(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Putting Montana lawmakers 'in context' – Daily Montanan [1] ['More From Author', 'February', 'Darrell Ehrlick'] Date: 2023-02-16 Since we’re not allowed to judge historical figures except by their own context, according to some members of the Montana Senate, I will use that weak-minded rationale and apply it to its chief proponent, Sen. John Fuller of Kalispell. Since I am also his contemporary, I trust I won’t be violating any rules of historical decorum in the following paragraphs. Fuller likes reminding us that he has fought the never-ending battle against ignorance as a high school government teacher in the same way that Rep. Ryan Zinke likes reminding us he’s a Navy SEAL. And while I appreciate his sentiment that historical figures must be judged in context, that’s a far cry from the legislative shenanigan he pulled in defense of keeping Christopher Columbus’ name attached to a holiday that purports to discover a continent that had never really been lost except when looking at it from a white, European point of view. I’m sure the Indigenous people in America appreciate the context of Columbus’ “discovery” and the nearly complete annihilation that has systematically occurred for the past 25-plus generations. But context is the coward’s way of not peering too deeply into the truths of history. Context is saying that of all the communists, maybe Josef Stalin was the most innovative (an argument someone might try to make if they didn’t want to face the woeful human toll his brutal reign took on two continents). Context sanitizes the uncomfortable truths of an explorer like Columbus, who, as Fuller pointed out, was an exceptional voyager and maybe unintentional revolutionary who, in trying to found what was the UPS of his day, accidentally found an entire hemisphere. Sometimes genius and dumb luck look an awful lot alike. Context may give people like Fuller a reason to defend a man like Columbus, who was punished for his ruthless rule as governor, and Euro-centric historians feel compelled to apologize for, but history isn’t just the study of context and dates. Instead, it’s also a consideration of how those same events shaped and continue to shape our present and future. More importantly, history is only useful insofar as new learning, new understanding and, yes context, helps us improve our insights into the causes and reasons for actions that began centuries ago. Using Fuller’s rules of historical evaluation, Columbus can only be appreciated for his seafaring circa 1492, and we must accept that the “new world” was “discovered,” all incredibly loaded, but common historical terms. Using those same rules, Columbus should simply be revered for his historical contributions, as told by the same group of people who brutalized the inhabitants they found living in this terra incognita. But Fuller has both whitewashed history with a capital and lowercase “W.” He has defended Columbus’ voyages, accidents of history with a decidedly white (or European) point of view, which is his right as a historian, American and teacher. But it is an undoubtedly narrow view of the event. If Columbus cannot be anything more than a geographic revolutionary, an example of the persecuted Italian race, and that’s where the conversation ends, it is inadequate and incomplete because what followed Columbus is more than 500 years of ruthless subjugation, greed and destruction. Columbus’ legacy, properly contextualized, is one which spurred on a global land war that saw humans of different skin tones as people to be conquered, eradicated or converted. Columbus didn’t even find America, so to suggest that his legacy and connection is somehow sacrosanct isn’t even history as much as it’s mythology. I would hope that if one of Fuller’s high school students wrote such poorly supported claptrap that the Senator would fail it as garbage. Because of Columbus’ actions, it caused a race to exploit the new lands and those who inconveniently stood in the Europeans’ way. Between slavery, disease and alcohol, entire Native nations were wiped from the face of the earth in a genocide that makes most Montanans uncomfortable because it so closely intertwines with our state’s history. What Sens. Shane Morigeau and Susan Webber are asking for is some recognition of the generational trauma that is the bitter harvest of tears and famine wrought by the settlement of people who are, to put it in proper context, now dead – old, European settlers and explorers. Yet, even though the perpetrators of those atrocities are gone, what Webber, Morigeau and others are asking for is exactly what Fuller demanded, context. What they seek by changing the holiday to focus on Indigenous People is a contextualization that this land and those who claimed it as home centuries before being “discovered” was worthy of honor, celebration and respect. Holidays are established to remember and honor – and what our Native leaders have requested seems like a minimal ask: To shift focus from an accident of geography and instead focus on the cultures and people who have shown remarkable resilience by their mere survival. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that Fuller was behind the effort to torpedo celebrating Indigenous people. He was, after all, a tireless crusader against transgender folks, and he’s also the one who believes so much in teaching government that he wants to strip the judiciary of the power to control courts. I suppose he may tell those histories a bit differently than I would. Context, of course. But in looking over the kind of legislation he’s championed, being a writer and a historian myself charged with putting leaders like Fuller in their own context, I’d have to say it sounds awfully bigoted. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/02/16/putting-montana-lawmakers-in-context/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/