Planet earth is home to 7 billion people. Each person has their own life, culture, dreams and ideas, all ready to share. And it’s great when we do. I’m super appreciative of the Japanese cuisine that brought Wagamamas’ ramen into my life, even if my chopstick technique is shockingly amateur. In fact, I have found that a lot of the blessings of cultural integration have come in the form of food, something I guess says a lot about me. But what happens when we get this integration wrong? Cue Kendall Jenner, the bindi and Holi festival….
Walking through Topshop, iPhone in hand, I stumble across Kendall Jenner’s Instagram post of her and her friend posing outside a mosque for a selfie in hijabs, clearly ignorant to the fact a hijab is used to resemble modesty and reduce vanity. Their selfie thereby erases the significant meaning of the garment, reducing it to little more than a fashion accessory or even a fancy dress costume. Having rolled my eyes at their ignorance, they then fall upon a half price sale rack of bindis, clearly being sold as party or festival jewellery for the quirky among us. This is not okay.
Bindis are part of the culture of South Asia and the Hindu religion. Despite what seems to be the popular ‘white girl’ belief, they aren’t Coachella culture, nor festival attire and they do not symbolise edginess or cuteness or a bohemian spirit. They represent concealed wisdom and the third eye, a mystical concept that basically details an invisible eye that can see beyond ordinary perception. Sadly, the people now abusing the bindi fail to even have ordinary perception or the ability to open the two eyes they already own.
Taking something from another culture or religion and divorcing it from its original meaning to make a mass marketable product, a petty trend or simply an exotic piece of jewellery is deeply insensitive. Yet we do it so often. For countless years, the West has utilised aspects of other cultures that we find ‘attractive’ or ‘hipster’ and engaged in some form of racist dialogue that perverts the object from its original meaning, until it fulfils our vacuous aims and trendy image. In short, ignorant is fast becoming the new edgy.
To see the bindi or hijab as a trend or fad not only reduces the garments to some Western capitalist hook or commodity, but also implies that they are a disposable items that we will eventually tire of. Do people have no idea how demeaning this is to the original wearers, who assume this dress code as an integral part of their existence? If you want to wear sticky gems for face jewellery as a fad or trend then go ahead – but refer to them as sticky gems and not bindis.
Yet cultural appropriation neither ends nor begins with fashion and dress codes. The hindu festival of Holi has been turned into a college campus colour throwing event, whereby non Hindus participate, completely oblivious to what exactly they are celebrating nor really caring to know. Holi celebrates the downfall of the demon king and the triumph of the god of love, but this meaning seems to be lost in the crowds of non-religious teenagers throwing paint for a laugh or an edgy Instagram post. Want to run in paint? Do a charity colour run, don’t gatecrash a religious festival that you are uneducated or unsupportive of.
What infuriates me, more than this cultural degradation and the devastating loss of significance in such precious aspects of these cultures, is the complete hypocrisy of it all. The number of times narrow minds have cried over Muslim women wearing the burqa on English soil is innumerable, not to mention the uproar over halal meat, turbans, mosques or even prayer rooms in airports (because that totally affects us all deeply?). The ignorant are constantly polluting the air with that uneducated and totally absurd argument of ‘if it’s our country you follow our culture’ and yet seem to diminish this quite freely when the opportunity to loot parts of the Asian culture or the Hindu religion to become the next Vanessa Hudgens of V fest arise.
So whilst bindis and Holi might look edgy and exciting, using them whilst remaining oblivious of their original cultural significance makes you look nothing but disrespectful, ignorant and uneducated. Trust me when I say: it isn’t a good look.
Words by Jess