What if one day immigrants from Mongolia seeking respect for their heritage decide to have Americans celebrate Genghis Khan, the irrepressible explorer, if also despoiler, and would-be conqueror of what they thought to be the heathen west, Europe, us?
Are you sure Chris Columbus merits a national holiday, let alone a parade? What fictional account of his life are you clinging to? Let it go.
Italian Americans want to celebrate their national holiday in peace, and hold their parade. Never mind who is offended by the celebration of the man who unleashed genocide on Native America. Columbus didn’t just bring the Spaniards, or plague. He brought slavery and genocide. He promised his financial backers that he would return with gold and slaves. He subjugated every Arawak he encountered and commanded them to return with gold. If they didn’t, he had both their hands cut off. Hard to apply a tourniquet with no hands, so they would bleed to death, as examples. The rest were hunted, burnt or fed to dogs. No indigenous peoples survived the European invasion.
So Columbia is a country, Columbus a popular town name. It would be hard to undo those. But Columbus needn’t be a holiday and for damn sure he doesn’t need a parade. Is Columbus the only Italian that Italian-Americans can dignify with a parade?! Irish Americans sought to counter the anti-immigrant anti-Irish-Catholic sentiment prevalent over the turn of the century. They established St Patrick’s Day and held parades as sort of coming-out Irish-pride events. It worked, soon “everyone was Irish” and Americans were funding the IRA against our traditional enemy, the English.
Are Italian Americans trying to counter the bad rap they get for the Godfather and the Sopranos with a pride parade of their own? And Christopher Columbus is the best they can do? Give it up. Haiti is still suffering in the hell of its 15th Century invaders.
THE GREAT NATIONS OF EUROPE -Randy Newman
The Great Nations of Europe had gathered on the shore
they’d conquered what was behind them and now they wanted more,
so they looked to the mighty ocean and took to the western sea,
The great nations of Europe in the 16th century.
Hide your wives and daughters, hide the groceries too
The great nations of Europe comin through.
The Grand Canary Islands first land to which they came
they slaughtered all the canaries there which gave the land its name.
There were natives there called Guanches, Guanches by the score
bullets, disease, the Portugese, they weren’t there any more.
Now they’re gone, they’re gone, they’re really gone
you never seen anyone so gone.
There’s pictures in a museum, some lines written in a book,
but you won’t find a live one, no matter where you look.
Hide your wives and daughters, hide the groceries too
The great nations of europe comin through.
Columbus sailed for India found Salvidor instead.
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead.
They got TB and typhoid and athletes foot, diptheria and the flu
‘scuse me great nations comin through.
Balboa found the pacific and on the trail one day.
He met some friendly Indians whom he was told were gay,
soooooooooooooo
he had them torn apart by dogs on religious grounds they say
the great nations of Europe were quite holy in their way.
Now they’re gone, they’re gone, they’re really gone
you never seen anyone so gone.
Some bones hidden in a canyon some paintings in a cave.
They’re no use tryin to save them, there’s nothin left to save.
Hide your wives and daughters, hide your sons as well
with the great nations of Europe you never can tell.
Where you and I are standing on the end of a century,
Europes have sprung up everyone as even i can see,
but there on the horizon is the possibility
that some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me
destroying everything in it’s path from sea to shining sea
like the great nations of Europe in the 16th century.
Not True
“No indigenous peoples survived the European invasion.”
True
“Few indigenous peoples survived the European invasion.”
There are still some living Arawak’s…