Cultural Appropriation

When travelling in India, the funniest thing that I saw was a young twenty-something European woman who was wearing an "authentic" salwar-kameez (a 2-piece suit consisting of a long tunic top, and big puffy pants), but who decided that instead of wearing both pieces, she would only wear the top - as a dress! Now, while indeed this tunic top was long enough to be worn as a dress, the reality was that she basically looked half-naked because she was only wearing half of her outfit! The fanciful saffron sash thrown around her head, the big trendy sunglasses, the "henna tattos", the noisy ankle bracelet, and the fake bindi on her head all looked fairly humorous in light of the fact that she was basically caught with her pants down!

While most travellers do their research a bit more thoroughly than this woman and understand that the pants are an integral part of this outfit, it is sadly common to see young westerners in India fashion some bizarre interpretation of Indian garb, and don it proudly in the streets of major cities. Common examples include wearing a salwar-kameez without a dupatta (a sash traditionally worn with a salwar-kameez)thus again looking half-naked and immodest, the wearing of a dupatta with jeans, or the wearing of some hippy version of "indian pants" which are sold widely in places like Goa. The fact that most Indians who live in cities who are twenty-something dress in jeans and a top, and would not walk the streets in the old-fashioned salwar-kameez that their mothers wore seems irrelevant to these travellers. The point is to look "authentic" at all costs.

Along with the look of course, has to go the absolute "fascination" with Indian culture. Spending hours at various Hindu temples watching people pray is a necessity for such travellers. Making a "pilgrimage" to Varanasi to watch in "amazement" how people bathe in the Ganges for spiritual cleansing, and participating in a puja at the ghaats are all a must-do. All members of this subsect of travellers marvel at the "spirituality" of the experience, commit themseles to learning more about Hinduism, and confirm in their minds that "exotic" ancient wisdom is the best sort of knowledge that there is. But none - not one - bathes in the Ganges themselves. Not one actually takes that plunge to experience this "fascinating" scene from the inside. Not one actually believes in what they're seeing enough to take that leap of faith and step into that "dirty-looking" water for a cleansing.

The thing about this sort of masquerade, is that it tends toward the romanticization of an entire population, with very little depth of understanding. It tends toward people proclaiming an understanding and belief in something, and using very superficial symbols of that belief to propogate an image of "inclusiveness". There is something palpably inauthentic about it.

Imagine for example that the tables were turned. Imagine that Catholicism was the "exotic" religion, and that people who "got the spirituality" of Catholicism were considered "cool". Imagine hundreds of Hindus flying in from India and flocking to Catholic churches to "experience" mass. Imagine some Indian women wore the dress of nuns, men wore the dress of priests, and others yet don the more "authentic" garb of the 16th century chasity belt. All the time, completely oblivious to the fact that other worshippers are dressed in normal pants and skirts. They are "fascinated" when the priest walks in with the cross. They find the smell of the incence "exotic and sensuous". They read all sorts of books on the interpretation of the Bible - but never the Bible itself. They spend days living in monastaries, proclaiming the wisdom gained from such a simple and chaste life. But when it comes to fasting for Lent, they all leave. They do not believe in that part of Catholicism. That part takes too much hard work, and involves too drastic a leap of faith.

So, if you find yourself travelling to India (or any other "exotic" place) in the near future, and you want to be the "coolest" kid at any backpackers hostel, follow this guide:

1) Worship the "sexy" elements of the culture and religion and leave behind the stuff that takes real work and faith

2) Adulterate the cultural symbols to fit some preconceived romanticized vision of what the "authentic culture" is or was

3) Ignore those westernized Indian youth you see on the street - they don't understand the value of their culture and traditions the way that you do

4) Never, ever admit to your own hypocrisy

Blog Action Day - Poverty Demystified

This post is being written in participation with Blog Action Day. This year's topic is poverty.

Poverty. We view it as one of life’s big mysteries. We wonder, “How have we let this happen? How is it that we have created a world around us where millions have little to eat themselves, while others have such excesses of wealth that their dogs spend their days at the spa?”. The problem feels so overwhelming that it hardly seems possible that we can ever overcome it on a global scale.

What is true is that it is an overwhelming and tragic problem that is unlikely to be solved anytime soon. What is false is thinking that it is a mystery how and why this situation exists – a mind-baffling mystery it certainly is not.

Let us do a little mental experiment. Let’s say we have five children, and every day we have ten apples available . Enough for each child to have two apples per day – if our goal was to distribute these equally. But let’s imagine that this is not our goal. Rather, let us imagine that we fashion a game for these children whereby they run a lap around the track, and the child who wins the race gets an apple. The first day, child A, who is naturally talented at this particular game, wins all 10 races, thus getting all 10 apples.

