The Left Attacks Columbus: Fantasy World vs. New World

I hope that everyone had a special Columbus Day holiday with parades, festivities, and knowing that honoring Columbus infuriates liberals. That last part always makes it better for me. Columbus Day brings out the "hate everything about America" crowd, who blame Christopher Columbus personally and the rest of America by inference, for displacing indigenous people on our continent. But, it's more than a fight over claimed wrongs--it's a battle in the war of the left against Western Civilization.

Brief History Lesson:

As a brief and interesting historical review, you may want to pick through a well researched study of Columbus and the "discovery of the new world," found at this site titled Examining the History, Navigation, and Landfall of Christopher Columbus by Keith A. Pickering. It has excellent information, including the map below. The map alone tells me that Columbus had to have a lot of know-how and nerves of steel to sail into the unknown and be able to return to Europe with his discovery.

Also, of special interest is the section titled Columbus and the Destruction of Native peoples. This addresses the surface complaint against Columbus of genocide by essentially saying that the causes of war go beyond the control of an individual and that most societies, including Native Americans, "view killing in wartime as acceptable; few would claim that it is morally equivalent to murder, much less genocide."

(After you complete your history lesson, you may continue with the rest of this entry. You have fifteen minutes.)

Who Hates Columbus and Why?

Okay, welcome back. When I did quick research on Columbus Day, I found numerous postings by individuals and organizations who have made it their "cause" to discredit Columbus and the civilization brought from Europe.

Here's an example in a post titled The Great Columbus Day Farce.

...why do we celebrate a man who was no more than a murderer?' Columbus sparked many a great western ideal. Capitalism, science as a religion, the establishment of a global monoculture, the enslavement of other races, the destruction of the environment, the eradication and abuse of life, and the genocide of America’s indigenous people are just a few of those ideals. If these are the ideals that he sparked, then why should we celebrate a power-hungry man, no better than Hitler?

Wow! I bet you didn't know that Columbus is responsible for the terrible crimes of capitalism (horrors), environmental ruin, and genocide--and that he is just like Hitler. I wonder if the author admires Stalin who was against capitalism and fought Hitler. Yeah!

Another site titled Transform Columbus Day has a fun quiz! In the quiz titled "How Does Columbus Compare to some of the most oppressive, criminal regimes in history?," they mention horrible crimes against man and nature, and you are supposed to match the crime with the person. Fun, huh!? Hold on, though. It's a trick. While the choices include Mussolini, Hitler, Pol Pot, Caligula, Josef Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Nero, Jefferson Davis, Genghis Khan--and, Christopher Columbus: all of the "crimes" in the quiz were really committed by Columbus! I hate trick questions like that. (As an aside, how did Jefferson Davis get into this group? Also, I'm sure that Saddam Hussein was an error.)

Other examples are summarized in Looks Are Deceiving: the Portraits of Christopher Columbus originally published in a 1993 "Visual Anthropology."

But by the 500th anniversary, revisionist authors were charging that Columbus was simply a fortune hunter who left a legacy of exploitation and genocide. The National Council of Churches resolved that the anniversary should be a "time of penitence rather than jubilation." After much heated debate within the chambers of the United Nations, it was decided that the organization would not sponsor any celebrations to mark the event. Native American groups began planning protests of local festivities for Columbus, charging that they honor a man who "makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent." As John Noble Wilford, science writer for the New York Times, aptly concluded, "Another Columbus for another age."

Well, I can't think of a better way to form an opinion about Columbus than to find that he was attacked by The National Council of Churches, The United Nations, radical Indian groups, and a New York Times writer.

Will you get to the point!?

Okay, I'm almost there. Why do these individuals and organizations oppose honoring Columbus? It has less to do with what he did than it has to do with them having a focal point to attack Western Civilization. This attack is often led with calls for multiculturalism.

Here's an analysis at First Things: "The Crimes of Christopher Columbus" by Dinesh D'Souza. (I know little about this site, but I'm sure that the liberals will say that it is radical right wing--which means that it is okay.) The entire article is somewhat long, but worth reading in its entirety. Here are excerpts:

At its deepest level, multiculturalism represents a denial of all Western claims to truth. Yet both in the world and in the traditional curriculum, all cultures are not on the same footing. Consequently multiculturalism in practice is distinguished by an effort to establish cultural parity by attacking the historical and contemporary hegemony of Western civilization.

