Why Western People are stealing your Culture

Yoga, Twerking, Ubuntu, African Music, the Japanese Ikigai, Zen, blowing the first natives of Australia’s didgeridoos and dressing up in indigenous peoples gear are all trending in the so-called western world. Is this cultural appropriation, is it exploitation for the wellness and entertainment industry or is it a natural cultural exchange? What is this all about?

A short answer could be: “Western people, because of political interests, conquests, organized religion, wars and industrial developments during the past 2000 years have been robbed and have robbed themselves of their cultural and spiritual origins and have not been able to maintain a natural cultural development. They are spiritually drained and starving for meaning. They are looking for all this in other cultures. Over the past 500 years Europeans and Westerners have become used to grab hold of any resources they desire and thus they often do so in an unapologetic way.”

Let’s look at it in some more detail.

?When we try to define what we should understand as culture, we come across different answers, mainly depending on whom we ask. Most definitions include many different traits and features. Often culture is identified as connected to an ethnic, linguistic or geographic group and to features and traits such as religion, food, social habits, music, arts, behaviors, codes of interactions and conduct with people and nature, cognitive constructs, fashion and dressing and much more. Culture is seen as a central part of socialization and thus of group identity.?

Culture also contains learned behaviors and is as such changing along with gained knowledge. ?For example, an epidemic can change how a group of people behaves for centuries to come, based on what has been proven favorable in surviving the threat. Also, climate and other geographical conditions influence behaviors, skills and traits. Since people have almost never lived in complete isolation and within geographical borders an exchange of knowledge and behaviors has naturally taken place between people since a long time.

?The so-called Western World and the businesses nowadays run by it, are standing rightly accused for legally stealing intellectual property and knowledge from other parts of the world, often by patenting achievements of other people as their own, or trademarking natural resources. This also takes place within western societies, often by taking credit for inventions and creations of ethnic and cultural minorities. As I understood my friends question in the framework of cultural appropriation and specifically spirituality, I would like to focus on those parts of culture connected to those.

?As culture is, so also spirituality is defined in various and differing ways. There is a general understanding that spirituality is concerned with non-materialistic needs, often as a persons connectiveness and relation to its surroundings and the divine. Here we seek comfort in times of sorrow, relief of stress and fears and try to find meaning as well as identity. Ancient people around the world have found different ways and methods to connect to nature, self, the moment, purpose, the universe, even understanding birth and death. Typical ways to exercise spirituality are prayer, meditation, altering the state of one’s mind through psychedelic toxoids, through breathing technics, physical extortion, or through dance, music and song. It is obvious that spirituality and culture are deeply connected.?Similar to culture, ancient people have developed their spiritual habits and methods in different ways.

?Since we are discussing white Europeans behavior, we should take a look at their origins. This is easier said than done. For the first part, going back about 3000 years, tens of different main groups of Europeans existed and we can divide them into hundreds of tribes, often with their own language, spirituality and culture. As far back as 10000 years ago, some of these groups have already been in exchange with the Assyrian and Arab world, but generally had developed with only moderate outside influences. It is especially hard to find out about the ancient history of Northern and Eastern European people. Greek and Roman people’s history and culture as well as in large parts their ancient religious believes are well documented in written form. The Northern European people, who we could call the Germanic people, had developed a written language, the runic alphabet, but only very few fragments carved in stone are left today to carry witness of their culture. The same can be said about the Western Europeans the Celts, who mainly settled in France, Germany and the British Islands and their ogham alphabet. After all, it’s the brutes, oppressors and colonizers who mainly get to write the history and it is their interest to justify their war crimes by claiming civilization for themselves and depicting their victims as barbarians. A third main group can be identified as the Goths, who had originally settled East and North of the river Danube. Even less is known about the original Iberian culture, as the Iberian Peninsula had been conquered by the Romans very early on and the Roman language and religion was forced upon the people there.

In trying to find information on the original Europeans we are thus depended on the witness of outsiders, mostly their enemies and their often-biased description of them as Barbarians, sometimes as animals. This is very similar to how Northern Egyptians described their Nubian neighbors to the South and the tribes in the Maghreb, or how urbanized Chinese and Babylonians described their cousins outside the cities. A method later used to justify modern colonialism and slavery by the very descendants of those ancient Europeans.

