Discoverers, Navigators and Cartographers
When the European nations left the Middle Ages behind and set out into the age of
the Renaissance, many of their brave men set out to (re)discover the world beyond
the horizon.
Some were driven by scientific curiosity, others by adventure or simply by greed.
Unfortunately, the social and political consequences of these adventures were
devastating and paved the way for global European colonialism.
In the wake of the explorers came the soldiers and the priests.
The indigenous people of these "new" worlds were deprived of their land, enslaved
or massacred and collectively humiliated for centuries.
Each one of us is a child and a prisoner of the era in which he was born.
We cannot change what happened in the past. Neither can we judge individuals that
were born in times we ourselves have never known. The undisputed achievements of
these men should however remind us of the ambivalence of advances in science,
technology and knowledge: also these days they may have a devastating impact on
the social and political situation of people on our tiny globe.
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