Schiller Institute on YouTube Schiller Institute on Facebook RSS

Home >

Open Letter to President Donald Trump
In Defense of Columbus

by Liliana Gorini, Chairwoman, Movisol
September 2017

Download Leaflet (PDF)

President Donald Trump
The White House
Washington DC 

Mr. President:

Christopher Columbus’s expedition was a creative act, carrying through the mission outlined by Nicholas of Cusa. Shown: Columbus lays out his plans to Queen Isabella at the Spanish Court, painting by V. Brozik, 1884.

As an Italian citizen and chairwoman of Movisol, Lyndon LaRouche’s movement in Italy, I call on you to intervene in defense of Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day. The same people who are out to destroy the US Presidency, led by Wall Street speculator George Soros (who destroyed the Italian lira in 1992), are also trying to eradicate history and culture not only in the United States, but internationally. Cardinal Nicholas  of Cusa, his Italian collaborator Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci and others were part of a revolution in culture, art, geography, and science, which made the discovery of America possible. The deliberate explosion in human creativity that was the Italian Renaissance is a truly proud moment in all humanity's history, and not merely for Italians. The people who want to abolish Columbus Day, whether they are maliciously witting, or merely deluded, are out to also dismantle this Western cultural and scientific heritage.

It has always been the British, including the "cultural thought-police" associated with the British Museum, who have tried to downplay and dismantle the Italian Renaissance: to undermine its successful expedition to explore new lands, and to obfuscate and deny its mission to construct, "in a new world", a new and better sovereign nation-state, superior to those of Europe. The United States of America eventually became that nation-state. This was a central, conscious part of the grand project of discovery, of Cusa, Toscanelli and Christopher Columbus. There was nothing mistaken in that intention.

There is also nothing "sincerely mistaken" about this Dark Age "bring down the statue" movement. The August 29 beheading of a statue of Columbus in the city of Yonkers, New York, reminds one of the beheading of 28 statues of religious figures in one day in October, 1793, during the French Revolution--the same month that Marie Antoinette was guillotined.  They called their movement "The Cult of Reason". Similarly, it was the 1950s Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) which actually tried to abolish culture and our historical roots from the 50's on, and now apparently inspires gangs of protesters who, similar to ISIS in Palmyra and other jewels of culture in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, are out to destroy monuments and statues which remind the population of its inheritance. Beauty, in the classical, aesthetical sense, disturbs them. 

Columbus and his trip of discovery was the result of the Italian Renaissance, which is, to this day, an important reference point for each Italian citizen in a moment of great crisis. This is why there was an uproar here in Italy, and rightly so also in the Italian-American community in the United States, when we heard that a statue of Columbus was knocked down and that there are petitions to abolish Columbus Day and the Columbus Parade on Fifth Avenue. What will be next? Tear down the city of Columbus in Ohio, which I visited years ago to admire its Columbus statue? Tear down the Brunelleschi Dome in Florence? Or the statue of Leonardo da Vinci in front of La Scala in Milan, which shows how Leonardo was not only a Renaissance genius, engineer, painter, but also invented Bel Canto with his treatise, De Vocie, on the human voice? 

We trust that you will intervene to defend this historical heritage, which cannot be forgotten, but should rather inspire a new Renaissance in culture, leading to scientific and economic cooperation between the United States and the rest of the world, including Russia and China. As Italians, we also call on you to keep your electoral promise and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which would not only stop speculation and free up credit to build urgently needed infrastructure, but would also put an end to the excessive power of Wall Street, which is certainly behind, and financing, such “grass-roots” campaigns. We are hoping to do the same here, and thus to jointly work with your Administration and other nations on new discoveries worthy of the true legacy of Christopher Columbus and Western civilization. 

Liliana Gorini

Chairwoman of the Movimento Internazionale per i Diritti Civili Solidarietà (Movisol)

Milan, Italy

 

'Columbus'

by Friedrich Schiller

Steer, courageous sailor! Although the wit may deride thee,
And the skipper at th' helm lower his indolent hand—
Ever, ever to th' West! There must the coast be appearing,
Lies it yet clearly and lies shimm'ring before your mind's eye.
Trust in the guiding God and follow the silent ocean!
Were it not yet, 'twould climb now from the billows aloft.
Genius stands with Nature in everlasting union:
What is promised by the one, surely the other fulfills.