COMMENTARY: We Never Escape the Past

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) “That was then and this is now.” This flippant phrase is usually invoked to end any serious exploration of our individual or collective pasts. The intention is to repress the past and emphasize only the present. […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(UNDATED) “That was then and this is now.”


This flippant phrase is usually invoked to end any serious exploration of our individual or collective pasts. The intention is to repress the past and emphasize only the present. While the clever words may sound accurate, they are a lie.

Indeed, religion clearly teaches that our “thens” always influence our “nows.” Jews annually remember the “then” of the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the Holocaust and other defining events of the past while Christians commemorate Jesus’ life and death that took place 2,000 years ago. Yet, despite the centrality of the past in our religious traditions, we frequently think the past is of little or no importance in influencing how we act and think today.

Two current news stories vividly illustrate that, for good or ill, we never escape our past.

The tragic history of the Civil War still haunts us in many ways. Between 1861 and 1865 more than 550,000 Americans were killed in that conflict, a staggering total that has never been remotely approached in America’s other wars. Even though slavery was officially abolished during the Civil War, the divisive issue of race continues to torture our society despite civil rights laws, demonstrations, affirmative action programs and prayerful exhortations from preachers and presidents.

Another legacy from the Civil War is the corrosive debate about the appropriate use of symbols from that traumatic period. Interestingly, there have been few complaints that many military facilities are named for Confederate generals including Fort Hood, Fort Bragg, and Fort Gordon. My nieces and nephews graduated from Jeb Stuart High School in Virginia, and the Jefferson Davis Highway is a vital traffic artery in the Washington, D.C., area. In my hometown, Jan. 19, Robert E. Lee’s birthday, was always a school holiday.

But flying the Confederate flag over South Carolina’s Capitol, something that began only in 1962, has triggered intense emotions that show no sign of abating. Republican presidential candidates have run from the issue because of that state’s important primary.

Opponents of the flag call the “Stars and Bars” a symbol of slavery, oppression, and treason. Just before the Super Bowl in Atlanta, the Rev. Jesse Jackson upped the emotional ante when he pointed out that a portion of the Georgia state flag contains the Confederate symbol.

But, of course, the Civil War, a.k.a. the War Between the States, was `then’ and this is `now.’ Wanna bet?

The bitter custody struggle over 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez is another example of how the past often governs the present.


Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959 and ever since he and his communist government have dominated much of American public life including the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the missile crisis, the Watergate break-in, and the continuing U.S. embargo.

For four decades Cuba has been a pariah, a parasite, an “Evil Empire” just 90 miles from Florida. But during those same 40 years, American leaders have dramatically changed official policy toward two communist regimes far more powerful than Cuba. The United States accorded diplomatic recognition to China during the Nixon administration and to Vietnam during Clinton’s term in office, two nations that were former military foes of the United States.

A trip to Florida revealed how divisive the Gonzalez case is and how the past still shapes attitudes and actions toward Cuba. Many American politicians who constantly insist that parents are the true custodians of authentic “family values” now urge that young Elian not be returned to his father and grandparents in Cuba. The “then” of 40 years ago decisively shapes the “now” of today, and a 6-year-old boy is the proverbial pawn in an ugly political chess game that has little to do with the oft-proclaimed “best interests” of the child.

One conservative Republican businessman in Tampa reluctantly told me: “I hate to admit it, but Castro is right in this case. If Elian were Haitian, every politico would proudly speak of `family reunification’ as a noble reason for sending the boy back to his father. But Castro and Cuba have always been different.”

So different that the National Council of Churches is a staunch public advocate for returning Elian to Cuba and the Catholic nun who hosted the boy’s recent meeting with his grandmothers in Miami declares: “I am no longer neutral.” She believes Elian should stay with his extended family in the United States.

It has been 40 years since Castro gained power. That was then and this is now.


Sure it is.

AMB END RUDIN

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