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Columbus

MadsL

...was an asshole.

The Oatmeal discusses Columbus (given the day that's in it) and puts forward Bartolomé de las Casas

Were you taught that Columbus was some kind of brave adventurer in school?

Bartolomé de las Casas is also not without controversy.
http://observationdeck.io9.com/seriously-screw-the-oatmeal-1443252499

So, AH, What Irish national hero should be given a public holiday? Brian Boru? Brian O'Driscoll, Brian Cowen?

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MadsL

clairefontaine wrote: »

The one where they abort females because of a one child quota and where they named an airport after Ghengis Khan.

Those two details immediately come to mind.

Umm....

HansHolzel

Anyone watching Dan Snow's documentary on the history of the Congo during the week or reading his BBC news online piece on the same subject mightn't be quite so blasé about imperialism in a we-were-all-it-at-one-stage-or-another kind of way.

Or, as William Burroughs wrote about its 'benefits' elsewhere, in his Thanksgiving Prayer

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeon, destined to be shít out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK.
For nigg*r-killin' lawmen, feeling their notches.
For decent church-going women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind their own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for all the memories - all right let's see your arms!
You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

The very worst thing about Columbus was the diseases the Europeans brought to the Americas. It was akin to an interplanetary invasion, in epidemiological terms, so that's why we should hope we never find anyone or anything out there.

1492 was the turning point of world history. That means our calendar should read 521 instead of 2013.

jank

Charlie Rock wrote: »

Oh but you don't understand, imperialists were merely civilising the savages. The savages had to be slaughtered for their own good.

Capitalism, eh?

...and if the west left whole swathes of the world alone we would still have slavery, human sacrifices, infanticide, cannibalism in many parts of the world. The same bleeding heart lefties who love to decry capitalism would be the first to pontificate that we need to do something to help these poor unfortunate people. Ironic eh?

Nodin

clairefontaine wrote: »

If you look at it from an environmental history point of view, SA has a completely different climate, much closer to prehistoric. One of the reasons Europe advanced as it did is because of the horse. The horse evolved in Europe while SA still had iguanas.

The horse enabled armies and trade.

Have the Chinese really evolved away from human sacrifice?

I'll put that down to the hour it was posted.

Nodin

jank wrote: »

...and if the west left whole swathes of the world alone we would still have slavery, human sacrifices, infanticide, cannibalism in many parts of the world. The same bleeding heart lefties who love to decry capitalism would be the first to pontificate that we need to do something to help these poor unfortunate people. Ironic eh?

"help" =/= Stealing the land off the natives.

Killer Wench

F*ck Columbus. And the motherf*cking boats he rode in on.

D1stant

HansHolzel wrote: »

Anyone watching Dan Snow's documentary on the history of the Congo during the week or reading his BBC news online piece on the same subject mightn't be quite so blasé about imperialism in a we-were-all-it-at-one-stage-or-another kind of way.

Or, as William Burroughs wrote about its 'benefits' elsewhere, in his Thanksgiving Prayer

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeon, destined to be shít out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK.
For nigg*r-killin' lawmen, feeling their notches.
For decent church-going women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind their own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for all the memories - all right let's see your arms!
You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

The very worst thing about Columbus was the diseases the Europeans brought to the Americas. It was akin to an interplanetary invasion, in epidemiological terms, so that's why we should hope we never find anyone or anything out there.

1492 was the turning point of world history. That means our calendar should read 521 instead of 2013.

Bravo William. Alnost as talented as WillIAm****inNot

Karl Stein

jank wrote: »

...and if the west left whole swathes of the world alone we would still have slavery, human sacrifices, infanticide, cannibalism in many parts of the world. The same bleeding heart lefties who love to decry capitalism would be the first to pontificate that we need to do something to help these poor unfortunate people. Ironic eh?

Oh sweet mercy it's you.

Charlie Rock wrote: »

There's no better way to teach savages about civilisation than torturing them, raping them, and making slaves out of them.

Legs.Eleven

Whether Columbus was present is kind of irrelevant. The day is a celebration of the "discovery" of the Americas by Spain. Spent 11 months over there travelling and it's fair to say Europeans did some serious, serious damage over there. Most indigenous populations living below the poverty line and good luck tracking down any indigenous in Argentina, for example. How people are proud of this legacy is beyond me. Whether the "natives" were also bloody thirsty warmongers doesn't make a difference (I'd call that self-defense, personally), this is not something to be celebrated. You only have to go over there to see for yourself.