The second day, the other kids realize they need to practice a bit in order to keep up – and so the second day child B wins 3 races and child A wins only 7. With more time, more practice, and more skill developed at this game, eventually we get to a situation where 3 of the children win 2 to 3 races each per day, while the other 2 children continue to come in last place. So, 3 of these children end up accumulating quite a wealth of apples, while the other 2 have none.

As these 2 children become hungrier and hungrier with each passing day (assuming apples are the main source of nutrition available), their chances of ever developing the skill to win this game become lower and lower. Similarly, as the other 3 children nourish their bodies with their won apples, their ability to win the daily races becomes easier and more assured. This pattern perpetuates and, over time, the end result is that 3 children accumulate quite a wealth of apples, while the other 2 remain quite apple-poor. With their malnourished bodies, it becomes almost impossible that the final 2 children will ever be able to catch up in this game.

Is it a great mystery how this situation arose? Is it baffling or mind-boggling? Or is it simply a pre-condition of the game itself – for one to win, another must lose. For one to accumulate masses of a finite resource, another must remain resource-poor.

Let us keep in mind that the world we have chosen to create and propagate is very similar to this analogy above. In a globalized capitalism, those with power will create the rules of the game. As such, they will excel at it and, over time, those who do not excel will move farther and farther away from the start line. It is a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

Poverty is inevitable in any capitalist society. Why? Because the goal of a capitalist society is not the equal distribution of resources. The goal is to accumulate wealth. And wealth begets wealth for the wealthy, while it begets poverty for the poor. So, poverty is simply an expected by-product of a capitalist structure.

The true tragedy is not poverty itself – the true tragedy is that despite the disgusting by-products of the “free market”, we continue to drink from its cup, believing it to be as wholesome as our ginseng-infused pomegranate tea. The tragedy is that we have adulterated a good idea – that of trade and barter for the efficient functioning of society – and turned it into a cash grab at all costs.

Where are the checks and balances? What accountability does a large corporation have to its faceless employees who work in factories across oceans? So long as the poor remain poor, they have no buying power and, thus, no voice in the corporate world. Where in the book of capitalism is the concept of not abusing one’s power and not holding people hostage to unfair wages and unfair trade exchanges? The common and misguided argument “at least we’re giving them a job” would be akin to child A above offering a piece of apple peel to starving child D in exchange for doing his/her daily chores for a week!

The checks and balances in small-scale capitalism are the human conscience. But, unfortunately, the globalization experiment has proven that human conscience is limited by what the eyes are able to see directly. No one would ever think of making such unfair face-to-face trades with their poor neighbour. So why do we feel okay to do so with poor individuals overseas? Our conscience is unable to comprehend suffering unless we see it with our own eyes. Our conscience is unable to inform our actions unless we are forced to see the horrific consequences of those actions in front of us. Our conscience does not stop us from buying clothing made in sweatshops, or buying coffee grown by labourers working for pennies a day – because we don’t see them with our own eyes. We can pretend they don’t exist. Once capitalism operates outside of the normal structures of human interaction, the checks and balances disappear. This is the crux of poverty.


No amount of foreign aid will ever help. No amount of “Make Poverty History” schemes will ever help. They might make us feel a bit better about ourselves – but they won’t help create sustainable change. Nothing will ever help, unless we change the rules of our game. So long as we continue playing our make-believe game of free market capitalism on a global scale, the playing field will continue to become increasingly unequal. So long as the goal of our game is to win and accumulate resources, we need to accept that the inevitable corollary of that is that the loser is going to starve. And so long as we don’t have to see people starving while we’re eating our three-course meal, we’re not going to care enough to change the rules of our game.

Addicted to Self-Harm

I just heard a piece on the radio about tanning salons in Canada. It seems that due to the potential harms caused by tanning, the forces that be have decided to regulate tanning studios in the same manner as cigarettes and alcohol - by creating a minimum age policy.

Obviously as a physician, anything that decreases the number of people who choose to artificially bake their skin seems like a good idea to me. However, this certainly gets me to wondering why such regulations are even necessary? Is the fear of cancer seriously not enough? Clearly not. For I have seen, on more than one occassion, patients who are in hospital due to lung diseases caused by smoking, who insist on continuing to go outside for their cigarette fix multiple times a day.

Why are we so addicted to harming ourselves? Yes, in the case of cigarettes, alcohol, heroine, whatever - these substances are chemically/physically addictive. But in other cases of self-harm - gambling, overeating, electing George Bush twice in a row, and yes, even tanning - there is no such confounder. So why do we do it?

The way I see it, we've either lost hope in our ability to have a more meaningful life, and therefore have just decided to choose hedonism over health and longevity. Or we have become so spoiled by the technology and the access to health care we enjoy, that we just figure we can do whatever we want, and someone else will clean up the mess.

Either way, the fact remains that we are the only species that will knowingly do things that harm ourselves and kill us sooner. Isn't evolution supposed to make smarter?