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Christopher Columbus, Discoverer of America
| Article
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18804 |
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Section : |
EDITORIAL
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| Issue
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12 / 1991 |
842 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
The special section and book excerpt this month deal with Columbus' discovery of America. The articles and commentaries on the book make reference to the controversies concerning the celebration of the quincentennial of his discovery. In my opinion, these controversies are ridiculous.
First, take the claim that Columbus did not discover America because the Indians, who came here much earlier, already had done so. Did not Columbus' own accounts acknowledge the presence of Indians? If the Indians' presence worked against the claim of Columbus, it never would have been recognized. He was not even the first European to land in the New World. The crucial datum is that America was a secret to the world at large before Columbus. We Americans celebrate Columbus as the discoverer of America because his voyages, and discovery, led to the waves of immigration that produced the United States of America.
Second, the claim is made that Columbus had faults. And so it is argued that if we want to celebrate his discovery, we must apologize for his faults. But King David, Charlemagne, Winston Churchill, and Isaac Newton also had faults. Even Albert Einstein can be attacked for unlocking the key to nuclear weapons. No one in his right mind, however, would deny their greatness or the propriety of celebrating their contributions to their country, their people, or to mankind. Or would demand that we engage in an orgy of self-flagellation before celebrating their accomplishments.
Columbus, apart from his individual faults, was a child of his time, not a prescient saint, who could anticipate the values of posterity. He was certainly not the Tojo, let alone the Hitler or Stalin, of the fifteenth century. Nor were the Indians of the New World saints by any standards. But this is a mere aside. There is something sick about all this self-flagellation.
In a conversation with Noboru Takeshita shortly before he became prime minister, the subject of visits by Japanese parliamentarians to the Yasukuni shrine arose. These visits had been attacked by the press in Japan and the United States. I said that any nation that failed to express pride in its institutions would soon lose its moral fiber and its raison d'etre.
I knew that Tojo's ashes were at the shrine. Even if Tojo was every bit the villain he is widely accepted to be, this should not invalidate ceremonies at the shrine. I'm sure some soldiers buried at Arlington committed terrible atrocities, but that is not what we
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