Columbus day is celebrated in Madrid with a military march (under the guise of the Day of the Armed Forces) which all the conservatives and hardline right-wingers head down to to cheer on, which must be pretty sickening for the massive Latin American immigrant population here, which are looked down upon by most people living here. Luckily it's not really acknowledged otherwise by the rest of the population.

Turns my stomach tbh.

clairefontaine

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Whether Columbus was present is kind of irrelevant. The day is a celebration of the "discovery" of the Americas by Spain. Spent 11 months over there travelling and it's fair to say Europeans did some serious, serious damage over there. Most indigenous populations living below the poverty line and good luck tracking down any indigenous in Argentina, for example. How people are proud of this legacy is beyond me. Whether the "natives" were also bloody thirsty warmongers doesn't make a difference (I'd call that self-defense, personally), this is not something to be celebrated. You only have to go over there to see for yourself.

Columbus day is celebrated in Madrid with a military march (under the guise of the Day of the Armed Forces) which all the conservatives and hardline right-wingers head down to to cheer on, which must be pretty sickening for the massive Latin American immigrant population here, which are looked down upon by most people living here. Luckily it's not really acknowledged otherwise by the rest of the population.

Turns my stomach tbh.

It's a big celebration day in Latin America too. If they were sickened by it surely it would not be such a big festival day.

jank

Nodin wrote: »

"help" =/= Stealing the land off the natives.

Did I say it was?

jank

Charlie Rock wrote: »

Oh sweet mercy it's you.

Indeed, how are you getting on with Das Capital?

Stingerbar

clairefontaine wrote: »

The West is indebted to Rome.

Really? what have the Romans ever done for us..

GalwayGuy2

Have the Chinese really evolved away from human sacrifice?

To a certain extent, no society has evolved from human sacrifice. Whether it's to please a God, the State, the society, or the individual, most societies have some form of human sacrifice.

foxinsox

Wibbs and Seamus posting in the one thread!

Too much clever in one thread...

;-)

conorhal

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Whether Columbus was present is kind of irrelevant. The day is a celebration of the "discovery" of the Americas by Spain. Spent 11 months over there travelling and it's fair to say Europeans did some serious, serious damage over there. Most indigenous populations living below the poverty line and good luck tracking down any indigenous in Argentina, for example. How people are proud of this legacy is beyond me. Whether the "natives" were also bloody thirsty warmongers doesn't make a difference (I'd call that self-defense, personally), this is not something to be celebrated. You only have to go over there to see for yourself.

Columbus day is celebrated in Madrid with a military march (under the guise of the Day of the Armed Forces) which all the conservatives and hardline right-wingers head down to to cheer on, which must be pretty sickening for the massive Latin American immigrant population here, which are looked down upon by most people living here. Luckily it's not really acknowledged otherwise by the rest of the population.

Turns my stomach tbh.

But, it's multiculturalism! How dare you divide the peoples of the America's into 'natives' and 'immigrants'

At the end of day, show me a nation that is not much more then a series of conquests. Such is the wheel of history as it turns, and there is truth in the notion that much of the handwringing regards Columbus is little more then left wing trendy nonsense, partularly their elevation by the left of the architype of 'The Noble Savage' and how their conquest is somehow more shameful or wrong then any other conquest of a nation, and all nations throughtout history.
I don't hear people muttering, 'bloody Normans' or 'feckin' Romans' all that often, and they were no more or less bloody or feckin' then the conquistadors.

Karl Stein

conorhal wrote: »

much of the handwringing regards Columbus is little more then left wing trendy nonsense

So to consider torture, rape, and murder is 'left-wing trendy nonsense'?

Where does this shit come from? Who makes it up?

conorhal

Charlie Rock wrote: »

So to consider torture, rape, and murder is 'left-wing trendy nonsense'?

Where does this shit come from? Who makes it up?

My point was, how is that any different to what has occured in the conquest of ANY other country considering that conquest is the history of pretty much every nation?
At a certian point you just have to consign it to history and move on. Given that I could talk to my grandmother about her grandmother, that would put the oral history of my family and my direct connection to it into the Victorian era, so I suggest that perhaps 150 years should be a personal cutoff point for personal grudges, and say another 50years for national ones, thus we technically can still moan about 'de brits' for another hundred years at a national level, but I suggest that after 500 years or more, it's time to move on.

