CHRISTOPHER Columbus' statue has been taken down from Los Angeles' Grand Park after 45 years after the city council decided his presence in the California metropolis was 'nothing to celebrate'.
Part of a wider motion that has replaced 'Discovery Day' on October 12 – celebrated in Spain as the 'National Festival' and formerly 'Hispanic Day' – with a new title, 'Indigenous People's Day', the decision to remove Columbus from the park is linked to his being held responsible for what would be considered today a mass genocide.
The statue of Cristóbal Colón, as was his untranslated name, 'rewrites a tainted chapter in history' which is 'charged with false romanticism about the expansion of European empires' and 'exploitation of natural resources and people', says former US secretary of trade and current local government member in Los Angeles, Hilda Solís.
Reactions in Spain have been mixed.
Whilst a high number of Spaniards object to October 12's being celebrated at all, since the discovery of the Americas led to the bloodthirsty colonisation – first by Spain and then by Portugal, The Netherlands, France and Britain – they are suspicious that the removal of the statue may be a way of attempting to erase California's Hispanic roots.
Anglo-Saxon traditions implanted by the colonisers, such as Thanksgiving – ostensibly a celebration of gratitude for the year's harvest but brought to the US, Canada and Brazil during the Reformation – are still celebrated, and many point out that today's Californians are still living on land stolen from the native American Indians.
Others, quoting from history, say Colón himself was not responsible for any genocide, that this came later, and that in the case of the Spanish colonisers, integration was greater since mixed marriages were seen across what is now the USA, whilst the Anglo-Saxon invaders forced Indians into reservations.
Spaniards who have given their views on Los Angeles' decision point out that, even though the colonisation was barbaric, such practices were considered socially acceptable at the time – in the late 15th century – and should be interpreted in their historical context rather than through a 21st-century vision.
