Therefore, it must include all the Native nations on both American continents, with outright killings, relocations and the collateral "thinning" of the relocated populations, and economic privation that is accompanied by increased deaths from starvation, disease and social problems like substance abuse and suicide.

It includes the acts of no fewer than four colonial powers (maybe five -- I don't know enough about the history of Russian Alaska), as well as the post-colonial governments on both continents. On-going ethnic violence in Central America presumably still counts.

So that's a lot of people, a lot of governments, a lot of time.

It can't be construed as strictly anti-US criticism, despite the reported comments of a Belgian minister, translated through at least one language and possibly two. If he really intended his comments to be directed primarily toward the US, he says more about his ignorance of the history of the Western Hemisphere than about the culpability of the United States.

I think it's to our credit that we are sensitive enough to the criticism to take it personally. That by itself indicates a general change of attitude toward cultural minorities that only strengthens our polyglot culture's claim on the hearts of its many-heritaged citizens. Now, can we broaden that to include non-citizens? I wonder. Our government does things to non-citizens that it would have a very hard time getting away with doing to citizens.

It's also very disturbing to read the report that things have been left off the list that ought to be included. I wish I could find the list, instead of reading The Guardian's account of De Standaard's account of the display's text, so I could make an informed comment on what it really says, instead of a summary of a translation of a summary.