We're not yet done bashing
the 'Columbus mentality'
by Paul DeMain
Well the Italians have proclaimed that they are tired of the
Columbus bashing thats been going on the the Western Hemisphere.
I'm sure that they expect that 'their' Indians (based on their
discovery) would behave much better than we have been.
But this is fair warning. The bashing has just begun, and
if the healing process is ever to begin, it will take at least two
of the parties to start the process.
With literally millions in dollars, maybe billions being
spent in the next year...doing funky things like huge fireworks,
building replicas of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, parades and
other culturally sensitive action, we the Indigenous peoples of the
western hemisphere are doing something more than just bashing
Columbus. We are bashing what is ingrained in American society from
the tip to toe...the Columbus mentality that puts the thought
process, the civilization (as we can see by recent events in
European countries), the spirituality and education processes on a
level of civilized vs savage.
Just watch the recent Braves baseball games where thousands
of white Americans dressed up in breech cloths, war paint and
feathers and danced around making 'white guy' sounding war hoops to
the enjoyment of their wives and children. It's the 'Columbus
mentality'.
Walk through a typical museum where thousands of artifacts
are on display. Some even have skeletons dug up and sold for profit
so white peoples can gawk at what the American Indian people used
to be like, or express their spirituality. Grandpa's pipe and
great-grandmother's medicine bag. The 'Columbus Mentality'.
Read the newspapers: "rivers clogged with waste" and
"drinking water found unsafe" or "smog alerts" and "Ozone
warnings". It certainly isn't the fault of the Indigenous peoples
that these things are occurring. Why did white peoples dig up the
gold out of the Black Hills, dig another hole and rebury it at Fort
Knox? It's the 'Columbus mentality'.
In 1991-2, we are not inclined to grin and bear it any longer.
>From the looks of it, I haven't ever seen a subject in history that
has brought together the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere
in such a United fashion. From California to Washington, to
Guatemala and elsewhere, native peoples are only beginning to put
forth an alternative agenda that will rock the boat for years to
come.
Columbus for us represents all that was wrong in the thinking
patterns, and religious beliefs of the European boat people. It
didn't have to be that way. The encounter could have produced the
world's largest exchange of food, livestock, information on
education and government without the mass killings, slavery, and
destruction of Native societies. But it didn't
Instead it lead directly to the extinction of societies, the
forced conversion of other native peoples, diseases that ravaged
communities, slavery and greed for gold and other resources that
continues on to this day. The Columbus mentality...ripe for bashing
because it deserves to be bashed until balance is found to reclean
this earth, recognize and respect other cultures and end
exploitation of all classes of people.
As we celebrate our survival in the next year, with some of our
ceremonies intact and look retrospectively into our lives, we must
find forgiveness or the hate and pain will go on. We must find a
bridge, an avenue to reach out to each other and put this ugly
history behind us.
But for at least a while, I'm content to bash Columbus. He
earned it. Much of society as it exists has earned it. And both I
and many other concerned people have a moral obligation to our
ancestors to go ahead and bash both Columbus, and the 'Columbus
mentality'.
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Michele Lord * Walk in Peace with
(milo@scicom.alphacdc.com) * our Mother Earth
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