Re-establishing the narrative: the conquest of Latin America

A few days ago, my Facebook status proclaimed my dissatisfaction with the fact that I'm living the era of business tycoons and corporate slavery and not the days of labour movements, social movements, the Palestinian Revolution and national liberation movements. I asked why, a friend of mine answered very eloquently:

Our time is a graveyard for ideals. But I think what we do at this moment in history is far more critical than the previous episodes of our collective struggle. We are entrusted to re-establish the narrative, and lay the ground for the new paradigm

A day later, I came across this:

by Rana Daroogheh

This, is a statue, in Málaga, of a native from Latin American embracing the Cross. In this monstrous monument, Spainish imperialism attempted to fake the narrative of the genocide its men and women committed in Latin America as a voluntary embracing of salvation and civilisation by the primitive primates and backward savages of Latin America.

This has certainly put my head back on my shoulders and reminded me of why we are here today - as my friend from Hebron said: "to re-establish the narrative." To re-tell our histories, to fight and fend off the lies promulgated all around us.

A Latin American friend of mind currently living in Andalucía commented on this photo and this monstrous monument calling it "a demonstration of Catholic hypocrisy."

Indeed my friend, Catholic or not - this is certainly a monument of imperial and colonial hypocrisy!

After all, imperialism attempted to portray itself as the saviour of the primitive peoples of Africa and Latin America. A native American ought to embrace the cross or perish in paganism, superstition and backwardness! Sickening. What's more sickening is that this has become the official narrative many here in the West adhere to.

Wait, there's more to be sickened about. Many from the non-imperial world, the victims of colonialism and genocide have come to embrace a similar perception and/or attempt to present themselves as the partners and sons of Europe and differentiate themselves from their civilisational background(s).

I'm currently in the process of researching and writing something about the renaissance artworks of Giovanni Mansueti, Giovanni Bellini and Vittore Belliniano in Venice and their depiction of the stealing of St. Mark's relics from Alexandria, Egypt. In their works, Saint Mark escaped the treachery and immorality of the Turks and Saracens and sought refuge in the faithful Venice.

Like the artworks of the Spain of Los Reyes Catolicós and beyond, Venetian artists and their peers throughout "the Catholic world" mastered the art of demonising the other, depicting the adversary and colonial subject as immoral or backward and presenting their imperial culture as the "saviour cult."