative statues to raise public awareness about politically charged historic injustices, they attracted controversy for widely divergent reasons.
West Kootenays: a Lion's Share of Turmoil and Hardship
- The Doukhabors attracted hostility during WWI for their pacifism and antagonized farmers who disliked the economic clout which a communal lifestyle gave them.
- Japanese-Canadian women, children, the aged and infirm were interned at camps in New Denver, Kaslo, and Sandon during WWII.
- In the 1950s, W.A.C "Wacky" Bennett displaced entire communities in the Columbia River Basin to flood them for irrigation projects south of the 49th parallel.
- In the 1960s, the Slocan Valley was a haven for American refugees, draft-dodgers and deserters from the Vietnam War.
In 2006, American Veteran groups opposed plans by a private organization to erect Our Way Home, a statue which honoured the Vietnam War draft-dodgers. The statue probably would have attracted little fanfare had right-wing media in the USA not used the proposal as a cause célèbre to distract attention from Republican war scandals, whipping up a frenzy of opposition. The City of Nelson buckled under threats of a tourist boycott, withdrawing support.
In 2005, the town of New Denver withdrew plans to create a picnic area and sculpture which paid homage to the scores of Doukhobor children forced into residential schools in their community. This time it was the Doukhobors who opposed the statue, citing it as an inappropriate symbol or icon which contravened their religious beliefs, and an unwanted attempt to assimilate them into the community.
On the surface, memorials to survivors or refugees from political, religious or ethnic conflicts seem like a great idea. They stand as an acknowledgement by a community that such events did transpire. The Nikkei Memorial Internment Camp in New Denver, for example, attracts scores of pilgrims, students and visitors with its restoration of a bonafide Japanese-Canadian WWII forced resettlement community, which re-creates the conditions faced by prisoners.
There are vast differences, however, between the Nikkei Memorial (and its sister archive and former resettlement structure at the Langham Historic Site in Kaslo, BC) and the picnic area which New Denver had proposed:
- Firstly, museums and archives provide actual documentation, photographs, artifacts and the testaments of survivors to refute those who would deny that these events happened. These are vital bodies of evidence to contradict misinformation disseminated by conspiracy theorists and racists like Jimmy Keegstra and Ernst Zundel (see Wikipedia for details.) Statues do not.
- Secondly, they are not tourist attractions in that they aren't a backdoor endorsement, regardless of how much that town or village has changed in passing decades. People may conduct pilgrimages in order to educate themselves or pay homage to survivors, but the sites themselves are hardly a matter of civic pride.
- Moreover, the Canadian Nikkei received a formal apology and redress in the 1980s. The Doukhobors have not. As Walter Swetisloff, the Doukhobor Community representative whose opposition successfully killed the project, said, “It was no picnic for us when we were there, so this picnic site as a reminder was very disrespectful.”
The commemorative statue to the Vietnam War Draft-dodgers is another matter entirely. These refugees were openly welcomed, and many are still valued members of the community. The statue was sponsored by a peace organization with ties to the Doukhabors. The decision to kill it was swayed by outsiders.
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