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Lewis Andrew
sojournal.co.nz
So some poor woman is in trouble for posting about giving her husband a didgeridoo for Father’s Day. This unfortunate ‘influencer’ has already been in trouble for this particular sin for wearing her hair in two long braids earlier in the year. So let’s put aside our opinions on her taste in gifts for a moment and delight ourselves in the absurdity of this accusation.
How can it be cultural appropriation? It’s a glorified stick with a hole drilled down the middle of it. What kid hasn’t played with something similar in their childhood? Besides that, how can Aboriginal culture claim cultural appropriation when many other cultures have far more sophisticated sticks with multiple holes in them, which let’s be honest sound a whole lot nicer, being tuned and all. Nobody goes to a concert to listen to Mozart’s Concerto for the Didgeridoo in D minor, and let me assure you, that isn’t just because Mozart didn’t know about them. But what about the flute, the clarinet, the bassoon and the oboe?
As a connoisseur of human folly, there is something charmingly blind and ironic in these accusations. Often a – shall we say ‘person of colour’ – is tweeting their outrage at cultural appropriation across the technology they have appropriated from some Westerner, using electricity appropriated from some Westerner, in a country with a democratic constitution and freedom of speech appropriated from Westerners. The sweet irony of it all.
Were all non-Mesopotamians guilty of cultural appropriation when they used the wheel? What about non-Chinese when they took up the use of gunpowder and fireworks? Or what about all non-Germans when they used the printing press or played the clarinet? Are all non-Americans culturally appropriating when they use a lightbulb?
And how do we actually know for sure that the Aborigines of Australia didn’t in the deep dark past culturally appropriate their hollow stick from some other culture?
You see, successful cultures are not static. They learn from each other. That is why cultures at the further outreaches of the world or in more remote areas of the world were more backward than others. For example, the New Zealand Maori, despite their many abilities and skills as a culture, did not have wheels, or even iron. Had they inhabited a less remote corner of the world, these would without a doubt have been appropriated from other cultures.
The point is, cultures appropriate the good from other cultures and make them a part of their own. And this leads to progress. If our forebears had been so petty about this, we would live in little tribes in an untamed wild, probably without decent clothing, houses or any interesting cultural pursuits to engage in.
A culture that acts like a bratty three-year-old on a playdate who refuses to share their toys is hardly one that will be respected or liked.
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