October 15, 1992

To celebrate or tolament? That
ares who youask. The half-
millennium since Cristobal Colon
and his band of merry marauders
hitthe beaches of what are now the
Americas hasn't much to
celebrate about for the indigenous
people of South America. As
October 12, 1992approaches, the
plight for many has never
greater, nor has the future seemed
more bleck.

by Jeff McDonald

 

What were once flourishing

societies with advanced languages,
. politicaland socialsystems, traditions
and identities have been decimated,
and the people of those once-proud
societies find themselves on the
marginalized fringesofmodernLatin
Americansociety,suspended instony
poverty. If you ask the Quechua
people of Bolivia, the 500th
anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of the
j Americas is a day to mourn.

“We aren‘t celebrating. We are
protesting against 500 years of
exploitation, discrimination and
humiliation,” says Felix Santos. “For
‘us, it’s a date to discuss what’s
happened to us over 500 years. It’s a
sad date. We lookatall theriches that
are still being taken out of Bolivia,
and we're still poor.”

 

    
  
     
  
  
    
  
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
      
     
 
      
 
 
         
 
    
 
       
 
      
 
   
 
      
 
   
   
       
 
 
      
     
 
      
       
 
     
 
     
        
 
 
     
     
     
 
   

Santos is a leader in the
syndicated Federation of Campesino
; Workers of Potosi., whichrepresents
some 40,000 mostly Quechua-
speaking campesinosin thesouthern
Bolivian department of Potosi.
Although October 12isseenasa dark
|'day by the people he works to
represent, it will be used for a larger
|purpose. Santos says there are 36
distinctcultural groupsin Bolivia, all
}with their own language, customs,
and identity, and they will come
on that day and after.
“From that date, we want to,
| move towards establishing a type of

 

by David Austin

MONTREAL (CUP): Dr. John Henrik
Clark is a professor Emeritus of African
and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter
College, New York. Heisthe author and
editor of a number of books including
Malcolm X: The Man and His Times
and his most recent book, Africa At the
Crossroads: Notes of an African World
Revolution. The Daily interviewed Dr.
| Clark last August at his home in Harlem.

  

  

   

Daily: I suppose I should start
off with the most basic and
fundamental question. Why should
we not celebrate the anniversary of
the presence of Columbus in the
Americas?
Clark: Themainreason why you
| should notcelebrate the 500th year of
Columbus’ alleged discovery
because Columbus did not discover
fanything: is the fact that you are
celebrating the life of a rapist.

Thequestionitselfis outoforder.
Youarealmostaskingmetocelebrate
the birth of someone who raped his
mother and murdered his father.
Christopher Columbus and his
‘European thugs reduced the
indigenous American population to
a point where they feltit necessary to
callontheCatholicChurchtosanction
| theincreasein the African slavetrade.
This resulted in the expansion of the
| slave trade for the next 300 ae
creating the test single act o
ne tee anes
the Africanholocaust. Wehavemuch
© memorialize, but nothing to
| celebrate.

  

  

 

  
 

the Other Press

5

Planting the Seeds of the Future

Phisqa Pachaj Wata Kausaymanta |

nation-state of all the indigenous
groups in Bolivia. We have our own
territories, cultures, our own
jangrieges our own flag, our own
leaders. We're sneiliing out and
recognizing our cultures, which are
stillaliveand strong. Allofourcultures
are going to recognize the reality on
October 12, and we will use it to
motivate ourselves. It will serve to

unite us, to recognize how rich our
culture is, and to move forward.”
While governments in the
Americas are celebrating the
anniversary, some groups are
working to counter those
celebrations by presenting other
interpretations of what the past 500
years really means . Jaime Bartoli is
a director of the Comite Potosi 92,

an umbrella organization that is
working to recognize the 500-year
anniversary of campesino resistance
to Spanish colonization.

With this date, we want to begin
on a new road , a road to
discolonization and peace. The past
is history, and it’s very black, and we
can’t change it. But now we will
organize, and equip ourselves to take

 

When you say rape, what precisely
do you mean?

I mean not only the physical
rape of the body, but the rape of the
culture, the rape of the religion, the
destructionofthe untilitbecame
inconceivableto mostof the Africans
of the world to worship a god other
than a white one. The worst kind of
rape: the rape of the mind.

Many apologists for Columbus
say its unfair to judge Columbus
basedonpresent day valuesand that
he should be judged according to his
time. What do you say to that?

I say theyare wrong both ways.
You judge him both ways. Youjudge
him according to his time and you
judge him according to the
reverberation of what he did that
still affects the time in which you
live...You still have European
domination of the world economy.

I'm saying that what he did did
not pass. What he did is still with us.
The long-range impact is still with
us. So Columbus is in both the past
and the present and he needs to be
judged both ways. There are no free
nations in the Caribbean. There’s no
freementality in the Caribbean. They
are imitations of Europe. There is
also no African religion in the
Caribbean.

I've heard you mention that in
one of Columbus’ diaries he
mentions...

That he sailed up and down the
Guinea Coast for 23 years. The
Guinea Coast is West Africa, which
proves he wasintheearly Portuguese
slave trade.

Columbus, Slavery and the Church

So before he arrived in America
he was directly involved in the slave
trade?

Yes. There's nothingelsehecould
have been involved with at that time.
There’s nothing else going on in
relationship to whites there.

Atthattimeitwasthe Portuguese
who were experimenting with
slavery?

Yeah, and some of the slaves
were being taken to the Canary
Islands, especially an island called
Madeira.

I've also heard you say that it
was Africans on the Guinea Coast
who told Columbus of a route to
America.

Yes. That might be found in
Harold LawrenceOs little pamphlet
Africans and the Exploration of
America.

Many people seem to be
confused as to whether Africans were
enslaved because we were black or
for economic reasons.

Bothways. Both ways. And there
isnothing to beconfused about. White
peoplein Europe were coming out of
a form of slavery called feudalism at
the time when Blacks were being
pushed into slavery based onracism.
But the concept we know as racism
developed during the period as a
rationale for slavery, developed
mainly by the Church.

What would you say to those
people who try to quantify slavery in
terms of numbers? Some say 10
million were killed and others say as
much as 60 million or more.

Continued on page 7

advantage of what we have, our
resources, our cultures. Many things
have not been destroyed, and we
need to take advantage of them.”

Bartoli has organized activities
that will examine the history of Latin
America and the significance of 500
years of colonization from the
perspective of the campesino. There
will also be a symbolic climb of
Potosi’s Cerro Rico to demonstrate
that theresourcesof Bolivia belong to
the Bolivian people.

(The Cerro Rico, or Rich Hill,
was once the richest silver mine in
the world,anda focal pointof Spanish
colonization. In the three hundred
years between the Spaniards’ arrival
and Bolivia’s independence in 1825,
it has been estimated that the
equivalent of $50 billion in mineral
wealth went to Spain. Thesilver was
extracted by indigenous and African
slaves - 8 million of whom died
working the mines.)

But Bartoli says their activities
will take place in the first week of
October, rather than on October 12,
so that when the anniversary arrives,
participants canusetheactivities asa
framework to examine the past 500
vears critically. He says the day is
more thansymbolic-it’sastep toward
true independence.

“Through the majority of these
500 years, our lands have been
managed and directed by peoplefrom
outside. Right now we are being
managed by people whoare Bolivian
but have learned that type of outside
mentality. We have to chance that,
with a new imperative of
independence. On Octoberl2, we
are planting the seeds of that future.”

(jeff McDonald is a Canadian
working witha Boliviandevelopment
organization. He wishes to thank
Juan Fajardo for providing Quechua-
Spanish translations.)