Columbus statue in Buenos Aires and its controversies

Extract

[...] Columbus monument in Buenos Aires and its controversies I. Historical introduction Today, I'm going to tell you about the Columbus Monument in Buenos Aires, whose removal decision in 2013 sparked a lot of controversy in the country. the statue, which was installed in 1921 across from the presidential residence, Casa Rosada, was a tribute to Italian immigrants who contributed to Argentina. The funding of the statue was even supported by an Italian Argentine businessman, Antonio Devoto, who considered Columbus to be figure of pride for Italian immigrants and a symbol of their cultural influence in the country. [...]

[...] The quote that sums up the text pretty well is the following: "We want to be rid of Columbus in order to represent the entirety of Argentina's history and all the blood that has been shed," which was said by Argentina President Cristina Kirchner. She was trying to make a statement about how history is remembered and who gets to tell it. By removing Columbus, she wanted to open up space for a more inclusive narrative-one that acknowledges the suffering of Indigenous people during colonization, something that had been overlooked for a long time. [...]

[...] To my mind, there were 2 ideas that were important and that stood to me. The first interesting point in the article is actually what I talked right before namely the fact that the removal process still didn't include Indigenous voices. When President Kirchner decided to remove the statue, she planned to replace it with a statue of Juana Azurduy. which shows how Argentina's government was trying to make its public spaces represent a broader view of history-but ironically, Indigenous people weren't really consulted in this process. [...]

[...] in the same year, the Juana Azurduy statue is moved to a museum, which is according to me a very interesting point because it shows that the new president may not associate with the message conveyed by the new statue and what she represents. A law now bans the removal of historical statues, and in 2019, the Columbus statue was declared a National Monument. This means that it cannot be moved out of Rio de la Plata anymore. The entire debate highlighted how monuments reflect competing historical narratives, yet neither the Italian-Argentine community nor Indigenous voices felt adequately heard. [...]

[...] Removing a statue is a symbolic decision which is way more impactful. Also, I'd like to make a link with the case of the Filipino comfort women statue: in both Argentina and Filipina, the removing statue process took quite some time (if I remember well, it took nearly one year in the latter). However, it is important to note that the process was especially long in Argentina: it took 2 years for the municipality to finally decide to remove the Columbus statue. [...]