Things that annoyed me in the maritime museum yesterday
🛟 A bust of Columbus on display in a central location in the museum. There were busts of Zheng He and Leif Erikson next to him, but then also Vasco da Gama etc.
🛟 The pope dividing the world in a Spanish zone and a Portuguese zone. Fucked up. The Netherlands, England and France didn't agree. Yeah I think the rest of the world didn't agree either.
🛟 England's rise to naval power was straight up achieved by piracy. What's new. They hired pirates to plunder Spanish ships, who were dominating at the time.
🛟 "The age of colonisation began in the 15th century when European powers expanded to other continents. Their maritime trade created the basis for the development of a global economy."
"Colonisation often had catastrophic results for the lives and economic development of the native population. Entire peoples and cultures perished. Millions of Native Americans died of imported diseases. For many, the arrival of Europeans meant repression, slavery or displacement."
Passive tense is passive.
This is the only mention of "native population" that I found, in the entire maritime museum. There was a very small corner about slave ships next to it.
I'm speechless.
🛟 The part about oil tankers was also extremely matter-of-factly, eg talking about workers' safety on oil platforms. The corner about super yachts was leaning to the positive side (employment, innovation, yada yada).
There was another part about whales which wasn't bad (I mean it effectively talked about whale endangerment and countries not following the protocols), and also an interesting corner about science on Antarctica etc.
All in all, lots of parts were "neutral". Yuck.
