You would be located in Los Angeles, the Statue of Columbus alone because of its ugliness, this would have interested anyone. But now the minds about the genocide of the Spaniards in Latin America are heating up again.
“The American who discovered Columbus first made a bad discovery”, already knew Georg Christoph Lichtenberg in the 18th century. Century. The idea that you can supposedly look at the heroic events of the story from a different perspective, namely that of the Inferior, is not a new one.
The figure of Christopher Columbus are the ghosts for many years, especially in the Spanish-speaking world on both sides of the Atlantic and also in the United States. Release of the new pathogen, the decision of the city Council of Los Angeles to remove a Statue of Christopher Columbus from a Park. About 100 onlookers and descendants of natives cheered the Abräumaktion and document it on their Smartphones. The Navigator from Genoa was connected with slavery and brutality, and to honor him with a monument, so the city Council.
Teachings from Madrid
The Shitstom had not long to wait, and also days later on. On Tuesday (13.11.) tweeted the Bolivian President Evo Morales congratulations to the Los Angeles city Council: “I agree with him that the so-called discovery was a genocide and exploitation of the natural resources.”
You can do Columbus for the bloody conquests of Hernán Cortés and other Konquistadores responsible?
Spain reacted as expected in a Huff to the dismantling of one of its greatest national heroes. In the daily newspaper El País, the front-page headline article on the topic begins with the historical teachings. The founding of the city of Los Angeles, and her Name had a Spanish origin. The city was founded in 1781 by a Andalusians, all the 275 years after the death of the discoverer. In consequence, El País “an Armada of Professor opinions” mainly from Spain, to relativize the picture of a genocidal and brutal Columbus.
In many Parts of Latin America, the not-so – safely, and with good reason. In mid-October, the auxiliary Bishop of Valladolid, Luis Javier Argüello claimed, in the framework of the festivities around the 12.October, the day of the discovery of America in 1492, that this event had nothing to do with a subordinate of genocide. For Argüello rather, it was “a mutual understanding” and “a coming together of the cultures meet”. The customer of this journey of discovery, the Spanish Queen Isabella, have, without exception, had integrity, and charitable motives in mind when they sent Columbus to the East.
Hernán Cortés in Spain: The left foot rests casually on the head of an Aztec.
Statements such as these were, even in Spain, some of the eyebrow wrinkles. But the Spanish clergy tried for over 60 years in the Vatican, the canonization of Isabella, surnamed “the Catholic”. The appointment of a genocide is not as good on a resume.
Statues as instruments of the sovereignty of interpretation
“Wherever there are statues placed, or national holidays will be determined, it is a matter of the sovereignty of interpretation over the Interpretation of the facts to exercise,” says Eleonora Rohland, who teaches at the University of Bielefeld, history of the DW.
A good example of this is the handling with the Conquistador Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of the Aztec Empire. In Mexico, he is, although he has laid the foundations for modern Mexico, highly controversial. In his birthplace, in the Village of Medellín in the South of Spain, is a pompous Statue of Cortés. His left foot resting on the severed head of an Aztec. 2010-smeared activists of the Statue with red paint, as an expression of the blood bath, the Cortés has done among the indigenous people of Mexico.
For Eleonora Rohland, a critical debate about the national role models is not surprising and rather positive: “In a time in which many social groups have found their political, social, cultural and economic exclusion, to denounce it shouldn’t surprise us if you say: wait a minute, this is your Version of the story, but not ours.”