Commemoration of October 12 in Mexico: a woman in struggle in place of Christopher Columbus
Mexico: the statue of Christopher Columbus was removed a year ago and replaced on Paseo de la Reforma, in the capital Mexico City, by the statue of a woman with a raised fist, a symbol of resistance against the violence against them done.
AFP - PEDRO PARDO
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
This October 12 is the anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic.
A date whose celebration is particularly divisive in Mexico.
And the controversy crystallizes around the statue of the Navigator which was removed from the iconic Reforma Avenue in Mexico City last year.
In recent days it has been replaced by a structure representing a young girl with a raised fist, installed by feminist collectives during a demonstration.
But this work will soon be replaced by the statue of an indigenous woman decided the authorities of the capital.
Here again, this initiative divides.
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In Mexico City, on the roundabout which still bears his name, the statue of Christopher Columbus has disappeared. An absence that divides the inhabitants. “
They should not have withdrawn it,
regrets Carlos at the microphone of our correspondent
Gwendoline Duval
. It's important to remember whether it's a good or a bad person.
Another point of view, that of Berenice. “
Removing the statue of Christopher Columbus does not in any way mean forgetting. It is time that we celebrate the good characters, those who exalt our people and our history
”.
The pedestal, currently occupied by a feminist protest monument, in tribute to murdered women in Mexico, will soon be reassigned. The authorities - the mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, is close to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador - will install the statue of an indigenous woman (an Olmec Indian), an act of recognition of women and pre-Hispanic culture.
A decision in line with the "state indigenism" of the Mexican authorities who prefer to emphasize the resistance of indigenous peoples to the European invader.
A voluntarism that puzzles some observers such as Daniela Castell, a political scientist committed to the feminist cause.
"
What good is it for these monuments to exist if we live in a society that is regressing!"
A real monument can be built when women truly obtain justice and we are listened to.
"
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Also to listen
: in Mexico, a march of anger against the indifference of the rulers
President Andrès Manuel Lopez Obrador welcomed the initiative of the capital, in a context where Mexico, which has just celebrated the bicentenary of its independence, demands an apology from Spain for the massacres committed during the conquest. .
Argentine Pope Francis acknowledged “
sins
” in Mexico in a letter to the episcopate read by the president on the bicentennial of Independence Day in 1821, September 27.
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See also
: the president's request for an apology to Spain for colonization is controversial
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