Multiculturalism is based on the relativist assumption that since all cultures are inherently equal, differences of power, wealth, and achievement between them are most likely due to oppression.

In order to see the multicultural paradigm at work, we would do well to consider the passionate debate that has raged in the academy over the legacy of Christopher Columbus. ...Yet it is not Columbus the man who is being indicted but what he represents: the first tentative step toward the European settlement of the Americas. Consequently, the debate over Columbus is a debate over whether Western civilization was a good idea and whether it should continue to shape the United States. Many critics argue the negative:

-"Columbus makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent"....
-Columbus (was) "a murderer, a rapist, the architect of a policy of genocide that continues today."
-"Could it be that the human calamity caused by the arrival of Columbus was a sort of dress rehearsal of what is to come as the ozone becomes more depleted, the earth warms, and the rain forests are destroyed?"

Let us examine the consistent portrait that emerges in multicultural literature about the legacy of Columbus.

It is true that Columbus harbored strong prejudices about the peaceful islanders whom he misnamed "Indians"-he was prejudiced in their favor. He praised the generosity and lack of guile among the Tainos, contrasting their virtues with Spanish vices. So why did European attitudes toward the Indian, initially so favorable, subsequently change? ...the reason given by the explorers themselves is that Columbus and those who followed him came into sudden, unexpected, and gruesome contact with the customary practices of some other Indian tribes.

In the next item of the multiculturalists' indictment, Columbus-and by extension the West-is accused of perpetrating a campaign of genocidal extermination, a holocaust against native Americans. The charge of genocide is largely sustained by figures showing the precipitous decline of the Indian population. ...the vast majority of Indian casualties occurred...because of contagious diseases that the Europeans transmitted to the Indians. From the Indians the Europeans contracted syphilis.

Columbus has metamorphosed from a grand crusader into a genocidal maniac and a precursor to Hitler. American Indians are now beyond reproach, canonized as moral and ecological saints.

...multiculturalism (insists) that we should understand cultural differences without applying (inherently biased) standards of critical evaluation, it forbids at the outset the possibility that one culture may be in crucial respects superior to another.

An authentic multiculturalism would expose students to "the best that has been thought and said" not simply in the West but in other cultures as well.

That last statement, to me, explains Western Civilization the best and explains why Western Civilization has been so successful. Western culture examines all ideas and accomplishments and adopts those which are good and make society better and more successful. The multiculturalists want everyone to "be equal," so they go the other way. They don't adopt or approve of the methods that made Western Civilization successful. They would rather tear it down, even to the detriment of their own people, just to feel good or to gain political influence. That, to me, is just one more reason to study and appreciate the predominate culture in the U.S., which itself is attacked by attacks on Columbus Day, which is where this started.

Can you end this with a really stupid conclusion?:

Well, having made my point, sure.

If we need to cast blame for Columbus coming to the "new world," I think that it might be found in For Teachers: Columbus's "Enterprise of the Indies" and its impact on African peoples

Europeans of Columbus's time were eager to find a route to the source of this trade, in order to avoid the Arab middlemen who drove the prices up and controlled the routes to India that passed through the Mediterranean. Therefore, they needed to find another way to reach the Far East and abundant riches there.

There you have it! Nothing changes. The consumers in the West were having its transportation costs driven up by the Arabs, so they looked for a way around them. Because the Arabs raised prices so much, Columbus was forced to find another route by sailing west. What happened when he got there and the problems that brings today can be blamed on one group--the Arabs who were gouging everyone. And now, you know the rest of the story.

Summary:

Except for that last part, consider the attacks on Columbus and the day that we honor him and see them for what they are. The attackers are pitiful people who can only feel better by bringing others down. That doesn't make them successful. They would rather feel equal in worth than to get ahead. They spread false doctrine, and their efforts should be recognized and resisted. Give Columbus, with his day, and Western Civilization its due and appreciate and honor the accomplishments of both.