October 12, 2003
Happy Columbus Day!
Three cheers for the heroic Italian navigator who brought the Holy Catholic Faith to the New World! History records often dirty business, and so the dealings between Europeans and Indians are often clouded by such misfortunes, but in the long run I have to say that this one aspect of Christopher Columbus' doings is the greatest thing that ever happened to the people of the New World. Even a cursory reading of the grotesque human sacrifices, the cannibalism, the superstition, the animism, the cultures of people entirely subjected to the cruelties of nature (which is, of course, often trumpteted as noble), and the barbarity of pre-Columbian Americas will show the Spanish conquista as one of the greatest triumphs of all humanity ever known.
I was hoping to celebrate by being at a great bullfight, but that will have to wait. Instead I will be in North Beach for mass, then the festivities (complete with the stunningly lovely Blue Angels roaring overhead).
Posted by erik at October 12, 2003 12:54 AM | TrackBackMark,
Chavez has got to be the biggest idiot in politics outside of Zimbabwe. I am not really surprised when I meet some happy pro-Aztlan person who is simply ignorant of what these "nature centered" religions believed and practiced (similar to the idiots who think that Celtic paganism was a peaceful, good idea). Most people are completely ignorant of the most basic history, especially when it speaks ill of non-Christians. What astounds me, though, is when I encounter someone who knows the nature of Aztec (and Carribe and Incan) religion and brushes it off.
It is similar to folks who howl about Elia Kazan turning in a few loathesome Commies to the authorities (who at the most pestered the Commies or made them have to use a pseudonymn to write and collect six figures (1950's dollars) for their screenplays, poor dears), then praise the ham actor and minstrel singer Paul Robeson, who betrayed his friend to death under Stalin. Or the folks who soft pedal on Castro while demanding the harshest retributions against Pinochet.
Posted by: Erik Keilholtz at October 13, 2003 10:27 AMPeggy Noonan writes of the Aztecs:
...Their religious feeling included...a culture of brutality. Human sacrifices were made to the gods, the most common being self-sacrifice, with men, women and children giving blood. The most brutal involved an enormous number of victims sacrificed in cold blood—hearts ripped out of live victims, beheadings, incineration. For many years there were, historians estimate, 250,000 victims a year, of whom perhaps 20,000 men were burned alive during a four-day religious ritual.
I wonder if this is the idyllic pre-Columban paradise to which Venezuelan President Chavez wishes to return?
Posted by: Mark C N Sullivan at October 13, 2003 10:01 AM