There are debates all around the world on whether to remove the Christopher Columbus statues. On Columbus Day, 12 October, around 20 protestors gathered at the Columbus statue in the Colonial City in Santo Domingo to demand the removal of the city landmark.
The Columbus statue is located in the main Colonial City square. Indeed, the park is known as the Parque Colón, or Columbus Park.
Those who are in favor of removing the statues argue Columbus is accused of the genocide of indigenous people. A 2019 study published in the journal Quaternary Science Review estimated that between 1492 and 1600, about 55 million people in the Americas died. The Taíno people were virtually wiped out in the decades after Columbus first arrived on the island of Hispaniola.
Already, Columbus statues have been removed in numerous cities.
Yet in Italy, the Columbus statue in Milano stayed after philosopher Massimo Cacciari in a TV interview gave a strong reason against replacing the Columbus statue.
“The pretension of being able to judge history from one’s own point of view, from the point of view of the present, whatever this point of view may be, is of profound idiocy, arrogance and pride. Are we going to judge Columbus or the Roman emperor Julius Caesar according to our criteria of today? Then, history and the past should be oriented on our present criteria? A folly,” remarked Cacciari in the TV interview.
After the interview the subject of removing the statue in Milano was no longer discussed in Italy.
Read more:
Listin Diario
Wikipedia
CBS News
14 October 2021