Cultural Exchange — a remedy against exclusion, hatred and war

While the Swiss citizens, with their democratic instruments such as initiative and referendum, are always in the position to peacefully and civilly put a galloping classe politique in its place, the rest of Europe seems to be facing a hot autumn, full of domestic unrest and demonstrations. At the same time, the columns of many media outlets are full of topics that seem only superficially absurd and laughable. Under the accusation of “cultural appropriation” it is claimed that certain groups of people are being robbed of their culture and humiliated once again, concerts by white reggae musicians with dreadlocks are cancelled. All with the justification that one wants to fight racism. But more and more voices are saying that under the guise of anti-racism, a new racism, and even a new ethnic thinking, is celebrating its reign. Despite this, some media outlets allow us to read unchallenged articles that exclude people on the basis of their nationality and pillory them in pictures and texts, mentioning their names and home addresses. Haven’t we already had this several times in history? We know where it led. It’s time to think back to a relevant UNESCO convention.

Susanne Schröter, ethnologist at the University of Frankfurt, points out in her just published latest book¹ that from a scientific point of view the term “cultural appropriation” refers to something “highly trivial”: “People do not permanently reinvent the objects and techniques they use, the customs and traditions they practice, or the beliefs they use to explain the world to themselves, but they fall back on what they find”. (p. 119) This appropriation takes place both on an individual and on a collective level. Cultural appropriation enables the development of human culture by passing on what has been acquired beyond one’s own group. The sciences of archaeology and ethnology, among others, live from this. One thing is certain: “Culture is fluid. It is always in motion and – viewed over a longer period of time – can only in rare cases be assigned to a geographical area or a specific collective.” (p. 120) Thus, matted hair can be found in many parts of the world. Indian gurus, for example, wear them, but in African countries they are rarely found.
  Schröter locates in the free cultural appropriation, however, also a means against exclusion, hatred, and ultimately war: “It serves quite decisively the peaceful understanding of different groups or is already an expression of an attitude that aims at contact and acceptance.” (p. 120) Only in this way, prejudice-free relationships become possible, only in this way, when one approaches each other with curiosity, one is immunised against hostile demarcations. “Whoever, on the other hand, emphasises that a person of any skin colour or member of a cultural group must be in sole possession of cultural attributes that cannot be shared with others, will cement differences and squander the chance of a common together.” (p. 120)

“Such an attitude is called völkisch, and it is known from history”

Alfred Bodenheimer, professor of history of religion and literature of Judaism at the University of Basel, known to the wider public through his wonderful detective stories about Rabbi Klein, recently wrote² that the real scandal in the debate about “cultural appropriation” is the “völkisch understanding of culture” that lies behind it. The arguments put forward so far are all too defensive, for example, when it has been correctly noted “that the musical culture of modernity would not exist at all without cultural appropriation, that it is precisely the advance into other cultural worlds that would increase their acceptance elsewhere, that it is also only in this way that the really exciting syntheses emerge that take culture forward and generate its tension.” In their defensiveness, these arguments “reveal a lack of understanding of the true scandal of the accusation that members of certain cultures, skin colours, or ethnicities do not have the right to cultivate a preference for certain clothes, musical styles, or hairstyles that are ‘foreign’ to them.” He continued, “Such an attitude is called völkisch, and it is known from history.” A bombshell from Bodenheimer. He recalls that after 1933 Jewish artists were “cancelled”, denied the right to interpret the works of “Aryan” composers or poets – how it then went on towards mass murder is well known. At that time, one had not yet “struggled with conceptual contortions such as ‘cultural appropriation,’” but openly argued or ranted in a racist manner: “The criteria of artistic interpretation had been shifted from devotion and virtuosity to the racial tables of a scientifically misguided, misanthropic medicine.” Of course, there were differences between then and now: banning everything non-Aryan also meant that German orchestras and opera houses only performed Mahler or Offenbach. But today, fortunately, “no one would demonstrate against violinists or female conductors from Korea or Senegal interpreting Beethoven.” At the same time, however, this shows “where the understanding of culture has gone astray. For, doesn’t this mean that ‘white’ culture, Western concert hall rituals and the performance in ritually strictly defined black dresses, dinner jackets or evening gowns are universally valid, while reggae, together with the associated markers such as clothing and hairstyle, is ‘dwarfed’ into Jamaican provincial culture?

