(In)Justice

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue

Think about it. We have heroes in our history, heroes who deserve to be heroes. We also have heroes who deserve to be looked upon as evil men. When I was a kid I marveled at the bravery of Columbus, who valiantly sailed across the big blue and discovered this land of promise, which, to our benefit, didn’t have very many people on it. He got out and waded to the land. He put a flag on top of the hill and said, “Hey guys, this is awesome! This is all ours and we can do whatever we want with it woop!” His men got out of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria and waded, as Columbus had done to the shores of modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic. The local people, called the Tainos, peeped from around the rocks and they had a nice dinner with Columbus. A dinner with fried chicken and biscuits and gravy. There was also apple pie because we like apple pie in America. After they ate dinner Columbus said to the Taino people, “Hey, I am going to go get my friends so we can throw an even better party.” He looked at them, beaming with glee. “Okay,” they said, looking like children to their great and powerful father.            

            Columbus returned the next year, in 1493, with 17 ships. He unloaded the men and they had another grand dinner. They told the Taino people they were going to help them be “civilized,” that they were going to learn how to have manners and how to eat and what to wear and how to make and use money. A noble cause indeed. One must not forget that much of this was done in the name of religion. God. Gold. Glory.

            Stop. I wish that were how the story ended. Actually, I wish that were how the story went at all. When Columbus returned with his 17 ships he instituted the slavery of the Taino people and moreover began a mass genocide, which, less than 50 years later, would nearly kill off the entire race. The population of the Taino in 1492 was round 8 million. Not such a deserted island after all. Four years into Columbus’ brutal reign the population dwindled to 3 million. If you do the math, and I assume you can, that’s more than a million people dead per year. But it seems vague and unrealistic to accuse Mr. Columbus so much, so I will give you an example of the evil he manifested. Every year, if you were a Taino over 13 years old, you were required to bring a small portion of gold to the “government.” If you didn’t follow through, or if you couldn’t find the gold, your hands were chopped off. Right now that doesn’t seem like something that would kill you, but in those times there were no antiseptics or ointments that cure everything. They didn’t have blood donations that they could safely give the people without hands. They just died. Columbus’ tyranny ended around 1500, but the genocide continued and in 1514 the Taino population was reduced to 22,000. By 1542 there were 200 Taino left. In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in 1493 he returned and began to wipe out a nation in the name of God.

American Indian Persecution

            Just North of Columbus is the land you and I call home. America! Our destiny awaiting the wonderful fruition of God’s plan! We were meant to inherit this bountiful harvest and drink the full dregs of its farms! We came to this continent and took little bits and pieces at a time. The self-proclaimed “Manifest Destiny” robbed the Native Americans of more and more land, and when gold was discovered in California we really got to business. In A.D. 1500 the estimated population of Native Americans was 12 million. In A.D. 1900 the estimated population of Native Americans was 237,000. Once again, do the math. Here is a short excerpt from an article found in an MIT newspaper:

·      “A bare sampling of some of the worst must include the 1854 massacre of perhaps 150 Lakotas at Blue River (Nebraska), the 1863 Bear River (Idaho) Massacre of some 500 Western Shoshones, the 1864 Sand Creek (Colorado) Massacre of as many as 250 Cheyennes and Arapahoes, the 1868 massacre of another 300 Cheyennes at the Washita River (Oklahoma), the 1875 massacre of about 75 Cheyennes along the Sappa Creek (Kansas), the 1878 massacre of still another 100 Cheyennes at Camp Robinson (Nebraska), and the 1890 massacre of more than 300 Lakotas at Wounded Knee (South Dakota).”

            Many days people don’t realize that we build our houses on the blood of innocent people. There were people who lived on this land before us. We saw gold and we put guns to their heads. It stopped there, right? Our government didn’t do anything else bad did they? Did our government really tear the land from the Native Americans’ hands and put it in the pockets of its own people? The goal was noble, the means evil.

 

“Little Boy” and “Fat Man”

As I ponder history I wonder why people don’t look at the atomic bombs and gasp at the evil nature of their consequences. We were at war with Japan, and yes, they bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. We were at war. We were at war with the government of Japan, with its military. But, on Monday, August 6 in 1945, President Truman commanded that “Little Boy” be dropped on the industrial city of Hiroshima. By the end of that December 140,00 people died, most of whom were civilians. This number does not include the thousands more who died from disease and nuclear fallout in the years after. Several days later Truman ordered that “Fat Man” be dropped on Nagasaki. By the end of that December 70,000 had died, and again this number does not include the later deaths from nuclear fallout. The end was noble: we must end the war. But at what cost? Since when does a “Christian” nation abide by end-justifies-the-means doctrine? (Well, as the Native American persecution has shown, we have done this since the beginning of our settling.) The genocide of these two Japanese cities attests to the nature of our American War Machine. The goal was noble, the means evil.

 

“Agent Orange”

            The war in Vietnam has always been a disputed subject. Dr. King himself objected and he was persecuted. An infamous part of that war, and something that haunts the minds of thousands of Vietnamese people today, is “agent orange,” an herbicide containing carcinogens. From 1962-1971 an estimated 80 million liters of “agent orange” was used in South Vietnam to clear the landscape and reveal enemies. Over 4.8 million people were exposed to it and its harmful effects. Most of these people—people who were eaten away like plants—were civilians. 500,000 deaths or disabilities occurred within these years of the war, and an even more disturbing 400,000 children were born with disabilities.  An entire generation of Vietnamese lives deformed, because of our attempt to reveal the guerilla soldiers in Vietnam. We search for a few, but we punish millions. The goal was noble, the means evil.

Iraq

            The civilian body count from direct violence in Iraq is just under 90,000. I searched the Internet with body counts and I found the most humble body count. Some sites have the count up to 500,000. I agree that the goal in Iraq is noble. But it seems to me that we have put on Columbus’ old mask. Are we trying to “free” the Iraqi people or are we trying to civilize them? Is democracy the only form of government that works? How easy is it to implement a radically new system of government to a culture steeped in opposing tradition? Saddam Hussein was an evil man. Evil, pure evil. He got what he deserved (well he got what I deserve too). His actions reaped the appropriate consequences. But what about Darfur? How about Rwanda? Sierra Leone? Anybody recall the Lost Boys of Sudan? Let’s get consistent—are we the police of the world? Why didn’t we fight the genocide in these places? Why don’t we fight the genocide that is occurring right now? We have botched things up in Iraq. Besides the civilians killed we have displaced about 4.5 million people. These people in turn have fled to other countries like Jordan, whose infrastructure is on the brink of collapse because of the innumerable immigrants pouring over their borders. Hospitality can only go so far.

  The goal is noble, the means evil.

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http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v9/9.11/1columbus.html

http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html

http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v9/9.11/1columbus.html

http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ENG/A-bomb/History/Damages.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080711.worange1107/BNStory/Front/home/?pageRequested=all

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2007/