4 . Also in Colombia , in the city of Barranquilla , the statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled . Barranquilla - Columbus Memorial . Public domain , ( Wikimedia Commons )
founder of Santiago and other colonial cities , who waged war against the native populations and died at the hands of the natives . Two of his statues were toppled by the Mapuches ; on one occasion , a statue was beheaded , and its head was placed in the hand of the statue that pays homage to the warrior Caupolicán , a symbol of indigenous resistance . The statue of Francisco de Aguirre , an officer of the Spanish colonisation , was torn down from its plinth and in its place the cardboard statue of a Diaguita woman , “ La Milanka ”, was installed ; the cardboard statue was later burnt by unknown people . The monument to Manuel Baquedano ( a Chilean military officer and politician who became the interim president of the country in 1891 , and was a commander at the War of the Pacific ), erected in Italy Square , was repeatedly defaced , until it was removed by the government . In its place , the demonstrators placed the image of a dog , “ El negro matapacos ”, a symbol of revolt . The statue of the founder of San Juan , in Puerto Rico ( and the discoverer of Florida , in the United States ), was toppled by demonstrators a short time before the visit of the king of Spain , Felipe VI , to celebrate the ties that unite the island to Spain , and in commemoration of the 500 th anniversary of the city , founded by the Spanish in 1521 .
Regardless of the polemic that has arisen between the advocates and the detractors of colonial monuments , I restrict myself to problematising the reasons behind the public anger against monumental heritage . The target of their protests are historical figures who have received homage as symbols of the arrival of the lights against the supposed darkness in which the aboriginal populations lived , and who , notwithstanding , committed atrocities in the name of civilisation and progress . In this regard , the removal of the statues is part of a reparation policy , through direct action by the victims themselves . The figures that have been honoured as symbols of the struggle for independence from the colonial yoke are now targeted by the demonstrations , as a way of bringing into the spotlight the dependence and underdevelopment that have persisted in the majority of Latin American countries . Finally , the figures who have been rendered posthumous homage , as symbols of whiteness , heroic masculinity and the identitarian homogeneity of the new nations , are targeted by protesters in order to reaffirm the absence of the memories of the natives , of black people ,
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Observing Memories Issue 6