Biologistic cemented cultural apartheid

Harald Fischer-Tiné, Professor of History of the Modern World at ETH Zurich with a research focus on colonialism and imperialism, also sees in the debate a rapprochement with “racist approaches”³: “Namely, that there is such a thing as a form of authenticity or ‘cultural purity’ and that one must come to a congruence between an ethnically defined group and a certain form of cultural expression.” Something that is not possible in Switzerland, a nation of will with four main language groups. The approach of cultural appropriation negates “that there can be mutual borrowing, cross-fertilisation, enrichment.”
  The NZZ journalist Martin Senti, on the other hand, notes a static understanding of culture that is biologically cemented and ultimately leads to a kind of “cultural apartheid”.⁴
  The Parisian philosopher François Jullien therefore warns against the constructions of Samuel P. Huntington. In his work “Clash of Civilisations” he uses all the traditional clichés of a “Chinese”, “Islamic” and “Western” culture, as if there were “homogeneous cultures” that inevitably had to clash.⁵
  One man who, in view of the urgent problems in this world, was fed up with the debate on dreadlocks etc., a veteran Social Democrat committed to the ethics of Christian charity, recently gave vent to his displeasure in his column in a Swiss regional newspaper entitled “Aneignung – so ein Schmarren” (Appropriation – such rubbish) as follows:
  “By the way, there is still war in Europe. Maybe that’s a real problem we have to worry about.” And further: “Maybe cultural exchange could have prevented the worst there, too – instead of nationalistic segregation and exclusion.”⁶

Consequences of colonialism and imperialism
still far from being dealt with

Hans Köchler, President of the International Progress Organisation, had warned in Current Concerns of 7 December 2021: “The threat of armed conflict emanating from alienation between cultures should not be underestimated.” Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is raging, described not only by Federal Councillor Ueli Maurer as a proxy war between the USA/NATO and Russia. And a possible war by the West against China is becoming increasingly likely.
  It is true: the consequences of colonialism and imperialism are far from being dealt with – according to former UN diplomat Hans Christoph von Sponeck, the inhabitants of 20 territories are still waiting to be liberated from their colonial masters – and this today, Anno Domini 2022! And: The disparagement of other cultures was and is a real problem. Fortunately, however, more and more historians of the former colonies are reclaiming their history, assisted by righteous Western colleagues.⁷
  One of the goals of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, in force since 2007, to which Hans Köchler referred in the same article, is: “To achieve a balanced exchange of cultural goods and services and to increase the mobility of arts and culture professionals”.⁸ 
  Wouldn’t we be well advised to heed the concern of the UNESCO convention? To build bridges again instead of tearing them down? Also, as an antidote against further warlike entanglements.  •

¹ Schröter, Susanne. Global gescheitert? Der Westen zwischen Anmassung und Selbsthass. Freiburg i. Br. 2022
² https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/lauwarm-und-die-documenta-unterwegs-zu-einem-voelkischen-kulturverstaendnis-ld.1695607
³ Source: Radio SRF, Echo der Zeit of 25 August 2022
⁴ Senti, Martin. “Kulturelle Apartheid in Berner Szenequartier: Blonde Dreadlocks sind nicht mehr genehm.” (Cultural Apartheid in Bern’s Scene Quarter: Blonde Dreadlocks Are No Longer Approved). In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of 28 July 2022
⁵ Jullien, François. Es gibt keine kulturelle Indentität (There is no cultural identity). Berlin 2017
⁶ Walter Hugentobler in the Thurgauer Zeitung of 29 August 2022
⁷ see the comprehensive history of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins, Professor of History and African American Studies at Harvard University, entitled Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire. See also interview with her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O19wvq2cXqg
⁸ https://www.unesco.de/kultur-und-natur/kulturelle-vielfalt/weltkulturbericht-2022