Elementary, middle and high school students across the country sit at home today, playing video games and picking their noses. Post offices and banks are closed. But as students of higher education, we don't get a day off to celebrate Columbus Day. According to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, no one should get the three-day weekend.
Reuters reported Sunday that Chavez condemned the holiday as nothing more than a commemoration of a 150-year “genocide” of Native Americans caused by European conquerors who behaved “worse than Hitler.”
He's telling the truth. Spanish conquistadors like Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro systematically eliminated millions of native peoples. They did it cruelly and openly, thinking nothing of human rights or human life. British explorers did the same thing, and the methodical slaying of the natives did not end until long after Europeans transported some tribes, killed others and butchered the buffaloes.
So, in many ways, there is no reason to celebrate the massive migration that Christopher Columbus began with his discovery in 1492. Europeans destroyed many of the peoples and much of the culture they found when they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, but they also did a lot to shape the Western Hemisphere today.
For all the disease and war Europeans spread, their influence has greatly helped the cause of human rights. For every native population they enslaved, they overthrew an oppressive government.
Bartolome de las Casas, an early Spanish colonist and avid defender of human rights, condemned the European treatment of the natives. He went on to defend natives in Spanish court during the Spanish Inquisition.
Simon Bolivar, who actually sailed to Spain to receive much of his education, is hailed as “the George Washington of South America.” He led armies to defeat the Spanish and gain independence for Bolivia, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Sure, these accomplishments don't cancel out oppression and genocide, but they do prove that Columbus' discovery meant more than just those things.
Chavez's own argument is a case in point. He argues that the holiday should be renamed “Day of Indian Resistance,” but it was Columbus and the Europeans who followed in his footsteps that named the natives “Indians.”
As it stands, many of the holidays we observe are based on death and tragedy. Good Friday, Memorial Day and even Sept. 11 are three days when we stand back and appreciate that the world has changed — not always for the better, but because they will never be the same.
Perhaps many people remain ignorant as they sit at home today, and educating them on European destruction and assimilation of America's indigenous peoples is noble and necessary. But to disregard Columbus' voyage simply based on the terrible oppression that followed is to walk the same path as those revisionists who deny the Holocaust.
Chavez is not the only one who believes Columbus Day is a celebration of racism and destruction — students and professors on many college campuses agree. For myriad reasons, they argue that the day, and Columbus' name in general, stands for nothing but death. They should not ignore the past simply because it was gruesome. Rather, they should take a day to observe it and make sure history does not repeat itself.
Zach Lee, a sophomore English major, can be reached at aliquidsoldier@hotmail.com.
