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pheloniusfriarI'm copying over some of the work I did before I set up my DW account... this is from my 1st year human rights course.
Columbus Day: A Day to Contemplate the Cost
of Our Reluctance to Achieve Reconciliation
In his short article, “Minority Report”, Christopher Hitchens tells us the arrival of Columbus [sic] on the shores of the Americas “inaugurated a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation, and thus deserves to be celebrated with great vim and gusto” (Hitchins, p. 144). He pays lip service to the atrocities of “racism, conquest and plunder” (Hitchins, p. 144) that precipitated from that moment of cultural contact, but dismisses “those who view the history of North America as a narrative of genocide and slavery” (Hitchins, p. 144) as holding a purely “reactionary position” (Hitchins, p.144) , a position he chides mockingly as being “risible or faintly sinister” (Hitchins, p. 144). While the attitude of the people he derides is inarguably a reaction, it is legitimately one that has its basis in the increased historical awareness and cultural sensitivity of Western society1 brought about by the human rights revolution that entered its modern form “with the founding of the United Nations in 1945” (“Human Rights”, Burns H. Weston, p. 53). What Hitchens’ “boundless epoch” (Hitchens, p. 144) has still failed to deliver after more than 500 years is a society that has the fortitude and courage to face the existing and mounting costs of its failure to pay the heavy price of reconciliation.
To understand the facetiousness of Hitchens’ argument, an understanding needs to be developed of the actions of the European imperialists as viewed through the lens of a contemporary understanding of anthropological issues. In his article “Columbus and the War on Indigenous Peoples”, Michael Stevenson writes of Columbus’ landing in America: “it was this ‘encounter’ – a neutral word, chosen by the victors – that a process of destruction, so all-encompassing and systematic that it can only be described as total war, was inaugurated by Europeans against indigenous peoples” (Stevenson, p. 134). He goes on to say “the central endeavour was, and still is, to lay waste a people and destroy their culture in order to undermine the integrity of their existence and appropriate their riches. Powered by a predatory appetite, fuelled by a culture and belief, total war (which, in this sense, entails not only the physical destruction of children, women and men, but also the devastation of their material and spiritual economy) continually recreates its mechanisms of justification. In the process, it builds up a structure of collective feeling, a way of thought and a language that facilitates its continuity from generation to generation” (Stevenson, p. 134).
Hitchens argues “it does happen to be the way history is made, and to complain about it is as empty as complaint about climatic2, geological or tectonic shifts” (Hitchens, p. 144); however, even a cursory examination of his argument shows that the subjugation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the effects of natural phenomena cannot be equated. Humanity and the cultural structures we have erected have input into and direct influence over what is done within the context of human affairs, whereas we can only react to and accept the “climatic, geological or tectonic” (Hitchens, p. 144) events described by Hitchens. If his argument is rephrased to reflect purely human modern events, it demonstrates a terrifying attitude that is the antithesis of any hope we might have of peace and reconciliation in the future: it does happen to be the way history is made, and to complain about it is as empty as complaint about the genocides in Rwanda and the Balkans, or the Jewish Holocaust.
Intriguingly, Hitchens’ discussion of natural phenomenon unwittingly provides a valid analogy for discussing the framework for the very sort of restitution and reconciliation he is dismissing. Like the natural events he equates to the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, human society today is powerless to change those undeniable events which have already occurred. But consider society’s reactions to natural events such as seismic activity: we search historic records and bring our resources to bear on determining what infrastructure and people have been affected in the past and could be affected in the future (the ongoing cost of being an affected population). We use that information to determine the risk to those populations affected by the phenomenon, and then take action based on that information: both remedial to existing infrastructure, and proactively in the form of new institutions and infrastructure to address the shortcomings of the past so they don’t get carried into the future. Huge changes can be enacted to laws and both social and governmental institutions, and enormous costs can be required to reconcile new requirements with past decisions – such as reinforcing or tearing down old buildings – and in meeting the higher standards for infrastructure and institutions – for example, new building codes and emergency preparedness requirements.
Similar arguments can be made regarding society’s reactions to all other naturally occurring phenomenon no matter where they occur, each piling cost upon cost, but there is a culture of acceptance of these restitutions and reconciliations, and a recognition that the longer we take to address the identified shortcomings, the larger the investment that will be required in the future. The historical damage that has not healed and the ongoing costs, both tangible and opportunity costs, along with the institutions required to perpetuate the status quo present an unsustainable burden on our world that will have to be addressed eventually, and the longer we wait, the greater the ultimate cost.
