I live in a place where we have some Confederate monuments scattered about. I know the historical context of almost all of these; they were placed some decades after the end of the war in concert with the development of a “lost cause” mythology, an early 20th century resurgence of the Klan, and an attempt to sustain open racism in public life. I get all of that.
It raises the question: are there other examples in history where a failed rebellion/revolution was given this much free reign to propagate their symbols and/or promote their cause with the support (tacit or explicit) of the government opposed by the rebellion? I’m not talking about private memorials here; many (if not most) of these monuments are on public property, street rights-of-way, etc. Sometimes, there was a legal fiction where the Daughters of the Confederacy or whoever would “own” the little bit of public square beneath the monument, but this still counts as public support, in my view. Intuitively, it seems like this would be quite rare, but I’m sure it’s happened in other times or places.
There are several statues of William Wallace, mainly in Scotland. There’s a memorial in London near where he was executed.
There’s also a statue of Oliver Cromwell near parliament in London. Yes, he won and turned us into a republic, but the people later changed their minds and put Charles II back in charge.
Not so much a rebellion or other civil war, but the losing side of one of the theaters of World War II: Japan
More than a thousand prosecuted and convicted World War II war criminals are enshrined as kami in this State Shinto shrine; the worst of them are actually called “Martyrs of Showa” (i.e., martyred in the service of the god-emperor).
The Wikipedia article lists other places where this kind of “we weren’t actually wrong” revisionism is on display.
There are at least a few failed rebellions depicted on the Knesset Menorah in Jerusalem, including the Bar Kokhba Revolt and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
There is a memorial in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery to the Patriotes who were exiled to Botany Bay after the 1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada.
IIRC there’s a statue to Louis Riel in Manitoba on the legislature grounds. Louis Riel tried to institute a government for the Metis, half-French half-Native culture. Unfortunately, he had the temerity to hang a white man to assert his authority as leader of the nation, thus bringing down the wrath of the British Empire. After two failed revolutions, and a stint as a surreptitious elected member of parliament, he was eventually captured and hanged. Since then, he became a cult hero. the latest (indigenous) premier of Manitoba has moved to officially revise history and recognized Riel as the “first premier of Manitoba”. He even has a provincial holiday I think. News articles when the statue went up mentioned that it featured Riel in a knee-length gown, but giggling schoolkids could peek under the gown to see that the statue was anatomically correct in the tradition of Michealangelo’s David.
According to Pierre Berton’s National Dream, the first British army to put down the rebellion was permitted to travel through Minnesota, but had to go in civilian clothes and pick up their arms afterward. By the second rebellion, they took the train as far as it went from the east, marched a hundred miles along the ice of frozen Lake Superior, and boarded the train line which had been building eastward from Winnipeg. When they were done, the lines had been connected and they rode the train all the way home.
The Wallace Monument outside Stirling is a bit more than a simple statue. Very impressive and imposing. The relationship between Scotland and England has always been interesting. So venerating William Wallace is hardly a surprise.
Bonnie Prince Charlie seems to have become a folk hero - especially tolerated since once he no longer posed a threat. Are there many memorials and statues to him?
It’s interesting how public perception of Guy Fawkes has evolved from a villainous traitor to a symbol of resistance to authoritarianism. Obviously, in recent years, this has a lot to do with Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta and the film adaptation. And the British government lent significant support to the film, providing tax breaks and allowing crews access to normally off-limits areas of Westminster. Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s son was employed by the production.
South Africa - the Boers were the losing side in the South African war (AKA Anglo-Boer War). You would not know this in mid-20th C. South Africa, which resulted from the British literally handing the country over to the people who fought on the Boer side in that war. I’d call that the British supporting the rebels.
There were plenty of monuments to the Boer side. Hell, even the monument ostensibly dedicated to their Voortrekker forebears still has Boer War iconography prominently displayed. Also, Nazi links, so that one’s a two-fer. Note that it was built before the British gave South Africa actual independence in 1961.
The Canadian exiles to Australia are also commemorated in the locality of Canada Bay in Sydney’s inner west on the Parramatta River [geographically not on Botany Bay], and the local government authority of Canada Bay Council takes its name from that. The naming connection to the exiles is well-understood.
A similar level of tolerance and recognition seems to have been applied to Irish exiles from the Young Ireland movement in the mid-19th century in Van Diemens Land / Tasmania.
There have been a mere handful of armed rebellions in Australia.
Most would be better described as skirmishes.
The first Vinegar Hill (western Sydney) in 1804 which is barely recalled.
The second was Eureka Stockade in 1854 at Ballarat, Victoria is well known and celebrated. The rebel flag flown there might just become our national flag.
