America was attacked.

The innocent lives of countless Americans were lost as the result of acts of violence incomprehensible to most people. Children were left without parents. Husbands were left without wives. Sisters were left without brothers. The promising futures of so many people were taken from them, their hopes and dreams cut short by the hands of individuals who did not know the names or the families of their victims. We, the survivors, are left to mourn our losses, but we will continue to honor the memory of the fallen.

I’m not talking about the events of Sept. 11. What I am talking about is a campaign of terrorism that started in 1492 with the arrival of an Italian mariner named Christopher Columbus. This man’s voyage initiated the first invasion of America. The terrorists came from foreign lands to the east.

Highly organized and with a mission supposedly given to them by their God, they subjugated, intimidated and killed our people through acts of terror and violence not much different from the terrorists of modern times. They used germ warfare, in the form of small pox infested blankets, and every other technology known to them. They killed men, women and children indiscriminately. These acts of violence were both horrific and unprovoked.

The lives of the original Americans were thus changed forever.

In other parts of the world, and even in our own country, there are people who look upon the events of Sept. 11 with joy and would even go so far as to celebrate such a catastrophe. As a nation, we look upon these individuals with bitter hatred and we ask ourselves how anyone could celebrate such an event or find some sort of justification for these acts of terrorism.

Indigenous peoples ask themselves the same thing every year Columbus Day is celebrated.

So why is it that this country celebrates Columbus Day? What does this day mean to “Americans?” Do those who celebrate it do so to recognize the “discovery” of America?

America was not discovered by anyone. To discover something you need to be the first person to find something, to see something or know about that which you claim to have discovered. So, if there were already people living in the Americas since Creation, how did Columbus discover this land?

Oh, but wait, as of a little over 20 years ago, U.S. history books were still being used in high school education that claimed while people were enjoying the fruits of their collective intellect elsewhere in the world (read “Europe”), the continents we know as the Americas stood empty of mankind and its works. I suppose if you want to believe in such fictions, why don’t the same history books teach us the United States discovered the moon? Neil Armstrong, an American, was the first person to walk on it, wasn’t he?

Let’s assume for a moment that everyone reading this is a relatively well-informed person and you have already rid yourselves of the absurdity of Columbus’ discovery of America. So, why do Americans continue to celebrate Columbus Day? Do people in this country recognize it as the beginning of civilization in the Americas? Maybe Hernán Cortés had the same thoughts the Sept. 11 terrorists did when he and his troops leveled Tenochtitlán, the Aztec version of New York, in 1521. Such acts can only be fueled by an extreme hatred for a whole nation and its “morally corrupt” culture.

Neither Cortés and his conquistadors nor the terrorist attackers of several weeks ago knew the people they were killing as individuals, and therefore they had no personal reason to take these lives. They targeted a very visible symbol of a nation to subjugate the people as a whole.

So maybe in some sick and twisted way, all terrorists, be they European explorers or some other group, feel their acts of violence are in some way “civilizing.”

But these acts are against civilization. The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are nothing for U.S. citizens to celebrate, and the European invasion of the Americas that begin in 1492 is nothing for indigenous people to celebrate. The 500 years of violence, racism and genocide perpetrated through acts of terrorism against the first Americans since that fateful landing of Christopher Columbus is hardly a joyous occasion.

Will future U.S. history texts describe Sept. 11 the same way European terrorism of the Americas has been described?

People are talking about how this day has changed our lives as Americans forever. The same can certainly be said for every descendant of the original peoples of this country. We carry in our hearts and in our minds the same sorrow, fear and anger almost every American now knows. Let us seriously ask ourselves then, why does this nation celebrate Columbus Day?

Darren Kroenke is an international relations and German senior and member of the North American Indian Student Organization. He can be reached at kroenked@msu.edu.