Columbus ‘deserves our respect, deserves to be remembered’ – The Militant

[....] In its July 13, 2020, issue of the Militant, Managing Editor Terry Evans wrote an article entitled “Destruction of statues seeks to erase history we need to know.” 

 

It said, “Behind the destruction and removal of monuments lies the notion that by erasing symbols from the past, reflecting different stages of class development, you can ‘cancel’ them and pretend they didn’t happen.

“Knowing the real history of past class struggles is key to charting a road forward. Along that road working people will decide what statues and other historical monuments we want to keep and where, and what new ones to erect.

“We don’t need small self-appointed groups imposing their own will on others tearing down statues, putting barriers in front of working people learning from our history, and gaining confidence in what we can become.”

He pointed out that working people today can’t judge past civilizations by comparison with conditions today, many the result of mighty class struggles and revolutionary transformations. Things that we reject today have accompanied important social advances in the past. That’s true of Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas.

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Columbus ‘deserves our respect, deserves to be remembered’ – The Militant