Who knows what novels might be popular among the Antifa and hard Left, probably books about oppressed underdogs and their ultimately successful struggles against unjust systems (so not 1984). The man almost single-handedly created the modern novel.

The statue in Golden Gate Park commemorates him for none of these functions, but for his brilliance as a writer. A tax collector, a combatant in the Battle of Lepanto, a spy-an agent of the state, to be sure, but not an enforcer of the law. Certainly the anarchist symbols spray-painted on the pedestals are a statement of politics, and you could take ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) as one, if a little indirect.īut BASTARD? Cervantes was never a cop, let alone a bastard cop. There’s a certain logic to it, whether you agree with it or not: they were all, in their ways, political figures of one sort or another, and knocking down their statues makes at least some political point. Down came missionary Father Junipero Serra, down came Ulysses S. Late in the day, around eight o’clock, a group of about 200, mostly clad in black, moved to Golden Gate Park, where they began to wreak havoc. So we can give them credit for that much restraint.īut, you might ask, how did all this happen? It began as a rally near San Francisco City Hall commemorating Juneteenth that had elements of protest to it, with calls for police reform and measures against institutional racism. (Leave aside that Grant freed the one slave he ever owned, who had been a gift from his father-in-law.) They probably didn’t know enough about Cervantes to be sure if he owned slaves or not. At least the vandals didn’t scrawl “SLAVE OWNING PIG” on his pedestal, as they did with Grant. Never mind that those figures are his own fictional creations.

Perhaps whoever did it wasn’t quite sure who Cervantes was, but thought that if he had two figures kneeling in front of him, he had to be, well, a bastard. Grant and Key’s statues were toppled and graffitied, while that of Cervantes had the word BASTARD painted in red across it, with red splashed across his eyes and those of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

No, it’s that some pack of ideologues in San Francisco desecrated their statues in Golden Gate Park on Saturday. And it’s not that they all owned slaves, because Cervantes, on the contrary, was himself enslaved for five years after being taken prisoner by Ottoman pirates. Grant, Francis Scott Key, and Miguel de Cervantes have in common? It’s not just that they’re all dead.

Cervantes novel