Black Lives Matter: Mallorca councillor calls for removal of statute of Catholic missionary accused of brutal treatment of Native Americans

PERSONAL OPINION: Palma Mayor Jose Hila made it clear the removal of the statue is not the view of the council. CREDIT: GuiriTricornio Twitter @GuiriEnTabarnia

A PALMA councillor has demanded a statue of an 18th century Mallorca-born friar credited with taking Catholicism to the US West Coast is removed from a square in the Balearic island capital.

Junipero Serra founded the first nine of California’s 21 Catholic missions, and was made a saint by Pope John Paul II in 1988. But Native Americans accuse him of overseeing the brutalisation and forced labour of native peoples.

There have been growing calls from supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement for statues of figures associated with colonialism, slavery and racism to be removed from cities in the UK, US and elsewhere, and last Friday protestors in San Francisco toppled a statue of the Catholic missionary in the city’s Golden Gate Park.

Now Palma’s councillor for Social Justice, Feminism and LGTBI, Sonia Vivas of leftist party Unidos Podemos, says the monument to Serra in Palma’s Plaza de Sant Francesc should go.

“Cities speak though the names on their streets, monuments and statues. They tell a political story of elites and oligarchies”, Vivas Tweeted next to an image of the statue in Palma.

https://twitter.com/SoniaVivasRive3/status/1274598261815488514

“The inhabitants speak in San Francisco and pull down the state of Junipero Serra. In Palma, peacefully, it should be the same.”

Palma Mayor Jose Hila made it clear this was the councillor’s “personal opinion” and not the opinion of the city administration.

On Monday the word “racist” was daubed on the statue pedestal.

Author badge placeholder
Written by

Cathy Elelman

Cathy Elelman is the local writer for the Costa de Almeria edition of the Euro Weekly News.

Based in Mojacar for the last 21 years, Cathy is very much part of the local community and is always well and truly up on all the latest news and events going on in this region of Spain.

Her top goals are to do the best job she can informing the local English-speaking community, visitors to the area and the wider world about about the news in Almeria, to learn something new every day, and to embrace very new challenge this fast-changing world brings her way.

Share your story with us by emailing newsdesk@euroweeklynews.com, by calling +34 951 38 61 61 or by messaging our Facebook page www.facebook.com/EuroWeeklyNews

Comments