Is Karl May’s Winnetou a “cultural appropriation”?

by Marita Brune-Koch

The “Ravensburger Verlag” has removed books by Karl May from its program. The reason: Karl May was accused of “cultural appropriation” as well as of trivialising the suffering of the indigenous American population, of trivialising the colonisation of America and the oppression and extermination of the native peoples there. The “Karl May Publishing House” contradicts the accusations and keeps the books in its program.

“In May 1968, the youth dreamed of a world where it is banned to forbid. The new generation thinks only of censoring what insults or ‘offends’ them.” This is how French leftist and feminist Caroline Fourest introduces her book titled, “Generation Offended. From Language Police to Thought Police.”¹ This is a good characterisation of the process addressed here.

What is the substance of the accusation against Karl May?

Karl May wrote his American Indian books at the beginning of the last century, against the background of colonisation. With his books, he specifically opposed the murderous racism against the original American population. In the style of the peace fighter and Nobel Prize winner Berta von Suttner (“Lay Down Your Arms”), he made an immense contribution with his exciting novels to educating young people for international understanding and respect for other cultures. In contrast to the usual practice of the time, he portrayed the American Indians as noble and heroic and created a world characterised by deep and genuine friendship between “reds” (Winnetou) and “whites” (Old Shatterhand).

Quote Karl May in his preface to “Winnetou I”: “It was not only a hospitable reception, but an almost divine veneration, which the first ‘pale faces’ found with the ‘Indsmen’. What reward did the latter receive? Indisputably, the land they inhabited belonged to them; it was taken from them. Everyone who has read the history of the ‘famous conquistadores’ knows what rivers of blood flowed and what cruelties occurred. This example was also followed later on.

The white man came with sweet words on his lips, but at the same time with a sharpened knife in his belt and a loaded gun in his hand. He promised love and peace and gave hate and blood. The red man had to give way, step by step, farther and farther back.” A small excerpt, but it leaves nothing to be desired in terms of clarity.

It is true, Karl May was never in America, his books are not documentary reports. He was a writer. He studied the history of colonisation and on that basis he shaped his characters and stories, breathed life into his idea and message. This is how writers and other artists have worked and continue to work at all times. Even Friedrich Schiller has never been in Switzerland, although he wrote William Tell. If you visit his study in Weimar today, you can still look at the documents on which his poetry is based: All the walls hang full of maps and studies of the historical, geographical and social nature of Switzerland at the time. Cultural appropriation? The world would be poorer without Tell and also without Karl Mays American Indian books.

A publishing house practices self-criticism

The “Verlag Ravensburg” has obviously been attacked by a pack of self-proclaimed “cultural protectors” who want to see Karl May’s books on the index.² It buckles, takes the book “Der junge Häuptling Winnetou” (The young chief, Winnetou”) out of the program.

The comment of those responsible is unbearable: “We thank you for your criticism. Your feedback has clearly shown us that we have hurt the feelings of others with the Winnetou titles. That was never our intention and it is not compatible with our Ravensburger values. We expressly apologise for this. Our editors deal intensively with topics such as diversity or cultural appropriation. [...] In doing so, they also consult external consultants or use ‘sensitivity readers’ who critically examine our titles for the correct handling of sensitive topics. Unfortunately, we did not succeed in doing all this with the Winnetou titles. [...] We made mistakes at the time and we can assure you: we learned from it!”

This sounds and feels exactly like the self-accusations in Mao’s Cultural Revolution: Here, too, young people set themselves up as judges of everyone and everything, and attacked adults, especially those with great merits for culture and society. They had to confess to their misdeeds in public show trials, were driven through the streets wearing degrading paper hats, and were publicly ridiculed. The Cultural Revolution ended in blind destruction of cultural works and buildings and in horrible bloodbaths. We are not that far yet, but the ugly spirit of such opinion terror is already in the air again.

What is cultural appropriation supposed to be anyway?

What is the accusation of “cultural appropriation” all about, where does this insanity suddenly come from? “The spark stems from a very confused notion of anti-racism,” writes Caroline Fourest. Originally, the term “cultural appropriation” meant that colonial powers rob cultural goods from subjugated peoples.

Of course, this appropriation was condemned, and many cultural goods were returned. However, according to Caroline Fourest it was Susan Scafidi, professor at Fordham University in New York, who expanded the term from its original meaning to include a process “in which someone appropriates intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts of another’s culture without that person’s permission.”³

This has now created an extremely elastic concept that is neither justiciable nor refutable. Fourest describes a plethora of incidents in which people were subjected to violent social media shitstorms. These were private individuals and public figures, such as professors, politicians, artists, entrepreneurs, and even journalists. Anyone can become a victim. It is not uncommon for victims to be forced to publicly confess, for lectures and lecture series to be cancelled, theatre performances to be discontinued, and careers to be destroyed.

In many countries, such as the USA and France, this movement is developing a frightening power, introducing bans on thinking and determining the culture and content of curricula, university seminars and debates. In Germany and Switzerland, too, there are already corresponding developments. One of the best-known accusations in this country is likely to be about the “illicit” wearing of dreadlocks.

Integral part of the Cancel culture

Thus, the accusation of cultural appropriation joins the cancel culture. That is, terms, topics, opinions, even scientific statements are subjected to a ban. The spectrum ranges from terms and contents from sexology, biology (“There are several, … many genders”), school politics (e.g. “Inclusion of disabled students is always good”), history, medicine, nutrition, education, in politics anyway – everywhere there are bans of thinking, everywhere lurk pitfalls. Debates in the public sphere, even among friends and family, are becoming increasingly dangerous; it is very easy to get caught in minefield.

Who is orchestrating this and for what purpose?

In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it was not the young people who suddenly had the idea of denouncing and murderously persecuting parents and teachers. Today, too, it is not individual citizens who, on the basis of their own ideas, suddenly feel called upon to accuse a publishing house because it publishes Karl May. There are always goals and strategies behind such developments.

It is only small groups at the universities and in the media who want to impose the dictates of speech and opinion on the majority. The majority of society is not interested in such outlandish debates.

If we want to know in whose interest such bans on thought, speech and writing are, we might have to investigate who is dismissing critical fellow citizens as conspiracy theorists and increasingly even seeking to criminalise them as spreaders of fake-news, or who is blocking “unsuitable” pages in the social media and in short wants to criminalise different opinions.

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)

1 Caroline Fourest. Generation beleidigt. Von der Sprachpolizei zur Gedankenpolizei. On the growing influence of left-wing identitarians. A critique. Berlin 2020, also available in French and Spanish

2 Wikipedia: The Index librorum prohibitorum (“Index of Forbidden Books”, also called Index Romanus, “Roman Index”, for short) was a directory of the Roman Inquisition that listed for every Catholic the books whose reading was considered a grave sin; for some of these books, the ecclesiastical punishment was excommunication.

3 Caroline Fourest. Generation beleidigt. P. 20