Raphaël Glucksmann, a center-left member of the European Parliament, has strongly criticized President Donald Trump's radical change of US policy on the war in Ukraine.
The poem at the base of the statue, The New Colossus, makes its meaning pretty clear.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The US never lived up to the promise the statue made.
Meh, she wasn’t actually made for us. The artist that made her was commissioned by the Sultan of The Ottoman Empire, and he paid up front, so the artist got to work in the mid 1800s. The Sultan wanted her standing at the entrance to the Suez Canal, which was due to open soon. That’s why she’s Egyptian/ Middle Eastern. It also explains her crown. She’s a light bearer. She was supposed to signify the knowledge and wealth that flowed from the Ottoman Empire to Europe and Asia. She originally carried a torch and a bouquet of spices and herbs.
Unfortunately for the Sultan, he died before the artist, or the canal, was completed. When the artist contacted the new Sultan to let him know he was ready to construct her, the new Sultan told him to go ahead and melt her down for all he cared. He graciously said that the artist didn’t owe him any money back, and that he was certain that the artist did good work, but he believed that statues were graven images, and therefore they no longer wanted the statue.
Fast forward to 1871.
The artist has a meeting with The French Ambassador to America, The President of the French-American Friendship Society, and himself. Turns out the US centennial is coming up. The ambassador suggested that the artist remove the bouquet, and replace it with a book that contains the most American sounding thing ever, and they’ll never notice she isn’t European. So the ambassador and president gathered up the funding, and sent the newly dubbed “Lady Liberty,” from the Parisian warehouse she had been gathering dust in, to New York in time to be fully erected by July 4, 1876.
That date is completely wrong and the rest of this comment is full of inconsistency anyway. The root of this claim is only traceable to a fraudulent historian known for pro-islamic hate, propaganda, and fictitious historical Turkish/Ottoman revisionism, named Mustafa Armagan. Yes, the sculptor wanted to make a statue for the Suez Canal, but the directors involved declined. There is no evidence the Ottomans paid for it, that the statue was crafted before the plan to give it to the US, that the Ottomans had enough say in the Canal’s decoration when the project was conceived and constructed during a more autonomous Egyptian rule with heavy French influence, or that anything was modified in physical form from an Egyptian figure. The only thing thing confirmed to exist in 1876 was the torch arm which didn’t even arrive until late 1876. The statue was not fully erected until 1886. The design was reconfigured, not some “statue sitting in a Parisian warehouse” because the designer wanted to make it, not the Ottomans.
It’s really not surprising that a generic semi-European woman would have some traits maybe closer to Mediterranean than French because it was an homage to the Colossus of Rhodes.
Depends on what you think it represents.
It’s traditionally a symbol of opportunity, or new start style liberty.
America has, for a long time, been a place of hope or opportunity for immigrants. Not necessarily welcome, kindness, or prosperity, but hope.
With the visibly growing xenophobia this has tragically waned, but even still we have some of the highest immigration rates in the world.
The poem at the base of the statue, The New Colossus, makes its meaning pretty clear.
The US never lived up to the promise the statue made.
Meh, she wasn’t actually made for us. The artist that made her was commissioned by the Sultan of The Ottoman Empire, and he paid up front, so the artist got to work in the mid 1800s. The Sultan wanted her standing at the entrance to the Suez Canal, which was due to open soon. That’s why she’s Egyptian/ Middle Eastern. It also explains her crown. She’s a light bearer. She was supposed to signify the knowledge and wealth that flowed from the Ottoman Empire to Europe and Asia. She originally carried a torch and a bouquet of spices and herbs.
Unfortunately for the Sultan, he died before the artist, or the canal, was completed. When the artist contacted the new Sultan to let him know he was ready to construct her, the new Sultan told him to go ahead and melt her down for all he cared. He graciously said that the artist didn’t owe him any money back, and that he was certain that the artist did good work, but he believed that statues were graven images, and therefore they no longer wanted the statue.
Fast forward to 1871.
The artist has a meeting with The French Ambassador to America, The President of the French-American Friendship Society, and himself. Turns out the US centennial is coming up. The ambassador suggested that the artist remove the bouquet, and replace it with a book that contains the most American sounding thing ever, and they’ll never notice she isn’t European. So the ambassador and president gathered up the funding, and sent the newly dubbed “Lady Liberty,” from the Parisian warehouse she had been gathering dust in, to New York in time to be fully erected by July 4, 1876.
That date is completely wrong and the rest of this comment is full of inconsistency anyway. The root of this claim is only traceable to a fraudulent historian known for pro-islamic hate, propaganda, and fictitious historical Turkish/Ottoman revisionism, named Mustafa Armagan. Yes, the sculptor wanted to make a statue for the Suez Canal, but the directors involved declined. There is no evidence the Ottomans paid for it, that the statue was crafted before the plan to give it to the US, that the Ottomans had enough say in the Canal’s decoration when the project was conceived and constructed during a more autonomous Egyptian rule with heavy French influence, or that anything was modified in physical form from an Egyptian figure. The only thing thing confirmed to exist in 1876 was the torch arm which didn’t even arrive until late 1876. The statue was not fully erected until 1886. The design was reconfigured, not some “statue sitting in a Parisian warehouse” because the designer wanted to make it, not the Ottomans.
It’s really not surprising that a generic semi-European woman would have some traits maybe closer to Mediterranean than French because it was an homage to the Colossus of Rhodes.
This is one of my new favourite bits of totally unnecessary information, thank you.