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Toppling Statues

Statue of Vicente Mesquita as it originally stood in Macau
The statue of Vicente Mesquita as it stood in Macau until it was attacked and torn down by a rioting mob in 1966

Across the U.S., statues of Confederate generals and of those considered to be racists are being attacked, torn down or removed. In the U.K. too, in the city of Bristol an angry mob toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and dumped it into the harbor. When symbols are smashed or defaced in frustration, it can be a harbinger of change to come.

Why does it scare the crap out of the people refusing to accept a new reality―to face their flawed sense of privilege? Because it’s often a precursor for regime change. Sure, we have seen plenty of examples of statue destruction after the fact, such as was the case of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s statue after the U.S. invasion, or of Cecil Rhodes in Zimbabwe after the African was granted independence by Britain in 1980. When statues are attacked, damage is often directed at the parts that would most hurt a human being―not only venting anger at the idea represented by it, but also a humiliation of the person as well; heads cut off, eyes gouged out, ears torn off, revenge meted out on the person as a symbol of tyranny.

54 years ago in Macau, on December 3rd of 1966, a statue of war hero Vicente Mesquita was toppled by rioters. It came after several months of turmoil in Macau. Protests by mainly Communist organizations came to a head on that December day. The Macau government responded by mobilizing army troops to suppress the demonstrators and riots that followed. It resulted in the deaths of 11 Chinese shot dead and 100 others injured. Macau’s leftist organizations rallied merchants to close their shops; China’s border checkpoints were closed, food and water supplies were cut. Macau was under siege and had no option but to kowtow to the leftists. From that day onward, until its reversion to China in 1999, Macau remained under China’s de facto control. The return Portugal’s last colony Macau to China, ended 442 years of Portuguese rule over the enclave.

The statue’s pedestal after the attack

Mesquita is best remembered as the man who helped bring China to its knees when he led a small force of Portuguese soldiers to attack and defeat a fort at Baishaling, China in 1849. However, for a long while, until it suited politicians to resurrect Mesquita as a hero of the Portuguese Empire, his memory was scorned. After his death in 1880, the governor denied his remains a military burial. The bishop forbade interment of his body in Macau’s consecrated ground. Nevertheless, at the start of the Second World War, he was resurrected. Portugal badly needed heroes. As a neutral state, the regime had grown wealthy by selling mineral resources to both ally and axis. It could well afford the erection of a few statues to bolster its image as a colonial power.                                            

The Communists that attacked the statue resented it as a constant reminder of China’s national disgrace―one that began with outsiders camping on the empire’s periphery before eventually infiltrating its very heart and gnashing off chunks.

Anyone wishing to learn more about Vicente Mesquita can do so through my book ‘Mesquita’s Reflections’.

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July 1, 2020 · 6:03 am
April 8, 2017 · 1:59 am

Birth of the Sierra Nevada

 

TEN MILLION YEARS AGO, a massive block of the earth’s crust ripped through the surface as it tilted to the west. Rivers cut deep ravines on both sides of the new mountain range. Lava boiled up and then flowed down into canyons which over millennia, eroded to leave high plains along the ancient river channels.
Still, the gods were not done sculpting. Glaciers carved out crescent-shaped gorges throughout the range. Working in unison, river and glacier exposed the uppermost portions of the plutons forming the Sierra’s crest.
Long before Garcí Ordóñez de Montalvo dreamed of gilded Amazons, or the Franciscan missionary and chronicler Pedro Font, named the serrated peaks ‘Sierra Nevada’, the mountains were home to America’s native peoples. In Yokut lore, the birth of the peaks is explained:
There was once a time in the world when nothing existed but water. At the place where Lake Tulare is now, a pole stood far out of the water. This pole provided a perch for Hawk and Crow.
First, Hawk would rest on the pole for a while, then Crow would knock him off and sit on it. Thus, they took turns sitting on the pole above the water for a very long time. At last, they created the birds which prey on fish; Kingfisher, Eagle, Pelican, and others. They also created Duck. Duck was very small, but she dived to the bottom of the water, filled her beak with mud, and then died when trying to return from the depths. Duck floated on the water, lying dead. Then Hawk and Crow took the mud from Duck’s beak and began making the mountains.
They began at the place now known as Ta-hi-cha-pa Pass, with Hawk building the eastern range and Crow forming the west one. They tamped the mud down hard into the water and piled it high, working toward the north. Finally, Hawk and Crow met at the place we call Mount Shasta. Their work was done, but when they looked at their mountains, Crow’s range was by far larger than Hawk’s.
Hawk said to Crow, “How did this happen, you rascal? You have been stealing earth from my bill. That is why your mountains are biggest.”

Crow laughed at Hawk.

Then Hawk chewed some Indian tobacco and it made him wise. At once he took hold of the mountains and turned them around almost in a circle, putting his smaller range where Crow’s had been. And that is why the Sierra Nevada Range is larger than the Coastal Range.

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