In a nation acknowledged as civilized, the question of weather we should celebrate the encounter "two worlds" as a national representation of American values is lamentable. The governmental and societal understandings of why we deem to celebrate, and furthermore, why we continue to allow such celebration in the anti-genocidal, human rights, and post-exploitation era needs to challenged.
The Old vs The New-World
The division of two different nation-states contends the globalization process as a direct product of European arrival. The New-World becomes new, when the the subsequent European power can explore its physical, cultural, and spiritual body. Geography, as a set measurement of global celebration shortfalls the constructed idea of global networks and cultural development. Much evidence exists about non-European elites arriving into what we now now as the Americas. Archaeologists have argued for policy reform in regards to the several cases involving Chinese boats, African men, and other old world plebites as the introductory cultures of global collison. Furthermore, if Colombo inaugurated the true globalization of the world, then we must redefine our definitions of globalization in terms of power structures, economic lines, and the racial implications of it.
The Economic Development of the Americas
The economic development of of Abya-Yala, [land in its full maturity] has being that of an indubitable production of wealth verticalities where the pre-established northern lands [those in the located above the equator] systemically locate themselves on the top.
Such idea of the top has created a Utopian image of economic prosperity of the Americas. The development of a plutocrat free-market industry has not allowed for the economic development of all Latin-American countries which compromises 21,069,500 km² (7,880,000 sq mi), almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface. Compare that to the US's 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) The US has ha GDP of of $14.53 trillion for 2010 compared to that of Latin-American which is 5.16 trillion. Even in a nation facing economic recession, the beneficiaries of wealth production through a introduced system continues to allude. The Wall street protests have a substantial reason.
Economic recession is among the top 100 most googled words of 2010-2011. How is this economic development helping us all? In a local, national and international perspective such celebration is economically miscalculated.
If we celebrate this day as means of economic capacity, we again fail.
The Qualmish Celebration of Progress
In Latin America, 200 million people live in poverty -- 81 million of them in extreme poverty -- but the economy has posted gains in eight of the last nine years. The proportion of indigenous peoples in the region living in poverty – at almost 80 percent – did not change much from the early 1990s to the early 2000s and continues to increase in the 21st century. In most of Latin-America, 80 percent of Afro-descendants live in extreme poverty.
Searching for the economic disparities in Latin-America will give this accessible information very easily. Historic and current produces of marginalization are the qualmish of this celebration. Most Latin-Americans live in poverty. To acknowledge the encounter of worlds as eliminators of famine for indigenous peoples living in depleted environmental areas is a true fallacy. Nevertheless, to assume the corrupt enslavement of African peoples as evidence production of wealth for all is simply a palpable anomalous insult.
To geographically disfranchised this perspective, it is important to mention that the numbers of disparities in the United States against the original inhabitants are equated to that of the rest of Abya-Yala. Should I even mention the situation of African-American/Black communities, or such issues not longer exists?
Why do we insist to negate oppression when such images are constant and persistent. Morally progress can not be celebrated.It is objectively disheartening. Economically poignant. And politically invested.
They Call it Civilization
If civilization crosses our consciousness for celebrating the metaphorical, religious, and physical impose of colonization the we must reflect in the current wars, genocide, police violence, death penalty and execution of our current modern-state. How would Indian populations challenge such perception of civilization when compared to sacrifices and "inhumane" rituals. Is death penalty a ritual with more a more constructed moral argument? How about the responsibility that the state and society has to keep America children from dying of poverty? Is that a form of modern-state sacrifice?
Challenging Action
We must refuse our governmental bodies to continue using dialect of Columbus day as an event worth of celebrating. It affects most of us the 99% in the US and the rest of Abya-Yala. Why do we continue to invest in it?
Indigenous issues in progressive, ethnic, and politically active communities has been overlooked. Arguments such as "they are not that many" "they are only ancestral beings" "I am a mestizo, so I seeks mestizo consciousness and politics" "it is not that important, lets focus in poverty." Nevertheless, almost no one will disagree that indigenous communities have being exploited and margnalized and celebrating this day is wrong in many different levels.
The inclusion of a genocidal day in our nation's calendars, major events and public school day-offs means something. It allows people to recognize that celebrating pain and violence is completely acceptable. It allows ethnic based agendas to argue that we should celebrate Italian heritage when those forms of celebration replicate our world's tragic history. It allows several Latina/o and African-American agendas to acknowledge the issue, as an "indian" problem and therefore not addressing it.
We must not allow projections of the past to become mystified and solidified in an "far away" world which is more current than ever. The issue of celebrating the root of many modern problems in our families, communities and nations needs to re-addressed and valued differently.
We must seriously demand our governments this issue as extremely important. Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities must be acknowledge as the true representations of celebration. We did not perish, we did not die of disease, slavery, rape, murder and exploitation. We are present more than ever and we need the solidarity from all. How can we demand the United States to provide rights to our communities, when we annually celebrate the most basic form of human rights violation through the celebration of a historic figure that brightly arrived to this land.
How can we continue to understand celebration through the perception of the holocaust entity. It is a matter of the cognizant mind that must become active in addressing the basic issues of our society. Lets begin by de-colonizing what we understand as celebration.
In an era of major protests against the system of free markets - those peoples that constitute the legacy of American repression should be leading those movements while seeking freedom and a better life. How can we do that, when we are eventfully reminded that our nations, governments and leaders continue to address such issue as an anniversary worth of Presidential proclamation and advocacy.
