MY PERSONAL NOTES ON "When the victim is

your tribe."

I wanted to address very briefly the topic of honoring historical symbols that have different meanings to different tribes in our society.

The issue at hand for us was Columbus Day and, tangentially, the statues of Columbus in the U.S. The voices of the people who suffered the consequences of Columbus arrival in this continent have been suffocated a long time ago.

Most of the estimated 30-60 million people living in North America at that time were wiped out by disease, intentionally inflicted starvation and technological genocide.

The few remaining descendants today definitely do not celebrate Columbus and they are definitely not indifferent to the fact that society at large does celebrate him. The winners always forget the crimes they committed but the victims, even centuries later, do not.

I asked the hypothetical question what would happen to us if aliens came from space and treated us they way the Europeans treated the First Nation people. Would we participate in THEIR celebration of the military leader, explorer, space navigator who opened the way to invasion and our subjugation?

Peoples that are victims of historical crimes do not forget.

We still remember the biblical story of the Hebrews' slavery in the land of Egypt. Indeed, one of the major holidays of Jewish people is Passover, the celebration of the END of that slavery. To stay with Jewish history, the experience of the Babylonian slavery is still very much remembered by songs and story telling by the Jewish people.

Christians remind us of the persecutions suffered at the hand of the Roman Empire, with stories of martyrdom because of their faith.

My knowledge of history is limited, and I could only list a few of the many historical episodes that the victims of crimes and their descendants remember.

Some of them are sitting in class with you, not just in our class. You could ask a Pakistani about the partition of India after the British got out like thieves in the night leaving a bloody mess that to this day hasn't been solved. I am not casting aspersion on anyone here, but very frequently when one tribe celebrates its "independence day" or "national holiday" there is another tribe that re-lives the anguish of their suffering.

I do not want to venture into the POLITICAL aspect of this argument, namely who is right and who is wrong; who deserved to be a victim and who deserves their rightful revenge.

All I know is that, whether we like it or not, violence is part of the way we have accepted to deal with our affairs. And all I know is that, whether you want it or not, you and I and everybody else will always be on both sides: sometimes victims, sometimes perpetrators. We are not innocent.