Monday, October 08, 2007

Happy Indigenous Rights Day? 83 Arrested at Columbus Day Protest in Denver

Posted by Justin Jeffre

Photo courtesy of here.

This Saturday 83 protesters were arrested after demonstrators blocked the city’s annual Columbus Day parade. Prior to their arrests, protesters poured fake blood on the streets to represent the genocide of indigenous people that began after Columbus sailed to the Americas.

(The first Columbus Day celebration was in NYC in 1792. San Francisco has the second oldest celebration dating back to 1869. Denver was one of the first cities to celebrate Columbus Day and in 1907 Colorado held the first state wide celebration. In 1937 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made Columbus Day a federal holiday at the behest of the Knights of Columbus.)

Increasingly there is more and more opposition to this celebration. In 2002, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela changed the name to “Dia de la Resistencia Indigena” (Day of Indigenous Resistance”. In the state of South Dakota the day is now officially called “Native American Day”, instead of Columbus Day.

Many critics believe that Columbus was a murderer that directly brought about the demise of many Taino (Arawak) Indians from Hispaniola. The conquistadors brought with them many diseases that were spread both accidently and intentionally among the indigenous populations. The Europeans brought diseases, war and the seizing of land that caused an estimated 85% of the native population to be wiped out within 150 years of Columbus’ arrival.

In 1990, representatives from all over the hemisphere met in Quito, Ecuador at the first intercontinental gathering of indigenous people in the Americas, to mobilize against the quin-centennial celebration of Columbus Day. Last month the Bolivian President (who is an Aymara Indian) Evo Morales successfully led an effort to get the United Nations General Assembly to pass an important declaration of indigenous rights. Article 34, specifically, says that indigenous peoples have rights to promote, develop and maintain their institutional structures and their customs. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States all voted against it.

In this recent interview, Morales said;

While some people may be quick to say that to change this tradition is ridiculous, I think these protests raise some important questions. For instance, why should we celebrate Columbus when he wasn’t the first to discover the America’s and his behavior was questionable at best?

Does this celebration of Columbus contribute to the ongoing abuses of indigenous peoples by our government and US corporations around the world? Can we look at our imperial foreign policy honestly when we continue to have national myths and history books that are filled with lies, distortions and major omissions?

Could this distorted worldview have anything to do with the warped public policy we get in Cincinnati? This question makes me think of this article and more specifically this question by Tom Dutton. “Is it really too extreme to suggest that white society never intended to fully include blacks and other people of color and shows no inclination to bring about such inclusion and equality?”

Socializer!

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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) says:
08 Oct 2007  at  10:14 pm | #

Does this celebration of Columbus contribute to the ongoing abuses of indigenous peoples by our government and US corporations around the world?

Of course it does. Can you imagine what would happen if we celebrated Hitler’s birth with a festival the size of OktobreFest? 

Not only would it be offensive to those groups that suffered under Hitler, it would be devastating to the morale and pride of these people. It would be simply cruel.

It is not uncommon for people to rationalize or look the other way when their fellows create atrocities against foreigners. These people find it easy to be in denial. These people have no real morality, they only feign acting moral because they have no courage to develop their own standard and stand up for them. Instead they go along with the mob because they can’t think for themselves.

Come to think of it, they are no different than the majority of Americans who today support the war in Iraq and the gulag Gitmo. They are coward scum.

JFD says:
09 Oct 2007  at  08:35 am | #

“Is it really too extreme to suggest that white society never intended to fully include blacks and other people of color and shows no inclination to bring about such inclusion and equality?”

No more so, than to say; black society and other people of color never fully intended to integrate into American society and show no inclination to bring about such inclusion.

Just for the record, both statements are equally wrong and right at the same time.  There are separatists in both camps.

Jones says:
09 Oct 2007  at  07:36 pm | #

“Is it really too extreme to suggest that white society never intended to fully include blacks and other people of color and shows no inclination to bring about such inclusion and equality?”

Oh boy. I knew somewhere along the line someone would give the blacks a plug on this Columbus Day issue.

The indigenous people in the Americas are a true minority. Most of them are the most impoverished segment of the inhabitants in this hemisphere. Not only were they persecuted by Columbus & his fleet, other explorers took advantage of them, murdered them thru disease & other methods. Then, their land was taken from them without any just & equitable compensation.

And don’t stop dead with the Europeans. Oh no.  There were blacks brought to the Caribbean regions & Mexico, who banded with the conquistadors to save their own backsides, & meted out their own brand of injustice on the indigenous nations. Sorry you were too timid to add that salient fact of history. There’s plenty of blame to go around more than once.

You won’t see the impoverished indigenous people sitting around on government dole & food cards.  However, alcohol & drug abuse have all but ruined many of them. Many live hand to mouth in poverty unseen in Cincinnati. Pitiful housing conditions, starvation, sky high infant mortality, premature births, deaths at young age, the list goes on. If anyone needs & deserves government assistance, it is these people. So much has been taken from them & nothing given.

Columbus isn’t a hero. More information leads to better facts that Leifur Erikson was in the regions before Columbus. It’s a shame the persecuted people had to resort to such attention to wake up a bunch of sleeping dummy politicians.

Lastly, everyone, yes, everyone, should have the freedoms & rights to practice the customs of their cultures & ethnic heritage without fear of reprisal & someone dealing out the race cards.  The Oktoberfest comes to mind.  A disrespectful individual called the trachten costumes. And there was a color & purity of ethnicity that came under criticism. Costumes indeed. So much for celebrating the various avenues of diversity in this town. All it takes is a few to keep fanning the flames of racism. No wonder there’s self-selected segregation in this city.

WTF says:
10 Oct 2007  at  03:06 pm | #

I knew somebody would plug the whites. Poor Germans? Ha!