Still
Living with Christopher Columbus
DPP’s October
meeting is a week later than usual because of the Monday Columbus Day holiday
this week -- which prompts attention to these perspectives:
Columbus
Day Is the Most Important Day of Every Year
Columbus’
landfall in the Western Hemisphere was the opening of Europe’s conquest of
essentially all of this planet. By 1914, 422 years later, European powers and
the U.S. controlled 85 percent of the world’s land mass. White people didn’t
accomplish this by asking politely… Formally, of course, European colonialism
largely ended in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. Yet informally, it has — behind the
mask of what Pope Francis recently called “new forms of colonialism” — continued with
surprising success. Thus European colonialism is the central fact of politics on
earth. And precisely because of that, it is almost never part of any American
discussion of politics. Anthropologists call this phenomenon “social silence” — meaning that in most human societies, the
subjects that are core to how the societies function are exactly the ones that
are never mentioned. More
Five
myths about Christopher Columbus
An
early American archetype, Columbus has long served as a model entrepreneur. Columbus Day blog posts and articles have
included “3 Business Lessons Learned from Christopher Columbus” and “5 Lessons in Leadership Effectiveness from Christopher
Columbus.” These inspirational essays boil down to memorable bullet points
such as: “Find an opportunity where the wind is at your back.” One asks, “Do you have a Columbus in your company?” … Columbus was clearly no friend of native peoples, but a document discovered 10 years ago in Simancas, Spain, suggests
he was an equal-opportunity tyrant. Witnesses testified that his brief
government of Hispaniola was marked by routine cruelty not only to the native
TaĆnos but also to Spaniards who defied or mocked him. A woman who reminded
Columbus that he was the son of a weaver had her tongue cut out. Others were
executed for minor crimes. More
The US
Way of War: From Columbus to Kunduz
Popular
Resistance has reported on the the legacy of Columbus. Howard Zinn describes the
true history of Columbus and the Indigenous people of North America. There is a
great need for the Columbus myth to be revised with realities. When the truth is
understood, it is evident the US is celebrating a brutal war criminal and that
it is time to abolish Columbus Day… The Kunduz bombing and recent US wars are
all consistent with the “US Way of War” which includes terrorizing communities,
killing civilians of all ages, denying them healthcare and even food. We see the
latter two in tactics like economic sanctions that increase poverty or make
prescription drugs unavailable. These tactics go back to the founders… How do
we get out of these depraved quagmires of our own self-creation? Nader gives an
answer – a change in approach to the world, an end to war culture and a move
toward a humanitarian culture… Let’s stop repeating the mistakes [crimes] that
have been with us since Columbus. Let’s end the American culture of war.
More
As
Cities Give Columbus the Boot, Indigenous Peoples Day Spreads Across
US
While
the annual celebration of Christopher Columbus has fueled years of outrage,
satire, and resistance, this year an alternative holiday recognizing the
original inhabitants of the United States appears to have reached the
mainstream. In the past two months alone, eight major municipalities—including
Albuquerque, New Mexico; Portland, Oregon; St. Paul, Minnesota; Bexar County,
Texas; Anadarko, Oklahoma; Alpena, Michigan; Lawrence, Kansas; Carrboro, North
Carolina; and Olympia, Washington—have opted to pay homage to the history and culture of the
country's true native people by celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day on the second
Monday in October. This wave follows recent moves in Seattle and Minneapolis, among others. More
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