Catherine Triomphe -
Should Christopher Columbus still be honoured?
Coming on the heels of a growing movement to take down statues commemorating the pro-slavery Confederate Army from the civil war, it’s a question many US cities are now asking themselves.
On Monday, crowds filled New York streets to recognise the so-called “man who discovered America,” even as he is increasingly denounced as embodying the genocide of indigenous Americans.
Ruth Edelstein-Friedman watched while the traditional Columbus Day parade wound along a damp Fifth Avenue.
A government holiday in the US, the day is named after the explorer.
For Edelstein-Friedman, homages to Columbus could soon be a thing of the past.
And the controversy has only escalated following the August clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia where a protester was killed at a white supremacist rally seeking to prevent the removal of statue of General Robert E. Lee, who led the southern Confederacy during the 19th century American Civil War.
However, no one has yet announced the end of the New York parade which draws more than a million spectators.
President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism on Monday by describing the arrival of Columbus as “a transformative event that undeniably and fundamentally changed the course of human history and set the stage for the development of our great nation”.
Unlike his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump cited no possible failings in the “discovery” of America.
Dozens of US cities have already replaced Columbus Day with one honouring indigenous people, after a 1992 initiative from the leftist bastion of Berkeley, California.
In the past two years more than 50 cities across the country have followed. These include Los Angeles, the country’s second-biggest city which voted in August to honour indigenous people and not the explorer. New York’s parade continues but, even there, the fate of its Columbus statues is uncertain.
One was erected in 1892 at the top of a 75-foot column above Columbus Circle at the foot of Central Park.
Last month somebody vandalised another Columbus monument, smaller and in the centre of the park.
One of its hands was covered in red paint to protest the blood that the explorer had on his own hands, while graffiti on the plinth read: “Hate will not be tolerated.” — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
