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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 6/19/20

Goodbye, Columbus

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Margaret Kimberley
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From Consortium News

The fallen Christopher Columbus statue outside the Minnesota State Capitol after a group led by American Indian Movement members tore it down
The fallen Christopher Columbus statue outside the Minnesota State Capitol after a group led by American Indian Movement members tore it down
(Image by (Photo byTony Webster))
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Millions of white people glorify mass murderers because their sense of identity and place in society is deeply tied to white supremacy.

The perpetrators of crimes against humanity are often elevated to positions of respect and admiration. It all depends on who did the killing, and who was killed. Now the murderers are being called to account.

The new movement in the United States against police and other state violence has inspired this welcome change taking place all over the world. The criminals are being exposed decades and even centuries after their atrocities took place.

There is no statute of limitations for murder nor should there be for calling out people who have the blood of millions on their hands.

Statues of Belgium's King Leopold have been defaced and even removed. Leopold held the Congo as his personal fiefdom, the Congo Free State, where he killed as many as 15 million people who were forced to work on rubber plantations.

The cruelty of murder and mutilation was exposed after a more than 20-year reign of terror. George Washington Williams, a black American journalist, played a key role in bringing the genocide to public attention.

Father stares at the hand and foot of his five year-old daughter, which were severed as a punishment for having harvested too little caoutchouc/rubber.
Father stares at the hand and foot of his five year-old daughter, which were severed as a punishment for having harvested too little caoutchouc/rubber.
(Image by (Photo taken at Baringa, Congo state, May 15, 1904))
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Instead of Adolf Hitler being the only European who comes to mind when genocide is mentioned, the name Leopold ought to have the same effect. But Hitler killed Europeans and Leopold killed Africans. The crimes of one are widely known while the other escapes condemnation because his crimes were erased. King Leopold killed as many as 15 million people who were forced to work on rubber plantations.

The same can be said of Winston Churchill. During World War II he presided over a famine in colonial India caused by the theft of rice and wheat which supplied Britain's armies. An estimated 3 million people died but starvation in Bengal province was not his first opportunity to commit mass murder.

After World War I he advocated gassing Iraqis who rebelled against British rule. "I am strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes." He had already ordered chemical weapons attacks against the Russian Bolsheviks in 1918.

Now Churchill's statue in London's parliament square is covered in a large box to protect it from protesters. A group scrawled graffiti which correctly labeled as a racist the man who said that his Indian victims "breed like rabbits."

The taboos are falling just like the statues that honored slave traders and Indian killers in this country. Robert E. Lee's monument in Richmond, Virginia is now covered in graffiti, and a likeness of George Floyd, whose murder at the hands of police motivated people to denounce the killers whose crimes are covered up. Too many historians choose to affirm corrupt systems rather than tell the truth. But the people are ignoring entreaties from all the elites and are taking matters into their own hands.

"Churchill said that his Indian victims 'breed like rabbits.'"

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Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda (more...)
 

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