The storms Christopher Columbus encountered on the voyage that landed him on a Caribbean island October 11, 1492, were probably moderate compared to the tempests likely to accompany the 1992 quincentenary of that pivotal journey. The blasts are already coming from all sides, which will make both moral and political navigation difficult during what promises to be a highly symbolic and confrontational year.
It once seemed easy. All American school children learned the simple rhyme, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." But the color of the Atlantic proved to be less important than the colors of the many peoples whose destinies would be altered forever because of this epoch-changing event.
Of course, the real question is, Who discovered whom? Christopher Columbus was, after all, quite lost when the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria arrived in the "New World." It has been rightly pointed out that Columbus didn't know where he was going, didn't know where he was when he got there, and didn't know where he had been when he returned home. What he did know was what he wanted -- wealth and power, gold and slaves -- for himself and his royal patrons. One contemporary descendant of the indigenous people who welcomed Columbus and his men says that their subsequent problems stemmed from a "lax immigration policy."
The rhetoric is high and heated, and what some thought might become a "teachable moment" is quickly turning into a high-stakes ideological conflict. What is the fight really about?
Hardly anyone disputes the historical facts of the European conquest of what would come to be known as "the Americas." The violence and brutality instigated by Columbus and carried on by subsequent "explorers," "pioneers," and "settlers" can scarcely be denied. Even a cursory reading of the famed Italian sailor's diary indicates his unashamed glee at how easy these indigenous people would be to subjugate and this new land to exploit.
Columbus' royal Spanish benefactors couldn't have been more pleased. Along with their monarchal cousins, they built empires and literally established modern Europe from the resources stripped from these vast, new, unexpected territories. From the beginning, what occurred was nothing less than the rape of one world and people by another.
The consequences for the native peoples who inhabited the conquered lands were, of course, catastrophic. Through a combination of military campaigns and disease-borne extermination, the "Indians" suffered a holocaust. The near destruction of the indigenous population and the insatiable greed of the conquerors led to the second great evil in founding the nations of the Western Hemisphere -- the slave trade. Kidnapped Africans made into property died by the millions along with their Native American brothers and sisters, and those who survived were forced to endure one of the most cruel forms of slavery in human history.
These founding events of the American nations are not just historical. They also have theological meaning. The systematic violence, both physical and spiritual, done first to indigenous people and then to black Africans was, indeed, the original sin of the American nations. In other words, the United States of America was conceived in iniquity.
Whatever else is "right" about America cannot and does not cover over or erase that original sin. The good things about this country and the reasons many have come here need not be denied or dismissed, but the brutal founding facts of nationhood must be faced up to. Like any sin, this one must be dealt with, for the sake of our integrity but also because the legacy of that original history is still with us. An American future worthy of its best ideals depends on our honestly coming to terms with our origins and their continued influence.
OUR HISTORY HAS affected us all in profound ways, still shapes our national experience, and obstructs the fulfillment of our professed values. Its face is dramatically revealed in the continued devastation of native, black, and other communities of color; in the legacy of benefit still enjoyed by most white people; and in the fear and anger felt by many whites facing shrinking economic realities and the temptation to scapegoat racial minorities.
The nation's original sin of racism must be faced in a way that we have never really done before. Only then can America be "rediscovered." That is precisely the hope of many people in the churches as we approach the year 1992.
Contrary to what many critics charge, delving into the issues raised by the 1992 quincentenary is not a matter of just feeling guilty, engaging in "America bashing," romanticizing native peoples and Third World cultures, or giving the Left a boost. Instead, it is to explore the meaning of repentance -- the real and biblical meaning of the word. Repentance means far more than feeling sorry (and long-suffering people of color deserve more than white guilt feelings).
The biblical meaning of repentance is to turn around. It means to change your course and your behavior by heading in a new direction. Some of us have looked forward to 1992 as "a time for turning." Among some Lutherans this phrase has emerged: "Remember, Repent, Renew."
However, the official Columbus commemoration activities that various government and civic organizations are planning for 1992 reveal no recognition of the real history. It's not that they deny it, they just ignore it. This is the real revisionism -- not the attempt to tell the true story, but the effort to suppress it. As Winona LaDuke writes in this issue, the "callous rewriting of history" is at the heart of the official quincentenary celebration.
And now, just as we are about to enter the fateful year, a new controversy has erupted in intellectual circles, university campuses, and media debates -- the "PC" issue, PC meaning "politically correct." Conservatives are charging that a left-wing ideological assault is occurring against all things Western, white, male, or traditional, especially in various university curricula and selected academic discourse (such as referring to courses in the traditional classics as the literature of "dead white males"). They accuse a radical "totalitarianism" and "fundamentalism" of trying to take over, usually in the name of a "politically correct," rigorously enforced "multiculturalism" and often using the Columbus symbolism as a jumping-off point to, in effect, jump on America and the values of "Western civilization."
Is there truth to the charges? Undoubtedly. Human nature being what it is, efforts to redress injustice and rectify imbalances can often lead to excesses, sometimes even creating new injustices. Perhaps the greatest offense of ideological thinking, from the Right to the Left, is to judge people not for who they are but for what they are.
That new ideologies can arise in response to established ones, and themselves become stifling or repressive, is hardly news -- nor is the fact that secular or religious zealots can sometimes take themselves or their ideas too seriously. When that happens, many of us in movements for justice and peace chide one another for becoming too "politically correct." We've been doing that for years.
It's important to look at why all the flurry is happening now. Just as the nation is about to commemorate the Columbus event and perhaps face up to the difficult questions inherent in a nation whose demographics are rapidly changing, a new smokescreen appears -- the PC controversy. In such a context, whatever Native Americans try to say to us in this pivotal year, whatever blacks and other Americans of color want us to remember and repair, and what many white Americans see as an opportunity for positive self-examination and change can all be dismissed as more of that "politically correct stuff." It's all being raised by the conservative Right. And while it holds some truth, it's also a very convenient and timely subterfuge.
THE POINT IS hardly to blame Columbus for every atrocity of the West since his first voyage. While Columbus seems to have been a pretty unsavory character even by the standards of his own time, his personal significance and influence were not terribly decisive. He just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time.
The real issue is the social paradigm and economic order that the Columbus event set into motion and the fact that it has dominated all of our lives and, in particular, the lives of marginalized peoples for the past 500 years. There is, in fact, no new world order; we are still being governed by an old one whose economic, political, philosophical, environmental, and especially spiritual roots can be traced back to the conquest and colonization of the Americas.
What are the values of that social order? What is their relationship to people of color, to the Earth, to technology, to the economy, to security, and to so many other vital questions that now face us? Most important, can the values and structures of the old social paradigm carry us into the future? If not, what must we do?
These questions are the real threat being posed by the quincentenary year of 1992, and they have nothing to do with who is or is not "politically correct."
The future of the American experiment depends on our remembering the past, transforming the present, and altering the future. To that end, we have asked several people to speak in this issue to the importance of the 1992 moment. They offer us authentic voices from a variety of communities and perspectives. Their testimonies, visions, and hopes will be "grist for the mill" of our common reflection this next year being carried on by groups across the country -- a process that may even result in a common statement at year's end. Also included in this issue is a call to action by a new partnership movement of many groups and churches, including Sojourners, that have gathered together for an alternative commemoration of 1992.
We will return to the PC discussion in Sojourners during the next year with the hope that it might lead to the dialogue needed to forge a genuinely more pluralistic nation where everyone's dignity, contributions, and aspirations can be respected and even nurtured. Despite the early distractions, the 1992 events can be a good start down that road.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
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