Zebra3

conorhal wrote: »

But, it's multiculturalism! How dare you divide the peoples of the America's into 'natives' and 'immigrants'

At the end of day, show me a nation that is not much more then a series of conquests. Such is the wheel of history as it turns, and there is truth in the notion that much of the handwringing regards Columbus is little more then left wing trendy nonsense, partularly their elevation by the left of the architype of 'The Noble Savage' and how their conquest is somehow more shameful or wrong then any other conquest of a nation, and all nations throughtout history.
I don't hear people muttering, 'bloody Normans' or 'feckin' Romans' all that often, and they were no more or less bloody or feckin' then the conquistadors.

Some victors assimilated themselves into the societies they conquered.

The European victors in the Americas wiped out the natives in the largest genocide in world history.

Huge difference.

Karl Stein

conorhal wrote: »

My point was, how is that any different to what has occured in the conquest of ANY other country considering that conquest is the history of pretty much every nation?

Who's saying that it's a better/worse version? I'm interested in you explaining your 'left-wing trendy nonsense' comment. Is the seeking of truth 'left-wing trendy nonsense' now or what?

At a certian point you just have to consign it to history and move on.

I didn't realise that discussing history had some sort of statute of limitations when it comes to these things.

thus we technically can still moan about 'de brits' for another hundred years at a national level, but I suggest that after 500 years or more, it's time to move on.

You know that you're the first person to mention 'de brits'?

Wibbs

clairefontaine wrote: »

The West is indebted to Rome.

Greece really. It's Greek thought that informed Rome and has informed the west and then the rest of the world the west touched. Greek thought considered the world as being understandable, measurable, something you could change. As a culture they began to see the world and the wider universe as more of a mechanism, rather than magic, which is what the rest of the world was mostly about.

Take Egypt. The culture of Egypt had made the Greeks and anyone else around in that neck of the woods look like cave dwellers. And they were at it for a very long time. In fact that was the problem. Because they had a regular and near given food supply due to the Nile, they got staid and lazy and pickled, as stable empires will. Take their art. You'd want to be a university lecturer with interesting hair and a crumpled suit to tell the diffs between art of the X dynasty and art of the Y dynasty that might be 1000 years apart. With the odd "WTF just happened there?", they walked like an egyptian for thousands of years. Their science was similar. They used geometry to build temples and pyramids, but when the Greeks got their hands on it they took it so much further and kicked off the basics of modern scientific thought.(and built temples as you do).

Europe had pretty much all the "killer apps". Geography, resources and most importantly lots of internal competition. That led to Rome, but thankfully also led to Rome falling and lots of mini nation states with on the one hand many cultural similarities and connections, but on top of that fierce competition. Competition drives innovation and progress and that fractured but connected set of cultures also makes the area damned hard to conquer. The Mongols took on China, a culture that in many ways made Europeans look like primitives at the time. The Mongols marched in, cut off the head and took an empire. They couldn't have done that in Europe. They tried, but it was halfhearted. However even if they had piled in with all they had they'd still be fooked. So they engage the Germans/Austrians and win, then they'd have to deal with the French(good luck there), then if by some miracle they defeated them, they'd have to deal with the Dutch and the British and the Spaniards and the Polish and the Italians and the... well you can see the problem. The Khans did and wisely though fook that shíte and went home.

HansHolzel wrote: »

The very worst thing about Columbus was the diseases the Europeans brought to the Americas. It was akin to an interplanetary invasion, in epidemiological terms, so that's why we should hope we never find anyone or anything out there.

Not quite, or at least this has been overblown as I outlined earlier. It's way more likely than not that smallpox was already in the Americas before the Europeans show up.

Killer Wench wrote: »

F*ck Columbus. And the motherf*cking boats he rode in on.

Well sooner or later the Americas would have been "discovered", by someone. It's a big place. Hard to miss. The Vikings got there, maybe even our own Brendan the Navigator got there(his book was a medieval best seller and Columbus and others had read it intensively). No matter who had rocked up to the coast, the shít would have hit the fan for the locals. The Chinese may have reached the pacific coast before Columbus and the Europeans. They didn't take it any further and instead did one of their turn inwards things as was their wont from time to time, but let's imagine they had decided to colonise. Do you think they would have been any better for the locals? Let's imagine the vast Muslim world had got there first, would they have been any better? They were just as much sinners and occasionally saints as colonists in Africa. They pretty much ran the African slave trade for a start. Let's forget outsiders. Imagine if the Incas or Aztecs had decided to build bigger empires and forged north into what became the US. The plains Indians would likely have come off badly.

Legs.Eleven

clairefontaine wrote: »

It's a big celebration day in Latin America too. If they were sickened by it surely it would not be such a big festival day.