When Hitchens says “it is sometimes the unambiguously the case that a certain coincidence of ideas, technologies, population movements and politico-military victories leaves humanity on a slightly higher plane than it knew before” (Hitchens, p. 144) , his assertion of non-ambiguity does not make it so by his mere pronouncement. In fact, despite Hitchens’ self-identification as an “ancestor-worshiping Iroquois” (Hitchens, p. 144), his attitude, summed up in his statement attributed to Marx that the more developed of societies in conflict “can spread aspects of modernity and enlightenment that outlive and transcend the conqueror” (Hitchins, p. 144), is closely aligned with and supports Stevenson’s statement that “the European became an alchemist believing he possessed special capacities and rights to transmute all he touched” (Stevenson, p. 142). It needs to be remembered that “the very dynasty that funded Columbus put an end to Andalusia in the same year, and thus blew up the cultural bridge between the high attainment of Islamic North Africa and Mesopotamia and the relative backwardness of Castilian Christendom” (Hitchens, p. 144). Rather than support Hitchens’ assertion that conquerors in this case left the the Americas “unambiguously [...] on a slightly higher plane”, would it not be more accurate to assert that the riches of the Americas provided the needed capital to prop up and perpetuate a system of government and social structure that was in the process of collapsing at the time America was discovered?
There is a movement underway, ironically originating in Europe, to better attempt to understand the true lifecycle costs of our collective actions, originating in the realm of commercial enterprise as it applies to environmental impact (see the ISO 14000 series of standards [5]), but spreading to other fields of endeavour. Very pragmatic considerations led to the creation of entire new fields of expertise that can assign value and cost to past, present, and future benefits and liabilities, including but not limited to intangibles like ongoing social impact, remediation required by past behaviour, and the future costs of a failure to act expeditiously. These techniques can arrive at more accurate assessments of things like our reliance on oil for energy to arrive at its true “present value” to compensate future generations for its use today. These same techniques could also be applied to the matter at hand: the existing, ongoing, and future costs of the European conquest of the Americas.
Columbus Day serves as a reminder of the shaky foundations upon which we have built our civilization and how our terrible pasts are perpetuated “from generation to generation” (Stevenson, p. 134). Perhaps it could be a day where we contemplate what our world would look like today if the old systems that exported “total war” (Stevenson, p. 134) from Europe to the Americas had collapsed 500 years ago instead of being propped up with the unimaginable wealth plundered at the expense of the indigenous peoples of the place, and the ongoing cost to the legitimacy and social fabric of the multitudes of societies that now exist that are still entwined in the crimes of the past.
References
of Our Reluctance to Achieve Reconciliation
In his short article, “Minority Report”, Christopher Hitchens tells us the arrival of Columbus [sic] on the shores of the Americas “inaugurated a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation, and thus deserves to be celebrated with great vim and gusto” (Hitchins, p. 144). He pays lip service to the atrocities of “racism, conquest and plunder” (Hitchins, p. 144) that precipitated from that moment of cultural contact, but dismisses “those who view the history of North America as a narrative of genocide and slavery” (Hitchins, p. 144) as holding a purely “reactionary position” (Hitchins, p.144) , a position he chides mockingly as being “risible or faintly sinister” (Hitchins, p. 144). While the attitude of the people he derides is inarguably a reaction, it is legitimately one that has its basis in the increased historical awareness and cultural sensitivity of Western society1 brought about by the human rights revolution that entered its modern form “with the founding of the United Nations in 1945” (“Human Rights”, Burns H. Weston, p. 53). What Hitchens’ “boundless epoch” (Hitchens, p. 144) has still failed to deliver after more than 500 years is a society that has the fortitude and courage to face the existing and mounting costs of its failure to pay the heavy price of reconciliation.
To understand the facetiousness of Hitchens’ argument, an understanding needs to be developed of the actions of the European imperialists as viewed through the lens of a contemporary understanding of anthropological issues. In his article “Columbus and the War on Indigenous Peoples”, Michael Stevenson writes of Columbus’ landing in America: “it was this ‘encounter’ – a neutral word, chosen by the victors – that a process of destruction, so all-encompassing and systematic that it can only be described as total war, was inaugurated by Europeans against indigenous peoples” (Stevenson, p. 134). He goes on to say “the central endeavour was, and still is, to lay waste a people and destroy their culture in order to undermine the integrity of their existence and appropriate their riches. Powered by a predatory appetite, fuelled by a culture and belief, total war (which, in this sense, entails not only the physical destruction of children, women and men, but also the devastation of their material and spiritual economy) continually recreates its mechanisms of justification. In the process, it builds up a structure of collective feeling, a way of thought and a language that facilitates its continuity from generation to generation” (Stevenson, p. 134).
Hitchens argues “it does happen to be the way history is made, and to complain about it is as empty as complaint about climatic2, geological or tectonic shifts” (Hitchens, p. 144); however, even a cursory examination of his argument shows that the subjugation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the effects of natural phenomena cannot be equated. Humanity and the cultural structures we have erected have input into and direct influence over what is done within the context of human affairs, whereas we can only react to and accept the “climatic, geological or tectonic” (Hitchens, p. 144) events described by Hitchens. If his argument is rephrased to reflect purely human modern events, it demonstrates a terrifying attitude that is the antithesis of any hope we might have of peace and reconciliation in the future: it does happen to be the way history is made, and to complain about it is as empty as complaint about the genocides in Rwanda and the Balkans, or the Jewish Holocaust.
