I read One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding a while back. Its about an American lawyer who visits a south Pacific island, to obtain reparation for the locals who were injured by landmines laid by the army. Part of the book is about the impact of external ideas on the culture of the inhabitants of the island, and the conflict between those who want the old ways to continue and those who want them replaced.
This morning Fadzai told me that in Victoria falls, a fake "tradition" exists where people dress up as "warriors" and sing, for the benefit of the tourists. This reminded me of a temple in Bentota (Sri Lanka), that I saw several years ago. The place was a spruced-up (Pimped?) version of a buddhist temple, with numerous figures and statutes and very brightly coloured paintings. I remember thinking that this must be for the benefit of tourists, since none of it accorded with what I was accustomed to seeing in a Sri Lankan buddhist temple.
I was derisive about this back then, but less sure now. All culture is a construct. Practices form for some reason, and then this reason is sometimes forgotten, and then people do it anyway, and its venerated as our rich heritage etc etc. On this basis, mebbe there's nothing that can be called "authentic", and so, nothing that should be looked down upon as "fake".
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3 comments:
originality is a phony concept, and culture hinges on this premise... maybe its a need to identify with a people, or a mode of thinking that makes us venerate "culture" so much..
Hmmm... I'm sure thats one reason. I tend to also like it (mebbe not "venerate" :-)) because of what it says (implicitly or explicityly) about the environment and relationships that created it.
Shouldn't "culture" be a dynamic entity? Just like a country's people change thier attitudes and behaviours through time, the "culture" in question would naturally evolve. It's failing to see this that usually causes problems.
At the same time, culture is an amazing thing, and should be encouraged, though not for the wrong reasons.
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