The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

A thug with a sledgehammer proclaimed himself judge, jury and executioner on one aspect of our sometimes tortured but by and large glorious history.

He is in good company with his dislike of Christopher Columbus, but he is definitely in the rogues gallery for his criminal act of trespassing and vandalism on the grounds of the people’s house.

What is most shocking is the applause from some law-abiding citizens for this hooligan. He is innocent until proven guilty, of course, but he was filmed in the act and even owned up to his actions. He may be non compos mentis.

We should be shocked and appalled that, whatever his faculties, he could so casually stroll onto Government House grounds presumably swinging a sledgehammer since this weapon of destruction would be hard to conceal about his person while trying to evade recognition by the guards.

Government House is undergoing renovations but it’s hard to think that the banging on a Saturday afternoon didn’t arouse suspicion in the guard house, a few hundred feet away.

A majority of Bahamians get to decide if Columbus is to be moved to another location such as onto the beach at Land Fall Park on San Salvador.

Love him or loathe him, Columbus is a part of our Bahamian story and lobbing an arm and a leg off the statue doesn’t change history.

The Old World and New World met for the first time here in the Bahamas 529 years ago and changed the course of human history.

We should follow the example set by the City of London that decided to keep their statues of rogues and reprobates who participated in the egregious slave trade. They opted to “Retain and Explain”, setting out for all both the good and the evil perpetrated by the men immortalized there in marble.

Our plaque could read: Christopher Columbus was the first European to set foot in the Americas and subsequently directed the hemisphere’s first genocide.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

October 13, 2021