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Explain me the apparent obcession America has with it's civil war. (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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My country has had a civil war, invasions by the french, by the spanish, more recently a revolution that threw a fascist government, followed by a very colourful period of internal squirmishes between anti-regime forces, but we settled those events and that was that: off to the history books.

What motivates so many people to re-enact battles from the American Civil War?

It sounds cruel. Re-enacting a war where so many died gruesome deaths.

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[–] 3 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

Yeah, isn't there a French guy who's made a whole career out of looking like Napoleon in reenactments?

Compared to World War II, it isn’t problematic to depiction both sides fighting; it is a lot more problematic for people to dress in Nazi, Imperial Japanese, or even fascist Italian uniforms.

Honestly I'd rate the Japanese or Italians as slightly less problematic, and the Nazis on a similar level. American chattel slavery was deeply fucked up. Hasn't anyone watched Roots?

Of course, way too many participants are denialists about that bit.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I'd rate the Italians as less problematic, but the Imperial Japanese have a lot of blood on their hands as well.

    And as horrific chattel slavery has come out to be, there are still whitewashers of it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    Yeah, the Italians were pretty brutal domestically and in north Africa, and were the original fascists, but I'd say the Japanese were probably worse. As a non-historian, it seems complicated by the fact they were a copy of the European empires they were contemporary with, who also did messed up things in colonies, even if according to the historians I've read they did go further.

    The Nazis were very open about wanting all the terrible things, and very distinct from the people they fought against, so they go in the worst-of-the-worst bucket with ISIS and Dixie.

    And as horrific [as] chattel slavery has come out to be

    Was ever fully forgotten? Like, it's definitely spoken about more openly now than in the early or mid 20th century, but the abolitionists of the day and living memory afterwards were quite active documenting exactly how fucked up it was.

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