Fuentes: Columbus's Trip Cruel but Creative

While the Spanish conquest of the Americas was a cruel, bloody and brutal event, from it arose a new, vibrant culture, novelist Carlos Fuentes told approximately 400 people gathered at the Arco Forum Sunday afternoon.

Fuentes, a former Mexican diplomat and visiting professor at Harvard, discussed the legacy and significance for the nations of Central and South America of celebrating the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to the Americas.

From the mingling of Spanish, Native American and African-American peoples came a new culture "caught between the destroyed Indian world, the enslaved African world and the new European world," said Fuentes.

Fuentes stressed both the horrifying and the positive results of Columbus' voyage for the "Indo-Afro-European" civilizations his arrival created.

The novelist said that as a result of the terrible cruelty of Columbus and the Spanish conquerors, the American Indian population of Central Mexico was decimated. In 1519, he said, the populations was about 25 million, but in 1605 it dropped to a mere 2 million.

"The violent death...is but the statistical index of the irreparable deaths of great civilizations," he said.

Fuentes emphasized the need for modern LatinAmerican nations to encourage "economic growthwith social justice and political democracy."

He expressed hope that the region's "culturalcontinuity" will soon translate into greatereconomic and political success. The secret to sucha triumph, Fuentes said, is the acceptance and useof the nations' great diversity.

"We have attained greatness when we have beencapable of including the other," he said. "When weexclude, we are poor, when we include, we arerich."

"The world in the twentieth century willresemble our world more and more" in its racialand cultural diversity, Fuentes said.

Acting General Counsel Frank J. Connorsprompted an angry response from several guardsthis month when he said that some guards wereusing charges of racial harassment as a "crutch."

In a flyer distributed last spring, the BlackStudents Association charged the Harvard PoliceDepartment with discriminatory treatment ofminority students. One of the four specificincidents detailed in the flyer involved asecurity guard.

At the time, Johnson said the flyer contained"errors of fact." Johnson, who is Black, later metwith minority students.

University security guards are required toattend annual training sessions, which this yearfocused on race relations. Kevin Bryant, a Blackpatrol officer who recently began working as aliaison between Johnson and guards, helped conductthe sessions this year.

In addition to supervising law enforcementofficers, Harvard Police Department officialsoversee the escort service and the security guardunit

Fuentes emphasized the need for modern LatinAmerican nations to encourage "economic growthwith social justice and political democracy."

He expressed hope that the region's "culturalcontinuity" will soon translate into greatereconomic and political success. The secret to sucha triumph, Fuentes said, is the acceptance and useof the nations' great diversity.

"We have attained greatness when we have beencapable of including the other," he said. "When weexclude, we are poor, when we include, we arerich."

"The world in the twentieth century willresemble our world more and more" in its racialand cultural diversity, Fuentes said.

Acting General Counsel Frank J. Connorsprompted an angry response from several guardsthis month when he said that some guards wereusing charges of racial harassment as a "crutch."

In a flyer distributed last spring, the BlackStudents Association charged the Harvard PoliceDepartment with discriminatory treatment ofminority students. One of the four specificincidents detailed in the flyer involved asecurity guard.

At the time, Johnson said the flyer contained"errors of fact." Johnson, who is Black, later metwith minority students.

University security guards are required toattend annual training sessions, which this yearfocused on race relations. Kevin Bryant, a Blackpatrol officer who recently began working as aliaison between Johnson and guards, helped conductthe sessions this year.

In addition to supervising law enforcementofficers, Harvard Police Department officialsoversee the escort service and the security guardunit