October 12: Nothing to celebrate
Many are familiar with Columbus Day or how I like to call it: colonization of the Abya Yala (it means “land of full maturity” in the language of the Kuna people in Panama; a term to refer to the Latin American continent since before the arrival of Columbus).
In 1492 the Spanish crown decided to send Columbus to discover and conquer “India”. We all know the ending and consequences of that story.
For those of you who don’t: on the 12th of October 1492, a Spanish expedition led by Christopher Columbus arrived at one of the Caribbean islands, which is known today as the Dominican Republic. After some years of “exploration” they realized that this was not India, but a different continent. They saw the opportunity to take advantage of the fruitful conditions of the territory and they established a system of exploitation and plundering to bring all the goods from America to Europe. By this time, other European nations besides Spain and Portugal, such as the Netherlands, the UK and France, joined the competition of despoiling the American continent.
One of the fundamental pillars of this exploitive system was the use of enslaved people for labor. The European powers took enslaved people from their African colonies to the Abya Yala. They established a system of power where the colonizers were right holders (eg. land property) and black and indigenous people were dehumanized and enslaved.
During all this time, the colonizers invaded and took the lands of Indigenous peoples by force as if they had no owner; they took their wealth; they killed children, raped women and girls; they stripped them of their ancestral and human rights; all in the name of the Sword and Cross.
This led to the loss of a wide variety of cultures and over 4000 languages. And it didn’t end there: the Colonizers brought tuberculosis, small pox, measles and other previously unknown diseases from Europe. In the century that followed the conquest, the population fell by around 75 million in South America, representing 95% of its inhabitants. In less than one century the indigenous population fell by around 90%. In Mexico the population decreased from 11 million in 1519 to 6.5 million in 1565 and to about 2.5 million in 1600. In 1580, diseases had killed or expelled most of the people in what we now call Latin America and the Caribbean. The Christian clergy explained that this happened because it was God’s punishment for the bestial behavior of the “Indians”.
The Eurocentric system that was built during these years of genocide and plundering is still prevalent until today, both in Europe and the Abya Yala. This institution of power gives structure to the economic, social, cultural and epistemological relations between the Western and other territories that are held today. It shaped the current view about race and whiteness.
Every 12th of October, Spain celebrates its National Day. The day intends to symbolize how the Spanish language and culture expanded from Europe to America and to demonstrate the “union” between Spain and the Hispanic Latin America. This holiday used to be called “Hispanic Day/Day of Spanishness” but it was changed in 1987 to the “National day of Spain”. They can change the name all they want but the reasoning is still the same. Many Spaniards still call this day “Día de la Hispanidad” (Hispanic Day) and it forms part of their identity of being Spanish, a day that relies heavily on power imbalances.
But how can a country commemorate a day like this knowing that the consequences of the genocide are rampant up to this date? For the record, the expenditures of the military celebration in Spain on October 12, are up to 800.000€ every year.
Many Spanish people argue that this happened 500 years ago and it’s all in the past. But it’s not. Colonization has long term effects in Spain and Latin America. Latines that migrate/flee to Spain are treated like third class citizens. Be it for the way they speak, eat, dress. Comments like “well, they studied medicine in Peru, they probably didn’t learn much/they can’t be a good doctor.” are unfortunately not surprising. They are called racist slurs and are made fun of because of their accent. They’ll have the typical underpaid working class jobs and are subjugated to racial profiling, especially afro-latines and those with indigenous roots.
In the Abya Yala, indigenous people still live in precarious situations. In a 2015 publication, the World Bank found that 43% of indigenous people in Latin America are poor (living on less than $5.50 a day in 2011), and 24% are extremely poor (living on less than $1.90 a day in 2011), more than twice the rates for non-indigenous people. Indigenous activists are oppressed, persecuted, abducted, imprisoned, tortured and/or killed. Their languages are rarely legally protected and even if so the reality is often different. Many indigenous languages are still disappearing due to disadvantage in technology, discrimination and forced displacement. One of every five indigenous peoples in Latin America has already lost their native language and by 2030, it is estimated that Brazil — the country with the largest amount of indigenous languages in the region — runs the risk of losing a third of its more.
Therefore, when you say “I’m not racist/ I wouldn’t do what they did back then/It’s not my fault, etc.” Ask yourself: how aware are you of your history? Do you really understand the consequences of the genocide in the Abya Yala? How are you complicit to the system? How many times have you thought less of a latine just because of their heritage? How many times did you make fun of the way they speak? How many times have you thought “your Spanish” is more correct than theirs?
Again, people will argue “I know but it’s not my fault, I wouldn’t do what my ancestors did. What do you want me to do about it?”
Well for starters it would be great if there were an actual conscience about the colonization in the Abya Yala.
E.g. I was watching a Spanish TV show: Ministry of Time (Ministerio del Tiempo) and one of the episodes was about Cristopher Columbus and how he discovered America and I couldn’t believe that the TV show didn’t even mention for a second how the Spanish raped, killed and looted the entire continent. At first, I thought for sure at some point they will mention how terrible the massacre was but nothing, the show actually depicted him as a funny guy. I was in shock and so I discussed it with my friends from Spain and they weren’t even surprised, they admitted that they probably wouldn’t have even realized the problematic issue if they had watched that particular episode prior to our conversation because in school they are taught that Columbus “discovered” America.
The country should invest more in raising awareness in schools, universities and among society in general. Separatist groups (Catalans, Basques, Galicians) need to raise awareness among their communities as well. They might not want to be Spanish but their ancestors were involved in the sacking of the American continent. We all know, we can belong to an oppressed group but still be the oppressor.
Why are there still statues of the colonizers in Spain? In Barcelona there’s a big ass statue of Columbus at the harbor, in a city where you will find many latine immigrants. Why are there still streets named after the colonizers? Don’t get me wrong, taking down statues and changing street names mean nothing if the system stays the same.
So I ask myself, when the typical white “feminists” in Spain talk about decolonize your mind and soul, are they aware of what that actually means? Are they aware that the colonization of the Abya Yala basically is what makes Spain’s identity? If the government were to actually put an end to the celebration of their National Day what would the country be proud of? Yes, exactly. Nothing. The whole identity depends on being “Spanish”. The biggest opponents of this day are in general feminist groups but it’s by far not enough.
October 12 symbolically marks the beginning of an occupation that resulted in the eradication of more than 80 million people and in slavery.
Colonization meant for the occupied people the destruction of their political system, the repression of their spirituality and their cultural systems, which resulted in a loss of diversity for humanity as a whole. Colonization established deeply racist and discriminatory political-social structures that continue to this day and that are the basis of the main inequalities, armed conflicts, human rights violations and the vulnerable situation of indigenous populations.
Spain never discovered America but massacred and subdued an entire continent and its cultures in the name of God. There is nothing to celebrate. ¡No hay nada que celebrar!