The Spanish are (unjustifiably imo) hated in South America and there's massive resentment towards them as there is among the immigrant population here in Spain. It's not a big celebration. Celebrated among those higher up the caste system (because there is a caste system there in most countries - the lighter skinned you are, the more you're considered of European decent and therefore "superior".) maybe (although I didn't see it) but not among the majority.

Legs.Eleven

conorhal wrote: »

But, it's multiculturalism! How dare you divide the peoples of the America's into 'natives' and 'immigrants'

At the end of day, show me a nation that is not much more then a series of conquests. Such is the wheel of history as it turns, and there is truth in the notion that much of the handwringing regards Columbus is little more then left wing trendy nonsense, partularly their elevation by the left of the architype of 'The Noble Savage' and how their conquest is somehow more shameful or wrong then any other conquest of a nation, and all nations throughtout history.
I don't hear people muttering, 'bloody Normans' or 'feckin' Romans' all that often, and they were no more or less bloody or feckin' then the conquistadors.

I don't see any celebrations of their conquests either though and that's the point.

Wibbs

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

I don't see any celebrations of their conquests either though and that's the point.

True, though I can his point too. The history of the world is largely written by the sword in the blood of the conquered. Pretty much nowhere outside small bands of isolated hunter gatherers has escaped this. Our own species drove out/assimilated previous humans. We started as meant to go on from very early on in the human story.

there's massive resentment towards them as there is among the immigrant population here in Spain

IMH fostering resentment as an immigrant population who choose to live in the country is taking the piss. "I live in Spain, but resent the Spanish", then eff off then. I'd say the same to the Irish, British, Germans et al that live in enclaves on the Costas too. I have. I met an Irish woman who has lived in Marbella for two decades and can't speak Spanish, has a Welsh hairdresser, Dutch doctor etc and berates the locals in that insidious way such types can. I told her straight she was a worthless leech.

HansHolzel

Wibbs wrote: »

Because they [the Egyptians] had a regular and near given food supply due to the Nile, they got staid and lazy and pickled, as stable empires will.

The Mongols took on China, a culture that in many ways made Europeans look like primitives at the time. The Mongols marched in, cut off the head and took an empire. They couldn't have done that in Europe. They tried, but it was halfhearted. However even if they had piled in with all they had they'd still be fooked.

Not quite, or at least this has been overblown as I outlined earlier. It's way more likely than not that smallpox was already in the Americas before the Europeans show up.

The technology of the Old Kingdom in Egypt (e.g. Giza pyramids) was superior to anything that came later. Overall, this notion that empires fall due to laziness or overeating is ridiculous. The Old Kingdom, for example, was ended by drought.

Europe just wasn't important to the Mongols.

Eh, it wasn't just smallpox that the Spaniards gifted the Americas.
Numerous other presents were brought over, including measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, typhus, influenza, whooping cough, TB, cholera and diphtheria.

Legs.Eleven

True, though I can his point too. The history of the world is largely written by the sword in the blood of the conquered. Pretty much nowhere outside small bands of isolated hunter gatherers has escaped this. Our own species drove out/assimilated previous humans. We started as meant to go on from very early on in the human story.

I don't disagree with you - my point is it shouldn't be glorified or celebrated.

IMH fostering resentment as an immigrant population who choose to live in the country is taking the piss. "I live in Spain, but resent the Spanish", then eff off then. I'd say the same to the Irish, British, Germans et al that live in enclaves on the Costas too. I have. I met an Irish woman who has lived in Marbella for two decades and can't speak Spanish, has a Welsh hairdresser, Dutch doctor etc and berates the locals in that insidious way such types can. I told her straight she was a worthless leech.

I absolutely agree. It's stupid beyond belief. I also got hassle over there from a few over there for simply being European...by South Americans of obvious European decent; the irony was completely lost on them.

I do have to say, though, that the Spanish really look down their noses at the South Americans here. Out and out racism. I've never heard a kind word said about them and they'd be very open about it i.e. in my English classes, public transport, on the streets. They're treated like second class citizens. I've also heard that the Spanish emigrants over there are being treated like muck by the locals as a kind of "revenge". Horrible stuff.

There was a great article in a Spanish paper a while ago about it talking about an end of both attitudes (resentment towards Spaniards from Latin Americans and the superiority complex of the Spanish towards them) and potential benefits of creating ties between the countries and putting differences aside. If I could find it and translate it, it'd be worth reading. Columbus Day does nothing for progression in friendship between these nations and is as provocative as the 12th Orange marches in the North.

