In the early 1960s my master Bernhard Wosien recognised the danger of a loss of culture. The dances, he told us, were being taken from the villages and used as performance pieces to attract tourists, both from within the nations involved as well as from abroad. For Bernhard the dances were the way the village healed itself. ‘It is not possible to dance in a circle with someone and remain angry at them.’, he told us.
Even in the 60s tourism was seen as the saviour of faltering economies. However it was not to speak of cultural collapse through removing artefacts, such as dances and music, from their natural setting to become pieces performed by professionals that I wished to write, but rather of the ramifications of tourism and its impact on local cultures. This is particularly with regard to the planned removal of the Maasai from their ancestral lands, though these are but a single example of a global policy by the wealthy.
It was tourism which decimated the plains cultures of North America. Through the use of railroads cutting through the grazing and migratory lands of the buffalo a conscious policy was adopted with the intention of destroying the Native economy. We are all familiar with the destruction of the buffalo by glory hunters riding trains and shooting into the midst of the herds indiscriminately and taking only the heads, or the skins, as trophies. America almost lost it iconic animal through these joyriders.
A similar venture is currently planned in Finland running a railroad through the grazing lands of the reindeer.
Today we find every culture around the world – other than the pseudo culture of coke, burgers and crispy salty snacks – under threat.
But lets look at why that is? Surely it cannot be the luxury hotels and burger bars alone who are backing this global exploitation? Do you remember the American dentist who lured the Kenyan Mascot lion out of the national park so that he could take its head home as atrophy? Of what? His courage? As crass and uncaring an action as that of the vandal who sawed down the Cumberland Gap Sycamore that so outraged the British people. Why do some people assume they have the right to destroy things which they do not own and which hold a place in many other people’s hearts? Truly I disavow this species.
Tourism promotes not only luxury hotels, but also the means to get to these exotic locations. We can assume the travel industry is also behind pushing people off their land to make a quick buck from those that can afford its indulgent prices. Lets face it the majority of people will never get to go to an African tourist park, so it is only the few who will benefit from this. Meanwhile an entire culture will be lost – along with its wildlife – through the move to a new location. All the stories and history of the people remain there, where now there is a tourist trap. Its sacred places desecrated in the name of profit. A nation knows the land it has been forced to leave, it knows its seasons, grazing and droughts. What does it know of the land it is forced on to? And what of those displaced from there to make way for their neighbours? How do they feel?
The whole situation is deplorable. Money bullying its wants forward – no question of need in commerce, it is greed which directs it and the desire for conquest and success. But how is success to be measured? An ancient culture that has survived from ancient times into the modern era has to be considered a success. A momentary promotion which is likely to collapse after 30 years can only be seen as a failure.
