Columbus Statues Under Attack in Mexico City, Too

10/17/2020

Traditionally, Columbus has been honored in Latin America. After all, if it weren’t for Columbus and the Spanish Conquest, Latin America wouldn’t exist. Columbus Day in Latin America is called Día de la Raza, "Day of the Race," that is, the Mestizo Race, a hybrid race of Europeans and Indians which would not exist had it not been for Columbus and the Spaniards.

But in recent decades, Columbus has been under attack in Latin America. I recall as far back as 1992, the five hundredth anniversary of the Discovery of America, this was going on.

In Mexico City, there are two statues of Columbus:

1. A monument on Paseo de la Reforma in which Columbus symbolically lifts a veil from a globe, thus revealing another part of the earth. This one was set up in 1877 and was sculpted by French sculptor Charles Cordier.

2. The other statue, sculpted by Mexican sculptor Manuel Vilar, was put up in 1892 for the four hundredth anniversary, and is located at the intersection of Avenida Buenavista and Héroes Ferrocarrileros.

Public architecture is a true art form in Spanish-speaking nations. Hispanic culture displays a strong aesthetic sensibility, with public buildings, parks and monuments in large cities as important and symbolic elements of identity and culture.

It’s a shame to see the same destructive forces we see in our own society, the power of the mob (Spanish la chusma), of those who don’t create but only destroy. As a longtime former resident of Mexico myself, I hate to see this happen.

On October 10, two days before Día de la Raza, the Columbus statue on Paseo del la Reforma, an annual target of protesters, was taken down from its pedestal.

From Infobae:

"Two days from the commemoration of 528 years from the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Western Hemisphere, the government of Mexico City decided to remove, early Saturday morning, the sculpture of the Genoese navigator … .According to Mexico City authorities, the reason for that decision was to restore it … after suffering damages in 1992 [in the protest I mentioned] and 'to preserve the cultural and artistic inheritance'" [Por qué causó polémica que el Gobierno de la CDMX retirara la estatua de Cristóbal Colón en vísperas del Día de la Raza (Why Did the Decision of the Mexico City Government to Remove the Statue of Christopher Columbus on the Eve of Día de la Raza Cause Controversy?") by Infobae, October 10, 2020].

Maybe so, but the timing was significant. After all, on social media, a group had announced that "Lo Vamos a Derribar" — "We are Going to bring it down." Their manifesto reads "We assume as a sovereign act the overthrow of execrable monuments as an homage to the millions of massacred Indians and Afro-Descendents, our ancestors … ."

You can see the announcement in this article, with an illustration. It’s very clear the group planned to pull down the statue, they even announced the time to be there.

Of course Mexico has a large Indian population, but much of this is driven by leftist descendents of the conquistadores themselves.

The article features a social media posting by a certain "Pablo Moctezuma B" who tweets that "All over the world they are throwing down statues of slavers and colonizers such as he [Columbus] who began a genocide and invasion of our lands."

"Our lands"? If you look at this individual’s photo, it appears to me to be a very European appearance. With a beard he resembles a conquistador himself! Look at his photo here and see what you think.

Taking down the statue might have actually saved it, however, here is what Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first Jewish chief of government, had to say about it:

"Maybe it would be better, now that it is being restored, to have a collective reflection of what it represents, especially for next year: 700 years from the lunar foundation of Tenochtitlan [Aztec capital founded 1325], 500 years from the Conquest [1521], 200 years of independent Mexico [1821] and this vision we all learned of the discovery of América, as if América [the Western Hemisphere] didn’t exist before Columbus arrived".

Yes, of course, the land of the Western Hemisphere existed before Columbus arrived. But Columbus brought Western Civilization, and the Spanish and Portuguese created what is now Latin America, which would not have existed without them.

As for the other statue of Columbus (see above) it was attacked on October 12th, but the Mexican police defended it. Good for them. Many American municipal governments could learn from them.

See this video here.

Around the 30 second mark, you can see a formation of Mexican cops protecting the statue, and then another anti-European Euro-Mexican starts ranting.

It’s encouraging, however, to see the PAN (National Action Party) call for the restoration of the Columbus statue to its place.

The battle for Western Civilization has many fronts.

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