Managua, Oct 16 — Columbus Day on October 12, marking
the arrival of Spanish colonizers to the Americas 515 years ago, will
no longer be observed in Nicaraguan schools as of this year, an
official source said.
In the opinion of President Daniel Ortega last week on the eve of October
12, the arrival of Spanish colonizers to the “New World” meant the
start of genocide against the indigenous population in the America.
According to Minister of Education Miguel de Castilla, the date will
be celebrated from next year on as “Indigenous Resistance Day,” to highlight the struggle of native peoples against European colonialism.
In remarks made to local media, De Castilla added that from this year
on, every October 30 the Nicaraguans will mark the granting of
autonomy to the mainly ethnic Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast in 1987.
Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Spanish for “Day of Indigenous Resistance”) is the name for an October 12 national holiday in Venezuela. The holiday on this date was known as Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) prior to 2002, a name that is used together with Columbus Day in other countries across the Americas.
The festival originally commemorated the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, and was made a holiday in 1921 under President Juan Vicente Gómez. The new Day of the Indigenous Resistance commemorates thus the resistance of the indigenous peoples against the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
On the 2004 Day of Indigenous Resistance, a statue of Columbus was toppled in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. The pro-Chavez, left-wing website Aporrea wrote: “Just like the statue of Saddam in Baghdad, that of Columbus the tyrant also fell this October 12, 2004 in Caracas”[3]. The famous toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue had occurred the previous year.
All this revival of the Indian resentment against the white Spanish conquerors (and Columbus) is supported and promoted by Venezuela’s current President, the Bolivarianist Hugo Chávez, himself a mestizo of mixed Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan, and Spanish descent.