One of the first comprehensive reports is delivered around 50 BCE by the emperor and war lord Julius Cesar, who’s name gave the origin to the Russian title “tzar” and the German “Kaiser”, absolute rulers over empires, just as their role models, the Egyptian pharaohs. Cesar also left lasting witness to his colonialism by calling his most north-eastern outpost “Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium” – the colony of the Claudians, Cesars own family. This city is today one of Germanys largest cities, known as Cologne, a name still reminding of those times. ?Cesar opens his book “De bello Gallico”, The war in Gaul, with a line that each Latin scholar can repeat in their sleep:?“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.”, Gallica is divided in three parts. He spoke of the Belgians, the Aquitaines and the Celts, all of whom he describes as lazy, violent and fiercely independent and split into hundreds of fractions. He makes separate mention of the Germanic people who he describes as even more warlike than the Celts. This is not a surprise since it was in his interest to point out his own bravery by conquering those wild and violent people and make excuses for why he did not succeed so easily with the Germanic tribes.

Around this time the Eastern Germanic tribes had already become under pressure by the Huns who were conquering Europe from the East and they had in parts already fled as far as India and to the West into Slovakia and Hungary.?Soon the Goths became refugees to the Roman empire, desperately crossing the river Danube by the thousands with many of them drowning. The Roman empire resettled them and split them up into Eastern and Western Goths, making the Easterners slave-like soldiers, for which the Goths later took revenge by conquering Rome itself. The Western Goths were resettled to the former Gaul from where they moved South, joined up with the Vandals and who’s leader, Geyserich ended up as ruler in the Maghreb, effectively cutting of the Roman food supply from Africa. Meanwhile the Northern Germanic tribes had developed a culture in which their young ones had to go out into the world and proof themselves and these groups became known as the Vikings. A first description of the Vikings is delivered by Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who in the 10th century had travelled from Bagdad into Russia and who described the Vikings as wild and violent group of drunken sex maniacs. He also delivered a detailed report of their funeral rituals which include death boats and cremation.

For Northern and Western Europeans it was not only hard enough to maintain a consecutive culture and spirituality with all the travel, resettlements and being colonized by foreign powers, things were soon to get worse. The Roman empire, who by the 2nd century had finally succeeded to rule over almost all of Europe, decided to give up on its own religion and the freedom and multiplicity of religions in its colonies in order to unite all people under its rule within one religion, Christianity. Thus, an originally Semite religion became the main Western religion. This did not happen peacefully but was enforced upon people by use of the sword. It is easy to understand that even the potentially valuable parts of Christian religion were not easily accepted in this environment, even though concessions were made. Some regional spirituality, as the winter turn celebrations and the Germanic adoration of trees has been integrated into Christian tradition by introducing Christmas. Later, under the rule of the popes, whatever was left of original and ancient spirituality and culture was either adapted into Christianity through the work of monks or stamped out through the infamous witch hunts all over Europe.

One of the last European countries to come under the rule of Christianity was Finland, arguably in the 13th-14th century, with the Sami people joining as late as the 18th century. Was it coincidence that once the Christianization of Europe was completed, Europeans began to become modern day colonizers and slavers on other continents? The formerly enslaved, colonized, and traumatized were now traumatizing another people. ?Recently, after the World War′s in the 20th century, the end of official colonialism, the infamous role that Christianity played in both and the many scandals of the catholic church, be it corruption or child abuse, more and more Europeans have been filled with new doubts, if not in Christianity, but at least in institutionalized religion. It is thus a deep need for Europeans to reconnect to their original spirituality or since this seems almost impossible, to find new ways and connection through other regions cultures. Of course, this can sometimes come across as awkward, sometimes as stealth and it is very important for Europeans to be aware of the achievements of others, to recognize them, to give credit and pay dues. Not only out of respect, but also to be truly able to understand the newfound cultural and spiritual elements and to be able to part-take in them and benefit of them.