In a nod to his opposition to the Mexican War, the border city of Juarez, Mexico, erected a towering bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in one of its public squares. So did Tijuana. Children attending Havana Cuba’s Abraham Lincoln School pass his statue every day. London’s Parliament Square has two monuments to foreign leaders: Nelson Mandela and Lincoln. There are at least four other Lincoln statues in the U.K. alone. Is China next?
Unified Germans compared him to Bismarck. Bolsheviks compared him to Lenin. Efforts to expropriate this historically malleable “secular saint” are nothing new, and there are many ways to construe themes such as nationalism and the relationship between local sovereignty and the dominion of the state. But now the Chinese Foreign Ministry is likening Lincoln to none other than Chairman Mao.
Unified Germans compared him to Bismarck. Bolsheviks compared him to Lenin. Efforts to expropriate this historically malleable “secular saint” are nothing new, and there are many ways to construe themes such as nationalism and the relationship between local sovereignty and the dominion of the state. But now the Chinese Foreign Ministry is likening Lincoln to none other than Chairman Mao.
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/those_silver-tongued_foreign_m.php
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