Intriguingly, Hitchens’ discussion of natural phenomenon unwittingly provides a valid analogy for discussing the framework for the very sort of restitution and reconciliation he is dismissing. Like the natural events he equates to the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, human society today is powerless to change those undeniable events which have already occurred. But consider society’s reactions to natural events such as seismic activity: we search historic records and bring our resources to bear on determining what infrastructure and people have been affected in the past and could be affected in the future (the ongoing cost of being an affected population). We use that information to determine the risk to those populations affected by the phenomenon, and then take action based on that information: both remedial to existing infrastructure, and proactively in the form of new institutions and infrastructure to address the shortcomings of the past so they don’t get carried into the future. Huge changes can be enacted to laws and both social and governmental institutions, and enormous costs can be required to reconcile new requirements with past decisions – such as reinforcing or tearing down old buildings – and in meeting the higher standards for infrastructure and institutions – for example, new building codes and emergency preparedness requirements.
Similar arguments can be made regarding society’s reactions to all other naturally occurring phenomenon no matter where they occur, each piling cost upon cost, but there is a culture of acceptance of these restitutions and reconciliations, and a recognition that the longer we take to address the identified shortcomings, the larger the investment that will be required in the future. The historical damage that has not healed and the ongoing costs, both tangible and opportunity costs, along with the institutions required to perpetuate the status quo present an unsustainable burden on our world that will have to be addressed eventually, and the longer we wait, the greater the ultimate cost.
When Hitchens says “it is sometimes the unambiguously the case that a certain coincidence of ideas, technologies, population movements and politico-military victories leaves humanity on a slightly higher plane than it knew before” (Hitchens, p. 144) , his assertion of non-ambiguity does not make it so by his mere pronouncement. In fact, despite Hitchens’ self-identification as an “ancestor-worshiping Iroquois” (Hitchens, p. 144), his attitude, summed up in his statement attributed to Marx that the more developed of societies in conflict “can spread aspects of modernity and enlightenment that outlive and transcend the conqueror” (Hitchins, p. 144), is closely aligned with and supports Stevenson’s statement that “the European became an alchemist believing he possessed special capacities and rights to transmute all he touched” (Stevenson, p. 142). It needs to be remembered that “the very dynasty that funded Columbus put an end to Andalusia in the same year, and thus blew up the cultural bridge between the high attainment of Islamic North Africa and Mesopotamia and the relative backwardness of Castilian Christendom” (Hitchens, p. 144). Rather than support Hitchens’ assertion that conquerors in this case left the the Americas “unambiguously [...] on a slightly higher plane”, would it not be more accurate to assert that the riches of the Americas provided the needed capital to prop up and perpetuate a system of government and social structure that was in the process of collapsing at the time America was discovered?
There is a movement underway, ironically originating in Europe, to better attempt to understand the true lifecycle costs of our collective actions, originating in the realm of commercial enterprise as it applies to environmental impact (see the ISO 14000 series of standards [5]), but spreading to other fields of endeavour. Very pragmatic considerations led to the creation of entire new fields of expertise that can assign value and cost to past, present, and future benefits and liabilities, including but not limited to intangibles like ongoing social impact, remediation required by past behaviour, and the future costs of a failure to act expeditiously. These techniques can arrive at more accurate assessments of things like our reliance on oil for energy to arrive at its true “present value” to compensate future generations for its use today. These same techniques could also be applied to the matter at hand: the existing, ongoing, and future costs of the European conquest of the Americas.
Columbus Day serves as a reminder of the shaky foundations upon which we have built our civilization and how our terrible pasts are perpetuated “from generation to generation” (Stevenson, p. 134). Perhaps it could be a day where we contemplate what our world would look like today if the old systems that exported “total war” (Stevenson, p. 134) from Europe to the Americas had collapsed 500 years ago instead of being propped up with the unimaginable wealth plundered at the expense of the indigenous peoples of the place, and the ongoing cost to the legitimacy and social fabric of the multitudes of societies that now exist that are still entwined in the crimes of the past.
References
- Christopher Hitchens, “Minority Report” (Coursepack #13)
- Burns H. Weston, “Human Rights” (Coursepack #5)
- General Assembly of the United Nations, Introduction to web reproduction of “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, 1948, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
- Michael Stevenson, “Columbus and the War on Indigenous Peoples” (Coursepack #12)
- International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 14000 essentials”, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_14000_essentials
- From [3], “Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and ‘to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.’”
- Presuming that by climatic shifts, he means natural shifts rather than human-caused global warming, for instance.
