Before entirely leaving the subject of defacing statues honoring Columbus
as a symbolic form of protest, however, Lyn Dearborn has submitted a couple
of articles from which I have extracted what I consider to be the main
points, just to permit her to clarify some statements she made earlier.
Lyn says:
> The Main idea I was hoping to get across ... is that such a huge group
> as ALL NATIVE AMERICANS, cannot possibly have a UNITED "FEELING" about
> the Columbus Status crap. Most of the VISIBLE negative reaction has
> come from well-meaning non-Indians.
And in response to Peshewegunzh, who says:
> Aw, heck. Waiting for a respected white man to "help us" is what we've
> been fed for the last two hundred years. If white people will never
> pay attention to any but their own, then dialog would be impossible
> anyhow.
Lyn replies:
> When I said "By some highly respected wasp --history professor, Catholic
> Bishop" ... I put it in quotes, because they are NOT respected by me,
> at all. Waiting for help from white society, is like waiting for
> invasive European plants to be struck from our landscape forever ...
> mustard, spanish broom, scotch broom, and that damned pampas grass! A
> Rabbi doing any kind of civil disobedience is quite common, and would
> win my respect no doubt, after careful consideration, of course.... but
> then Rabbis aren't WASPs ... highly respected or otherwise.
Both of Lyn's points are good ones, I think, and can serve as a springboard
to a consideration of a larger set of issues.
I feel that it is impossible to get complete agreement among any group about
their sentiments on an important issue that affects that group. That lesson
was very clear to me in examining the various responses that were written in
reply to my suggestion a few months ago that there might be some links among
issues concerning exploitative relations between the U.S. government and the
native peoples of the territory it claims and those between itself and the
people of the Middle East region. Some native people saw and acknowledged
such links, and offered demonstrations of the connections, while for others,
the mere suggestion was tantamount to a statement of support for the declared
enemies of the United States and an attempt to confuse both sets of issues.
I think the present issue of how to regard the results of the exploration and
conquest of the Americas by the forces which came to these shores as a result
of the reports brought back to Europe by Columbus may represent a case in which
it will be easier to get a consensus that whatever good may have come to the
native populations, it was far outweighed by the bad. If there is some real
unanimity among native people and their supporters in their sharing this view,
the primary questions left open would seem to be those relating to whether the
issue is one that is worth seriously examining and whether it is possible and
worthwhile to develop a public response. Among those who feel that it is pos-
sible and worthwhile to set the record straight on the facts of the situation
and on the feelings of present-day natives of the American continent, the im-
portant issue becomes one of just what should be in that message, and how best
to deliver it.
Again, we can just decide that each individual person will feel a bit dif-
ferently in the particulars of what kind of message she or he would like to
express and how it might be best to express that message, but I think there
might be some significant value in spending some time working on a message
and means of delivering it that express the results of a common effort. The
year we have left, between now and Columbus Day, 1992 (in October) should be
sufficient to derive the important elements of that message and what we hold
in common to be "appropriate" vehicles for expressing the dissent we may want
to express from the view of the events of 1492 which are even now being de-
veloped in the countries which feel a need and a desire to celebrate the
Columbian exploits.
Turning back to the second of Lyn's points raised above, I agree with her
if she is saying that it is not sufficient to get "respected" representives
of the Anglo community to express their opposition to the symbols honoring
Columbus and what he represents, in which she seems to be on the same side
as Peshewegunzh. In her earlier posting, Lyn seemed to be offering the idea
that descendants of the Europeans who settled the Americas, displacing and
disrupting the natives who lived here for thousands of years, might be good
to have on the side of natives who feel a need to express their dissent, in
the form of prominent and fairly-universally respected representatives of
the Anglo community. The idea here is that it's one thing for a largely
voiceless group of people (natives) to express whatever outrage they feel
about the general attitudes about Columbus held in the U.S., which are being
promoted and amplified by the celebration being planned for the 500th anni-
versary of his landing now being planned -- but it's quite another for the
Anglo community to select prominent members of its own community to voice
their disagreement with these attitudes and the planned events which will
portray these attitudes in the form of art and drama and literature and
special programs in schools, etc.
I suggest that we move on from discussing stone monuments to Columbus and
the symbolic value of defacing them to an examination of the issues that
underlie opposition to what Columbus and his mission represents, and that
we undertake to think about other ways of expressing what we might feel
jointly about how to respond to the "Quincentenary" celebrations being
planned around the world for 1992. I do not mean to in any way denigrate
or devalue the discussion of how to deal with monuments to Columbus or the
appropriateness of a particular form of symbolic protest, but I do think
we've probably thrashed that subject out well enough for the present, and
might think about returning to it later after having laid some groundwork
for a more comprehensive discussion of acts of protest. In fact, what I
would propose is that we begin submitting ideas for ways of developing a
response to the official Quincentenary celebrations, along with explana-
tions of how each response would address each particular aspect of the
official interpretation of events, and that we give serious thought to
actually developing at least some of these ideas into nationwide or even
worldwide responses. We can use our electronic networking abilities to
coordinate efforts around planning, which might involve contact with or-
ganizations which have the resources and experience to help develop such
ideas, and to help procure funding to help them become realized.
I can imagine a whole set of areas in which we might develop imaginative
and creative statements of whatever feelings we hold in common. We can
think about statements made by way of drama and visual art, as well as
those made by way of informational pamphlets and public political rhetoric.
We can think about helping develop alternative educational curricula for
various levels in our school systems, and providing translations into
languages other than English, including especially the languages of the
conquerors (Spanish, Portugese, Italian, French, etc.) and the languages
of the native peoples which are still used, especially as languages of
instruction or common discourse in the Americas.
Another suggestion I have for the near term is that we begin sharing our
knowledge about what resources are available for helping us in this task.
We can each submit what we know about organizations working in these areas,
along with what they are doing and what kinds of help they need. We can
organize planning meetings in various geographical areas, and let one
another know about ongoing planning meetings and conferences. (I'd like to
invite representatives of the South and Meso-American Indian Information
Center (SAIIC), in Oakland, California, who I know are listening in, to
tell us where their efforts currently stand, and provide us a list of what
information they have presently obtained about other organizations working
on similar efforts, or which are sources of further information and/or
coordination of activities. I'd also like to think that we can find ways
of linking these organizations with NativeNet, and can find people in the
various geographical areas to help them get hooked up.)
There's a lot we could be doing with this electronic technology, folks!
It's important to have philosophical discussions, to help us refine our
thoughts and feelings, and to develop our own personal responses to the
situations we've been discussing. But let's not forget or neglect to
examine and understand the potentials of what we have to make some co-
ordinated responses to entities like what is represented by the official
Quincentenary celebrations and surrounding hoopla. We don't have that
much time left, as these things go, and I suggest that now is the time
to get started.
Please submit your suggestions, information, and ideas to:
Thanks.
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst