Interesting viewpoints on Columbus Day

Whether or not you think Columbus discovered America, he certainly changed the world. Instapundit had a couple of posts linking other writers concerning Columbus and Columbus Day. He quotes first a selection from a book concerning the effect of the discovery of the Americas on Europe. Then:

Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today — which, as Jim Bennett has noted, has roots that might surprise its proponents:

"This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a minuscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.:

"Indeed. Nonetheless, Bennett thinks that a different Italian deserves the real credit."

A few years ago I chanced to be in Buenos Aires on Columbus Day. It is a major holiday there, during which no business is transacted. I spent the day wandering about town enjoying the celebrations. One plaza held a Columbus Day festival in which passersby could enjoy demonstrations and samples of music, dance, crafts and foods of all the various Latin American nations, and of many of the source-nations of Argentina's immigration.

The interesting thing to me was the complete absence of anything representing the United States. This was not a coincidence. Columbus, and the holiday celebrating his landing in the New World, are seen throughout the Spanish-speaking world as having to do primarily with the extension of Spanish-speaking, Catholic civilization to the New World and the creation, through a conflicted encounter, of a new culture. It is, to coin a phrase, the creation of the Hispanosphere that is commemorated.

Traditionally, the role played by the United States in this narrative is not one of a joint participant, but rather an antagonist. In the narrative of Hispanosphere nationalists, Latin America is Shakespeare's Ariel, the graceful and sensitive artistic spirit. The United States, or "Gringolandia" as it is sometimes called, is Caliban, the powerful but ugly monster that dominates tragic Ariel. . . .

From the History News Network, Columbus and the Jews who were being expelled from Spain at around the time of his voyages. Fascinating.