Culture as it pertains to travelers can be a touchy subject. Residual colonizer guilt is an enormous yet unspoken aspect of the way travelers from the so-called first world feel that they should approach the different cultures they visit. Adding to the guilt is an underlying sense of urgency about the way unique cultures seem to be rapidly fading into an increasingly homogenized world.
Out of these worries, the “good traveler” is born; the kind of traveler who goes to great lengths to be perfect on the road, the “I do as the locals do” types who never let an analytical remark about a place slip out of their mouths.
To a certain extent, it’s a noble cause. But the problem with the rules of being a “good traveler” is that they seem to be standardized for the whole big and varied world. This can easily lead to disregarding a culture’s serious issues under the guise of respecting the culture.
In particular, this mindset can be incredibly blind to women’s rights around the world. When it comes the institutionalized covering up of women (including cultures that don’t hold men accountable for their actions and insist that women are the ones responsible for their safety by dressing “appropriately”) and barring women from certain activities or going to certain places, it’s incomprehensible that so many people—including women who would never stand for that at home—enable it with the line, “It’s just their culture!”
But behind what we see and experience as travelers is likely a much worse scenario for the women who have to live with it every day of their lives and have no set date to leave. As travelers, we only see the outermost layers of institutionalized or accepted oppression and violence towards women, and we have the privilege of knowing we will eventually hop on a plane and leave.
Of course, I don’t recommend that you put yourself in harm’s way by disregarding local customs when you travel, and don’t think that you alone can show up change things. But rethink the way you talk about oppressive cultural norms in your discussions and your travel writing. Don’t be afraid to be honest and call oppression what it is. And think about who you’re really empowering when you say, “It’s just their culture!” Are you supporting the true heart of a culture or a patriarchal establishment that wishes to maintain its power?
Culture is not a stagnant thing that we should expect to infinitely continue as it is. Culture can be many beautiful things–art, music, food, a different way of interacting with people. It absolutely does not have to be oppressive. And as Desmond Tutu eloquently states in this video, traditions were created by humans, and they can always be changed by humans:
I watch my step as I enter, careful not to step in the rubble and debris that have tumbled down from the walls and ceilings of this derelict building over time. The bare sandals I’ve chosen to wear on this hot day in late September are not the best footwear for this kind of exhibit. But never mind my feet for now, the space all around me exudes passion, sadness, poetry. It is beautiful in the grittiest, ugliest way—decay covered by layers of quirky and vivid street art. It’s something of a dream gallery; not bound by expertise or pretense, it’s all heart.
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When I heard that 80 local street artists would be taking over a three-story abandoned factory in Berkeley for a temporary exhibit called Special Delivery, there was never any doubt that I was going to go. It was open to the public on weekends for four weeks in September, and I made it on the very last day.
Someday, the art-loving building director who hosted this exhibit with Endless Canvas will oversee the transformation of this site into an office building. But for four weeks, it was a grungy artistic wonderland open to the public; a living but ephemeral museum of underground culture that will only last in photographs:
In Twyfelfontein, red sandstone rocks perch precariously atop other rocks, looking as though they are ready to tumble at any moment and join the field of boulders below. Some have taken on shapes that are reminiscent of the sea and others that have been artfully carved and arranged by the elements look like transient public art sculptures.
The rock formations alone are captivating, but a closer look at the sandstone reveals a lot more — thousand of carvings and several paintings that depict humans, animals, and footprints. The rock art at Twyfelfontein dates back to the Stone Age when hunter-gatherers inhabited the area, and the oldest engravings could be up to 10,000 years old. It is believed that much of the art was part of shamanistic rituals and the Khoikhoi people who came after the hunter-gatherers also used the stones as game boards, for grinding, and as gongs in addition to adding to the artwork.
The name Twyfelfontein comes from a much later era when a European sheep farmer rediscovered a spring on the site and settled there in 1947. He had difficulty collecting enough water from the spring for his family and his herds and because of this, the area came to be known as Twyfelfontein which means “uncertain spring” in Afrikaans. As our guide showed us, the spring for which the site is named still exists, as well as the pump the sheep farmer used to extract it. The ruins of his residence also remain.
From the Stone Age to the 20th century, thousands of years of history converge at Twyfelfontein, embedded and etched into the stone:
