This New York Activist Wants To Replace A Statue Of Columbus With Toussaint L’Ouverture
By Priscilla Frank
In 2013, when Glenn Cantave was an undergrad student studying abroad in Bolivia, he did as many tourists do in the country and visited the colossal statue of Cristo de la Concordia, one of the largest depictions of Jesus in the world.
For many Bolivians, the statue is a site of national pride. The 133-foot figure towers over visitors clamoring to take his photo, his arms outstretched as if offering a giant hug. But for Cantave, something about it felt wrong. “I have nothing bad to say about Jesus as a guy,” he told HuffPost. “But Bolivia has one of the largest indigenous cultures in South America and the religion of Christianity was imposed on its people. This image of a white man looking down on everyone was very problematic.”
The experience shifted Cantave’s perspective on the relationship between men perched on pedestals and the communities obliged to literally look up to them every day. But the monument that angers him most, however, is the one at home: a 76-foot statue of Christopher Columbus, a man who Cantave unequivocally calls a terrorist, in Manhattan.
“A terrorist is someone who intimidates people for a political cause,” Cantave said. “For him, that cause was the expansion of the Spanish Empire for profit. Columbus threatened and raped and murdered. It is ass backwards that a city like New York, with such a high awareness of terrorism, has a terrorist as a landmark.”
For the full article, see: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glenn-cantave-christopher-columbus-monument_us_5a2329e7e4b0a02abe919622?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004
Post a Reply
Join this Network to Reply