Barcelona mayor joins other leftist officials in decrying holiday that honours Columbus’s arrival in the New World: ‘Shame that a nation celebrates genocide’

As King Felipe presided over a military parade to celebrate Spain’s National Day, several of the country’s new crop of leftist mayors took aim at the origins of the holiday, siding with a growing movement that questions the commemoration of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World.



Christopher Columbus was a lost sadist. There shouldn't be a holiday in his name | James Nevius Read more

On Monday, thousands of Spaniards waved flags and cheered as some 3,400 soldiers in uniform marched through the streets of Madrid. As armed forces aircraft flew overhead, leaving a trail of smoke in the yellow and red colours of the Spanish flag, Barcelona mayor Ada Colau decried the national day that honours Columbus’s arrival in the New World and Spain’s armed forces.

“Shame that a nation celebrates a genocide and, on top of that, with a military parade that costs 800,000 euros,” she tweeted. Her stance was seconded by several other members of her Barcelona En Comú party.

Colau’s view echoed that of José María González, the Podemos-backed mayor of the southern Spanish city of Cádiz. “We never discovered America, we massacred and suppressed a continent and its cultures in the name of God. Nothing to celebrate,” tweeted the mayor, who leads the Por Cádiz Sí Se Puede party (For Cádiz, Yes We Can).

Teresa Rodríguez, Podemos’s leader in Andalucía, also weighed in. “I think a national holiday should mark one’s own liberation and not the slavery of another.”

Her tweet was accompanied with a picture of a banner that read: “America was not discovered, it was invaded and looted. In America, civilizations already existed.”

Teresa Rodríguez (@TeresaRodr_) Yo creo que la fiesta nacional debería recordar la liberación propia y no la esclavitud de otro. Modestamente. pic.twitter.com/brGafT2BVN

Their comments tap into a transatlantic movement that has sought to counter the attention given to Columbus’ 1492 landing in the New World and instead highlight the cultures that were displaced in the wake of his arrival. In the US, cities including Seattle and Albuquerque, have joined the movement, renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day.

The strong stance of the leftist Spanish mayors laid bare the polarisation of Spanish society and clashed with the thousands who lined the streets of Madrid and – in smaller numbers – Barcelona and Pamplona, to celebrate the country’s national day.

Their view also contrasted sharply with Spain’s conservative prime minister, who pushed the idea of the day as a commemoration to be shared between Spaniards and Latin Americans. “October 12 is a day for all Hispanics,” Mariano Rajoy wrote in Spanish daily El País, in an editorial that highlighted the contribution of Latin American migrants to Spain.