Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "columbus-day"
World History 101 – The Actual History | Vande Vasudhaivam
History is not a record of truth, history is a record of triumph. The triumphant writes history as it fits their narrative – or to be more accurate, history is written by the conquerors for maintaining the supremacy of the conquerors, while the conquered lose everything.
Let me give you an example. In a commendable endeavor of goodwill and reparations a descendant of the British conquerors, President Lyndon Johnson started Hispanic Heritage Week, which was later expanded into a month by another white descendant, President Ronald Reagan – fast forward to present time – during the Hispanic Heritage Month the entire North America tries to celebrate Native American history. But there is a glitch – Spanish is not even a Native American language.
Native Americans did not even speak Spanish, until the brutes of Spain overran Puerto Rico like pest bearing disease and destruction, after a pathetic criminal called Columbus stumbled upon “La Isabela” in the 1500s.
Many of the natives struggled till death to save their home – many were killed by the foreign diseases to which they had no immunity. Those who lived, every last trace of their identity was wiped out, by the all-powerful and glorious spanish colonizers – their language, their traditions, their heritage, everything – just like the Portuguese did in Brazil.
The Spaniards would’ve done the same to Philippines on the other side of the globe, had they had the convenience to stay longer. Heck, even the name Philippines is not the original name – the original name of the islands was (probably) Maniolas, as referred to by Ptolemy. But when the Spaniard retards of the time set foot there, they named it after, then crown prince, later Philip II of Spain.
Just reminiscing those abominable atrocities makes my blood boil, and yet somehow, the brutal “glory” of the conquerors lives on as such even in this day and age, as glory that is.
That’s why José Martí is so important, that’s why Kwanzaa is so important, that’s why Darna is so important – in the making of a world that has a place for every culture, not just the culture of the conquerors.
No other “civilized” people have done more damage to the world than the Europeans, and yet, on the pages of history books their glory of conquest is still packaged as glory, not as atrocity. Why is that? I don’t know the answer – do you?
Trillions of dollars, pounds and euros in aid won’t suffice to undo the damage – but what just might heal those wounds from the past, is if the offspring of the oppressors and the offspring of the oppressed, both hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, unravel the history as it happened, not as it was presented – what just might heal the scars of yesterday, is if together we come forward to learn about each other’s past, so that for the first time in history, we can actually write “human history”, not the “conquerors’ history” – so that for the first time ever, we write history not as conquerors and conquered, not as oppressors and oppressed, but as one species – as one humankind.
Let me give you an example. In a commendable endeavor of goodwill and reparations a descendant of the British conquerors, President Lyndon Johnson started Hispanic Heritage Week, which was later expanded into a month by another white descendant, President Ronald Reagan – fast forward to present time – during the Hispanic Heritage Month the entire North America tries to celebrate Native American history. But there is a glitch – Spanish is not even a Native American language.
Native Americans did not even speak Spanish, until the brutes of Spain overran Puerto Rico like pest bearing disease and destruction, after a pathetic criminal called Columbus stumbled upon “La Isabela” in the 1500s.
Many of the natives struggled till death to save their home – many were killed by the foreign diseases to which they had no immunity. Those who lived, every last trace of their identity was wiped out, by the all-powerful and glorious spanish colonizers – their language, their traditions, their heritage, everything – just like the Portuguese did in Brazil.
The Spaniards would’ve done the same to Philippines on the other side of the globe, had they had the convenience to stay longer. Heck, even the name Philippines is not the original name – the original name of the islands was (probably) Maniolas, as referred to by Ptolemy. But when the Spaniard retards of the time set foot there, they named it after, then crown prince, later Philip II of Spain.
Just reminiscing those abominable atrocities makes my blood boil, and yet somehow, the brutal “glory” of the conquerors lives on as such even in this day and age, as glory that is.
That’s why José Martí is so important, that’s why Kwanzaa is so important, that’s why Darna is so important – in the making of a world that has a place for every culture, not just the culture of the conquerors.
No other “civilized” people have done more damage to the world than the Europeans, and yet, on the pages of history books their glory of conquest is still packaged as glory, not as atrocity. Why is that? I don’t know the answer – do you?
Trillions of dollars, pounds and euros in aid won’t suffice to undo the damage – but what just might heal those wounds from the past, is if the offspring of the oppressors and the offspring of the oppressed, both hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, unravel the history as it happened, not as it was presented – what just might heal the scars of yesterday, is if together we come forward to learn about each other’s past, so that for the first time in history, we can actually write “human history”, not the “conquerors’ history” – so that for the first time ever, we write history not as conquerors and conquered, not as oppressors and oppressed, but as one species – as one humankind.
Blood and Blunder (The Sonnet) | Abhijit Naskar | The Divine Refugee
The world is filled with atrocious holidays,
Columbus Day, Australia Day and Thanksgiving.
Holidays steeped in blood and blunder, are
passed on proudly as occasion of merrymaking.
Imagine celebrating 9/11 as a day of freedom,
Yet colonizers do exactly that without shame.
And these animal holidays are a thousand times
more atrocious than the crash of nine eleven.
Nine eleven is a ghastly stain upon history,
there is no doubt or question about that.
But what about the infinitely larger stains,
inflicted, respected and celebrated by cowards!
Human rights can never prevail till we
dismantle every false celebration.
Animals find honor in blood and blunder,
We become human through course correction.
Columbus Day, Australia Day and Thanksgiving.
Holidays steeped in blood and blunder, are
passed on proudly as occasion of merrymaking.
Imagine celebrating 9/11 as a day of freedom,
Yet colonizers do exactly that without shame.
And these animal holidays are a thousand times
more atrocious than the crash of nine eleven.
Nine eleven is a ghastly stain upon history,
there is no doubt or question about that.
But what about the infinitely larger stains,
inflicted, respected and celebrated by cowards!
Human rights can never prevail till we
dismantle every false celebration.
Animals find honor in blood and blunder,
We become human through course correction.
A Brief History of Earth Cannibals (Sonnet) ― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop
There’s no such thing as slave traders,
get your language straight, you idiots –
they were human traffickers, not traders,
you trade in commodity, not people.
Colonizers were not slave traders,
they were terrorists and traffickers;
settlers are not civilizers,
they are plague upon the civilized world.
The world outside europe was already civilized
beyond the wildest dreams of the europeans,
then those brutes set sail, and the human race
experienced an extinction level catastrophe.
To trade in human lives like livestock
is the savagest form of cannibalism –
white history sells the West as the free world,
but dig into earth history, and you’ll realize,
West is the biggest threat to life and freedom.
Here is some rectified history,
dig up the rest for yourself –
Churchill was a big fat cannibal,
Leopold was an ugly deadly virus,
Columbus was a most wanted terrorist.
