Covering Columbusing or Covering for Cultural Appropriation?

Is it okay to appropriate someone else’s religious festival for fun? Writing for the CBC, Adam Carter touches on this question in the article “Multicultural or ‘my culture’? Who ‘owns’ the colour festival?” Specifically, he addresses whether the event A Midsummer’s Dream, which began in 2012 and will be held for the fourth time on August 15 at Gage Park in Hamilton, Columbuses Holi. Columbusing refers to when white people “discover” something that has in fact existed for a long time.

This event is the brainchild of Mark Gowland, who aligns A Midsummer’s Dream with Holi in the celebration of “the triumph of good over evil and the renewal of spring.” He further describes his objective as follows:

[aiding] with the movement in helping humanity push forward towards a bright new future, that embodies inclusion, balance, and service. It was created to serve as a massive force for good in the community, and to create a spiritual vibration that would echo through the energies of the people who attend. We want to bring diverse group of people together and encourage them to do acts of good and make positive changes in their community. We want to honour the principles of Holi, and share that message here in Hamilton, in hopes of opening the hearts and minds of all who attend.

When I started reading the CBC article, what immediately struck me was the significance of the location of this event. Hamilton was recently ranked second on Canada’s list of cities with the highest rates of reported hate crimes. And Hamilton’s Hindu Samaj Temple, which is partnering with Gowland this year, was destroyed by arsonists in 2001, days after the 9/11 attack in the United States. Also relevant is that last year the arsonists were finally sentenced for burning down the Hindu Samaj Temple. It took more than a decade for the police to catch the suspects, and this hate crime was ultimately deemed “mischief” by the court. The members of the temple may have forgiven these men, but that does not mean that we should forget the crime or the outcome of the case.

Context matters. So, I was hoping the author would connect these dots in his article. Rather, it appears that the author’s intention in writing the piece had more to do with defending Mark Gowland than with mounting an argument for how one can borrow from a different culture without being guilty of cultural appropriation. I say this because he does not mention what Holi is until the final section of the article. The focus is instead on showing the reader that in researching the article, he reached out to the Hindu Samaj Temple management and McMaster University professor Chandrima Chakraborty.

The event’s website states that Gowland sought the advice of the Hindu Samaj Temple before launching the event in 2012, and the CBC article echoes this. But highlighting the mere fact that one obtains “permission” to hold a celebration from those whom it views as the owners of the celebration—which is problematic in itself—is an insufficient counter-argument against the accusation of Columbusing someone else’s culture. This is not a simple haters gonna hate situation. The truth is that Canadians are routinely shut down when they try to highlight racism in this country, thus preventing any further discussion on the matter. This is a real problem in Canada that is preventing us from living up to our commitment to multiculturalism.

In seeking to defend the event’s creator and overlooking the context of the setting of the event, the article is unwittingly dismissive. What is the point of borrowing from a tradition that celebrates the triumph of good over evil and renewal if you don’t acknowledge the local problems that need to be overcome?

Canada is a multicultural country, and Hamilton is a diverse city; we should come together and open hearts and minds. So why not discuss the significance of bringing people together in a city where some inhabitants are attacked for the colour of their skin and/or their religious affiliation? I’m curious as to why the Hindu Samaj Temple has only this year become a partner in the event, and how this might influence A Midsummer’s Dream.

The most important question is not who “owns” Holi, as the article’s title suggests, but how one goes about promoting multiculturalism and genuinely trying to understand each other.