Writers call for conversations and dialogue regarding Secord Monument

To the Editor:

An open letter to the residents of Kincardine

There has been much discussion about council’s decision to decommission the Secord Monument. While I understand the divisive nature of the debate and the decision, it was certainly not taken lightly or quickly.

Each of us will have a story about our experience and how we have arrived at our respective opinions and perspectives. Some will talk about the community they remember, their experiences, and the relationships they have built in this community. Others will discuss their recent arrival and welcoming within the community, their respective struggles, and simultaneously, their accomplishments.

Our perspectives and narratives are valid regardless of whether they are shared or result from shared experience; however, what often differs is how we arrive at any given decision and what each experience means to us, individually and collectively.

While we navigate the journey after council’s decision, I don’t ask those on either side of the discussion to acquiesce. Their feelings will remain, and I equally tell both sides to understand why the people on the other side of the debate may feel the way they do.

For those who are angry, disappointed, and feel unrepresented, I will not try to convince you for a moment that your feelings are not valid, but I would also want to take a moment to reflect on another version of events.

While re-contextualization remained at the heart of the conversation, several venues that had been contacted respectfully declined the offer to accommodate. This is not to shift responsibility for the decision but to provide a clearer understanding of the difficult decision, which was significantly narrowed without re-contextualization as a viable option.

For those who feel victorious in the decision, I ask that you understand that many think their history has been stolen, hidden, and destroyed. This is not an ideal way to deal with history. This has been seen for generations, with women often written out of history and not adequately celebrated. I, for one, would agree that any attempts to rewrite or reconvene history are not ideal. Equally, it is important to be mindful of how we revere aspects of history.

I have referred to this as a history-making journey, which is correct. The process and decision of dealing with a monument addressing the Southern Army in the Civil War are history-making in our country, irrespective of the outcome. Please understand that any discussion where one side feels aggrieved bears no honour.

We are a small community that prides itself on acceptance, welcoming one another, and kindness, and that has not changed. Many of you remain friends and neighbours.

Knowing each other helps with empathy and understanding another point of view, so I remain open and welcome discussion, whether in my office, over coffee, or elsewhere. I urge us to focus on conversations surrounding who we are, as people, and the commonalities we share in this beautiful community, as we have far more in common than any of our differences.

I encourage both sides of this discussion to embrace silence, when needed. In the viral world of social media, conversations can go quickly, with genuine intentions not adequately reflected or expressed. Let's take some time to reflect and digest before responding.

Finally, I encourage us to collaborate with each other, particularly those with significantly different views.

This community is great, and its people are kind and loving. Let us take the opportunity to work collectively. I especially want to reach out to those who feel let down by this decision, asking that you take the offer up to have a conversation so we can understand each other better and continue to drive this community forward together.

Yours truly,
Andrea Clarke
Deputy mayor
Municipality of Kincardine
 

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To the Editor:

In reading the numerous letters to the editor concerning the demise of the Dr. Secord Monument which sat near the library for decades, there is an important point that has been overlooked and I wonder if an argument based on analogy would help to contextualize the importance of this essential issue.

On the sundial monument the inscription began: “To Solomon Secord, 1834-1910. Our family physician for 50 years. This memorial was erected by his loving friends. Served as a surgeon with the Southern Army during the American Civil War.”

In 1911, when this monument was erected, the gruesome reality of the American Civil War was well understood. By 1911, many of British, Canadian, and American cultures were conscious of the fact that the American Civil War was a militarized divide over the granting of personhood to enslaved and indentured Blacks.

It wasn’t an abstract economic conflict over what would best serve the economy of the Agrarian south; it was about granting  equality and personhood to people from whom such rights had been denied over centuries of the Atlantic slave trade. I struggle to see how the “true friends” of Dr. Secord would have explicitly identified him with a group against which he conscientiously objected.

It is purported that Dr. Secord spoke out against enslavement and was an abolitionist. His “true friends” would have known that. So, I am left questioning this glaring misrepresentation of the man, and I pose the following analogy and challenge us all to reflect on its implications.

Let us imagine that Dr. Secord lived 70 years later and had travelled to Germany of the 1930s in order to seek rehabilitation through one of its many health spas while staying with relatives. Perhaps his family members would have been some of the many Germans who were conscientious objectors to the Third Reich’s propaganda machine that targeted Jewish German citizens.

In an attempt to “buy” his and their safety, he agreed to be a field surgeon for the Nazi war machine. Upon successful return to Kincardine after the war, would his “loving friends” have stated that he had been a surgeon for the Nazis? Or might they have said that he had served to heal all soldiers fighting in the Second World War, a premise that has been raised by some letter-writers in defence of how the real Dr. Secord, as a surgeon, swore to “do no harm” to any patient?

I think the consciousness of monument writers, and the connection that many Canadians had to the Second World War, would have prevented explicitly tying the “good doctor” to a very harmful military entity that denied the humanity of Jewish people and other targeted groups.

This is the point that many letter-writers appear to be either unconsciously or willingly avoiding. The demise of this monument is not due to some recent social movement pushing for the elimination of history; instead, it is consciousness being raised to how unnecessary the explicit linking of Dr. Secord to the Confederate army was and is.

On one level, the monument misrepresents a person who was purported to being an abolitionist. On the other, it mentions a military that denied the humanity of Black people. This new consciousness demands that we all need to be both better educated to all our histories, as well as attuned to the importance of reading authors and the research they bring to life for us all to study and learn.

Identifying people as “insiders and outsiders” is a level of objectification that undermines a community working together. It is through dialogue and humility that this new consciousness will help us to overcome the current vitriol. To borrow a higher phrase from the award-winning Canadian novelist, Lawrence Hill, we should fear no person and come to know them.

Watson Morris
Kincardine