Columbus: Still a holiday. Still a Genocidal Asshat.
I'm humbled and, frankly, shocked shitless, that many of you apparently remembered my 2007 rant about Columbus, bold discoverer of genocide and thievery.
If you want some truth about Columbus, check it out: Columbus: Bold Explorer or Genocidal Asshat? I even reread it my damn self, just to see if it still had the same effect on my blood pressure. Check.
Also, as some of you know, I've been attempting to butcher learn the Spanish language. As such, I've plowed through some simple articles, most of which kicked my non-comprehending cerebrum in the dirt, but I laboriously learned some cool stuff about various revolutions and other historical tidbits.
Like the fact that in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez renamed it Día de la Resistencia Indígena in 2002. A couple of years later, some students celebrated that auspicious October day by toppling the statue of Columbus that had stood in Caracas. Nice. One year on Oct. 12, Chávez gave 1.65 million acres back to some of the indigenous peoples in particular areas. I think it'll be a cold day in Alabama before we see anything like that here, but it was nice to hear that someone somewhere realizes that celebrating this man's "contributions" to the world is just a shameful way of condoning genocide.
Anyway, click the link if you haven't read it. No, you know what? Click it if you have. We all need to remember...
7 comments:
Must admit, I had entirely forgotten about your article before I wrote today's post. I just knew that I generally didn't much care for him, and the word asshat was bobbing around a bit in the back of my brain.
I have now been re-educated. Full Fledged Asshat.
It was one of the best things you've written. And that's saying something.
¡Bueno suarte con la lengua de español amiga!¡Estudio! ¡Estudio! ¡Estudio!
great article...and he was an asshat..just dont try telling that to Italians..
I don't know if Columbus was an asshat or simply a man of his time, believing that Catholics should rule the world, Jews cruxified Christ, Christian Europe under the Popes thumb should rule all and that Europeans had all the civilized knowledge and monopoly of what was good and best. He was like so many people of his time (1492) limited in many ways.
He had no idea where he had landed and exploited the natives because they were naive and did not realize how dangerous he and Spain and France and Britain and Holland and etc... would be to them in the years to come.
Even today lots of people think of him as a great man and in Barcelona there is a gigantic monument to his memory.
This is the problem with history, hindsight gives us lots of knowledge and as imperfect humans we now know what was terribly wrong about Columbus, he never knew.
If I have to hear that "man of his time" crap one more time I'm gonna blow up some cyberspace. He didn't realize, my ass. You don't need "hindsight" to know that raping little nine-year-old girls isn't gonna do much for their culture. I mean, what does the man have to do for people to condemn him, set off an atomic bomb?
Why does the fact that Columbus lived in a time where they did the things you said excuse him? Why does it excuse him, instead of condemning the entire freaking time he lived in?
I'm Eyetalian and I think he is an asshat with a wet duck feather.
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