CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS DAY

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

I apologize for the delay in writing this essay. Christopher Columbus Day was actually celebrated in the USA on October 9. At least I got the month right, a mistake not as spectacularly earth-shattering as the one Columbus made. He had sailed from Italy in 1492, with a crew of 90 men in three ships, the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria. His destination was India, from where he had been ordered by Queen Isabella of Spain to bring back the spices from the Orient, in high demand by Europeans in those times.

With his pathetic navigational skills, Columbus missed the turn-off, possibly at the Canary Islands, where the wind carried him west. He ultimately made landfall on a small island in the Bahamas, which he named San Salvador. Columbus was sure he had landed in India, as he called all the inhabitants of the island “Indians”. Although, in time, he suspected that he had made a mistake.

All the islanders who greeted him on arrival spoke in a language far more mellifluous than the jarring accents of Hindi, the language of India. Like many Europeans, Columbus had a smattering of knowledge of Hindi. After all, there are few places in the world which did not boast of an Indian restaurant, even in the 15th century. In fact, the joke runs that when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he sensed the spicy aromas of Indian and Chinese restaurants plying their respective culinary trades in adjacent craters.

His rival explorer, Vasco da Gama, proved to be the more skillful navigator. He took the right turn and landed in India, a land rich in the treasures sought by the Europeans of more value than gold and jewels – spices.

Chris was, however, furious that he was cheated in the naming of the New World, notwithstanding the fact that he had landed in the Bahamas, which he mistook for India. Close enough, was his argument.

The Americas, both North and South, were named after Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who explored the New World in the years after Columbus’ “discovery”, on behalf of Spain and Portugal. A whole continent named after Vespucci, by an affectionate variation of his first name used by his mamma, America.

Poor Columbus only has Columbus, a little town in Ohio, the Columbia River, Columbia University and the South American country of Colombia, named after him.

But four against an entire continent! That is hardly even worthy of comparison. Still, the Americas may have been named after Amerigo Vespucci, but, to Columbus’ credit, the Americans did not name a day after Vespucci. That honour belongs to Chris, thanks to the complete ignorance of Americans of the subject of Geography. They thought the Bahamas was a part of coastal America.

Old Chris was also not happy when he saw these strange island people with the skin-colour of a beautiful tan, a shade far more aesthetically pleasing than his own pasty-white. Hostility probably caused by an inferiority complex. A tanned skin has always been deemed attractive by Europeans, who rush to the beaches and the banks of rivers whenever the sun shines during their short-lived Summers, to bask and sunbathe in unashamed nudity.

Sadly, Europeans have infected this inferiority complex to ladies of Africa and South Asia. Living in the colonial past, these beautiful ladies, even today, try to change the varying and lovely shades of brown with which they have been blessed, in an attempt to change their skin-colour to resemble the anemic white of colonial Europeans. It is no surprise that the biggest selling cosmetic East of Suez, even in these modern, enlightened times, is skin-whitening cream.

This anomaly was driven home to me while I was working on a temporary basis in one of the resorts in the Maldive Islands, a paradise for deep-sea divers, snorkelers and sun worshippers. These little coral islands, numbering over 1,100, grouped in double chains of 27 atolls and covering an area of 115 square miles of the Indian Ocean, represent the “desert island” paradise, the retirement fantasy of many people living in the bleak, hostile, cold “civilizations” of the northern hemisphere.

The only method of transport between these islands was by speedboat or yacht, sailboat or barge. The sight of a boatful of white Europeans, sunbathing in glorious nudity on their decks, trying to get a brown tan on every inch of their bodies, was common. Equally and sadly common was the sight of beautiful brown-skinned ladies, covering every inch of the exposed parts of their bodies with a multitude of towels, to ward off the sunshine which would make them “darker”!

The real “discovery” of America is attributed to the landing of the Mayflower, with pilgrims and crew numbering 102 people, ordinary English men and women, which made landfall on Plymouth Rock in Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, during the harsh winter of 1620. Only half these immigrants survived that first winter. The ship provided defense against the weather, while a settlement was under construction.

The pilgrims and the crew met with the neighbouring inhabitants of the land, the Wampanoag People of the tribe of Massachusetts, who initially greeted them with hospitality. This was one of the original tribes who had inhabited their lands for centuries past, living according to traditions of peace and compassion, conducting their lives in harmony with nature. The immigrants and the natives worked together till the harvest season of 1621, when they enjoyed a meal together, a historic event that is celebrated even today by Americans during the end of the third week in November.

Of course, members of the Wampanoag tribe and other native Americans are singularly conspicuous in their absence during these modern Thanksgiving celebrations.

Like all the marauding Europeans in those colonial times, they took advantage of the compassion and hospitality of the natives, which they perceived as weakness. They pretended to be friends of these unsuspecting innocents, and systematically murdered them all, in the most gruesome recorded genocide in human history.

And that, children, is the real story of the early origins of the mighty United States of America.

In our next class, Professor Ron DeSantis, graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law, Navy Seal, eminent historian, currently the Governor of Florida, will enlighten you on the great good fortune of West Africans, when they decided, of their own free will, to emigrate to this great country in the 17th century. Professor DeSantis will spellbind you with a lecture on the wonderful job opportunities that have opened up for these far-sighted immigrants, who were fortunate enough to participate in structured training programs designed to meet their specific needs in the cotton plantations in the South. As he most convincingly argues, “Black people benefited from being enslaved…. Some of these folks eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing better things later in life”. His thesis completely disproves the woke theories of other historians, probably damn communists, who wrongly claim that DeSantis misrepresents centuries of the brutal reality of slavery in the history of the nation.

DeSantis is a leading contender for the presidency of the greatest, most peace-loving country on the face of the Earth, in November 2024.

Let us pray.