We find ourselves with a three-day weekend, but for what holiday? Are you celebrating Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, or are you simply enjoying a day off? Our attempts at being more socially aware, and informed about the realities of history, is a process of fits and starts. Should we celebrate Columbus as a brave ex-plorer and adventurer, or condemn him as a colonial oppressor of native peoples? Was he a hero or a villain?
I remember growing up in St. Louis and participating in the annual Columbus Day parade. My Dad was a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus, and we marched together in the parade. Italians in this country have long looked on Christopher Columbus as a national hero. And many native peoples of the Americas see Columbus as criminally mistreating the nations he encountered, and bringing disease and domination.
Like ourselves, people of the past were complicated. It is difficult to judge from this day the morals and consciences of persons of the past. We can barely do that for people alive now.
Focus now on the values and issues we want to emphasize. It took guts and conviction to venture out into the unknown, to explore. We applaud those on the frontiers of science, of exploring the unknown deeps of the oceans and the far reaches of our solar sys-tem and our universe. And we also want to recognize and cele-brate the dignity and beauty of all human cultures, and uphold the inherent rights of all peoples to respect and safety. We have so much to learn from each other, as Pope Francis is teaching us. Is exploration worth brutal exploitation?
Know WHY you are celebrating this holiday, whichever you choose. We are not doomed to repeat the history of European in-vasion of Turtle Island. We can move forward to a new stance of mutuality.
No comments:
Post a Comment