Emilia Roco Ghirardi

-Introduction to Cultural Studies-

HISTORY AND THE SENSE OF THE PAST

The Columbus quincentennial of 1992 was all but ruined by debates over
whether the anniversary of his discovery should be recalled as a source of national
pride (the birth of the new world) or shame the decimation of native populations and
introduction of slavery)
1
. I strongly believe that none of both judgements are to be
applied. Fortunately for us we count with more information towards historical events,
which allows us to know and accept what truly has happened and to bare those facts in
mind order not to make the same mistakes in possible similar future episodes. There are
many reasons to take into account in order to understand my opinion, let us consider
some of them.
To start with, taking into account the work of the American historian Howard
Zinn, the historians distortion is () ideological
2
. This means that they are
influenced by their point of view towards the subject. If history is to () anticipate a
possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new
possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past
3
. Taking the case of
Columbus it is already too late to judge this expert sailor for the abuses against the
Indians but this does not mean things should stay the way they are, we have to know
and accept the past in order to prosper in the future.
Moreover, it is the movie Even the Rain by Icar Bollans what shows the
importance of accepting the past. This is a film about the making of a film in which
there is a parallelism between reality (Bolivia sells the countrys water rights to a
multinational corporation
3
taking the water from the underprivileged ones living in
Cochabamba who where expected to pay $450 a year while they earned $2 a month)
and fiction (Columbus is the villain and Hatuey, a Taino warrior who leads a rebellion
against Columbus colony and ends up a Martyr
4
). For instance, a similarity between

1 Eric Foner, Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (New
York: Hill and Wang, 2002), p xii.
2 Zinn, Howard. "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress." In A people's history
of the United States. New York: Harper & Row, 1980, p 8.
3
Ibid, p. 10-11.
4
News from across Native North America, p 17.

fiction and reality is established with water, which is the gold in colonial time. In both
cases an outsider wants to own the source and also both are required for living. Water is
well known to be as important as air for living and in 1492 if you didn`t have the gold
demanded by the colonists you were killed.
To continue, in this motion picture there is an important character called Antn,
who plays the role of Columbus, who is the one to carry the voice clamming that the
situation hasnt change that much since 1492. According to what it is shown, the
Bolivians are still working for the Spanish and even exploited by them. In Columbus
time all natives who were fourteen years and older to collect a certain quantity of gold
every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens
5
while in the
movie al those who acted, who werent Hispanic, where payed $2 to act as extras or
even to set the shooting place which was a risky job for untrained people.
Furthermore, Even the Rain is a powerful exploration of the ways that things
havent changed since Columbus time and the people who demonize Columbus
6
engage in practices that they do not even realize how hypocritical they might be. As in
the case of Sebastian, the director of the movie, who at first cares about the Bolivians
and comes out as an open-minded person who will respect everyones rights. By the end
he is a completely different person, he is a selfish man who only cares about shooting
his movie and not for the people in it.
Last but not least, its imperative to understand that even though what Columbus
did was an atrocity it is not adequate to punish his behaviour just because of what he
did. What is more, we need to contemplate all of the different views towards this
episode in history. According to what we are thought as kids he is to be commemorated
as a hero, whereas Bartolom de las Casas (priest who came in the expeditions to
America of 1492 and wrote about the atrocities done to the natives) point of view makes
the sailor an outrageous person. All in all, what people usually forget about the
following gospel truth: people are often under terrible pressure to deliver results, and
sometimes do horrible, immoral and evil things to each other in order to save their own
skin. To do the right thing, sometimes, means to sacrifice
7
. In other words this means
that sometimes the victimizer may also be the victim, if we regard the entire context of


5 Ibid, p 4.
6
Ibid, p 17.
7
Ibid, p 17.
Columbus we have to scrutinize that he had an arrangement to accomplish. He was
given a crowd and ships in exchange of gold. At first he mistakenly wrote to the
Hispanic crown saying that there was gold in America just because he had seen dust of
it and earrings on the natives. As soon as he realized things werent what he expected,
after the inconditional support of the crown he felt the need of fulfilling his promise
with something, in this case slaves.
To sum up, according to the movie, we tend to repeat actions that might have
happened plenty of years ago which we even dare to condemn, ignoring the fact that we
are doing the same. If we were informed about the totality of the historical events,
things wouldnt be as they are nowadays. In my opinion history is a latent source of
knowledge which we should be able to turn to in moments of decision so that we repeat
whats been done in case it worked or not to do the same in case it didn`t. Omitting
information doesn`t allow us to get to choose between what we know giving place to
repeated errors which are terrifying to be doing in the twenty-first century.