Monday 8 October 2012

Columbus Day?

So. Columbus Day, hmm? Such a romantic story of the discovery of a "New World." 

"In 14 hundred 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," was the sing-song verse I learned in elementary school. The First People weren't mentioned, of course.

My missionary son (a member of a minority in Tanzania, a former colony itself) posted this link on Facebook today: Rethinking Columbus: Towards a True People's HistoryThe embedded question is, "Is it OK for big nations to bully small nations, for white people to dominate people of color, to celebrate the colonialists with no attention paid to the perspectives of the colonized, to view history solely from the standpoint of the "winners?"