UCDVet

I think it's awfully hypocritical for people who benefited greatly from the actions of Columbus to now, retrospectively, say, 'Ohhh, what a bad man.'

It just seems so hollow and meaningless.

European countries were happy enough to rape, pillage and plunder the 'New World' for their own benefit. Columbus was the guy that kicked it off. As a result, the world ended up with Canada, the United States, Mexico and possibly more - I don't know enough about South America to comment on them.

European countries got a few hundred years of power out of it too, before they broke off and became their own countries. At which point, those new countries continued to systematically screw the remains of the native people.

In the 1800s, 300-350 years after the evil Columbus, the US Government was still doing the same crap. The only difference was, they wrote contracts before forcefully removing them from their land.

In the late 1800s the US Government said, 'Sorry Native Americans - your government doesn't exist anymore. We don't recognize you.' Ouch!

Today?

It has long been recognized that Native Americans are dying of diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, and other health conditions at shocking rates. Beyond disturbingly high mortality rates, Native Americans also suffer a significantly lower health status and disproportionate rates of disease compared with all other Americans.

As far as I know, that is pretty much par-for-the-course when European countries show up.

So let's put this into perspective. Europe took what it wanted and benefited for a few hundred years. The colonies got their independence and continued to screw the native people for a few hundred years and today, they live in poverty with 'disturbingly high mortality rates', suffer from depression and alcoholism at alarmingly high rates, and don't receive proper medical treatment.

In typical form....people don't want to DO anything about this. They don't want to help them, raise money, return their lands, rebuild their culture or their independent governments. Heck no, that'd be hard, and require sacrifice.

We want to BLAME the guy who sailed over first and kicked off the mass genocide that everyone else was TOTALLY COOL WITH. Now that we've taken all there is to take, we want to seem enlightened and say how 'bad that Columbus' guy was.

RDM_83 again

Zebra3 wrote: »

Some victors assimilated themselves into the societies they conquered.

The European victors in the Americas wiped out the natives in the largest genocide in world history.

Huge difference.

Hmmm thats very debatable, yes there was an vast death toll, something like 8 million people are meant to have died in mines alone, but its also over a long long time period of approx 400 years and you can't really call the transmission of disease unless its deliberate as genocide, in terms of shorter events what happened in the Ukraine between 1922-1945 , or for an ancient example the actions of Ghenghis Khan and his immediate descendants killed approximately 30,000,000-60,000,000 people in less than a hundred years and much of that was deliberate organised killing rather than a by product of other activity.

Tigger wrote: »

Scalping was a European thing and was initially done by Europeans to the natives. They would hand in the scalps in exchange for bounty squaw and child scalps were worth less than warrior scalps. The apache were just copying the European settlers .

Thats revisionist bullsh*t! there's good archaeological evidence for scalping well before the Europeans.

PDF link here with numerous other references
http://courses.washington.edu/war101/readings/Lambert--archy%20of%20N%20Am%20warfare.pdf

In terms of the rights and wrongs of it, Columbus was an important man and like it or not we celebrate important men that have shaped the world and time creates distance, nobody goes on today about Alexander the Great being a crazed megalomaniac!

Personally though if I was going to look up to a morally dubious person it would be Hernan Cortes, taking a small force into one of the biggest cities in the world kidnapping the ruler of a bloodthirsty empire (and the Aztecs are one of the few people you can actually call bloodthirsty) then escaping and coming back later to finish the job. He may have been an utter b@stard but that level of insane courage and willingness to do anything to succeed has to be respected.

HansHolzel

I think it's time for an alternative interpretation...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKobmM2OnDc

Killer Wench

Wibbs wrote: »

Well sooner or later the Americas would have been "discovered", by someone. It's a big place. Hard to miss. The Vikings got there, maybe even our own Brendan the Navigator got there(his book was a medieval best seller and Columbus and others had read it intensively). No matter who had rocked up to the coast, the shít would have hit the fan for the locals. The Chinese may have reached the pacific coast before Columbus and the Europeans. They didn't take it any further and instead did one of their turn inwards things as was their wont from time to time, but let's imagine they had decided to colonise. Do you think they would have been any better for the locals? Let's imagine the vast Muslim world had got there first, would they have been any better? They were just as much sinners and occasionally saints as colonists in Africa. They pretty much ran the African slave trade for a start. Let's forget outsiders. Imagine if the Incas or Aztecs had decided to build bigger empires and forged north into what became the US. The plains Indians would likely have come off badly.

This thread is about Columbus, right? I don't give a crap about who could have "discovered" America. F*ck Columbus.