Dimitris Kouimtsidis
A HIGH ranking Podemos politician in Catalunya has called for the statue of Christopher Columbus to be removed from Barcelona.
Jessica Albiach has argued that the statue should be removed so that the city does not continue to honour ‘a figure responsible for colonisation and genocide.
This comes as statues of the Italian explorer have been torn down or beheaded in cities across the US.
The politician did not stop there and made even more controversial statements, even attacking the King of Spain, ‘he does not represent me, just like Felipe VI doesn’t’.
Albiach defended her statement by arguing that Spain suffers from the same racism problem as the US.
The 41-year-old received immediate criticism from members of the Catalunyan Parliament and was forced to soften her stance.
Instead of removing the statue, she argued it would be better to keep it and ‘contextualise’ it, without clarifying what she means with the term ‘contextualise’.
This comes as 250 demonstrators took to the streets of the Catalan capital yesterday to protest in favour of the removal of the statue, with no damage or vandalism taking place however.
The statue stands at 57 metres high and was inaugurated on June 1, 1888.
The radical leftist pro-Catalunyan independence party, Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) has tried on two separate occasions to get the statue removed, in 2016 and 2018, but has been unsuccessful in both.
