When the German publishing house Ravensburger announced the withdrawal of several children’s books based on stories about Winnetou at the end of August due to “accusations of folkloric stereotypes about Native Americans and expressing an inappropriate cultural possession,” I tried to imagine my childhood without him. Young Winnetou was not only an embodiment of a fearless hero for my generation; through his stories, we transported ourselves to the prairies and hunted herds of wild buffalo in our childhood fantasies. His tales triggered our creative processes and nurtured our boundless imaginations. We engaged in fierce battles with “invaders” over important territories (even if it was just somewhere near grandma’s cottage in the woods), crafted makeshift tools with dull knives, and built all sorts of shelters. We discovered the values of real men – nobility, tolerance, self-sacrifice, honor, friendship, honesty, selflessness, and understanding. Certainly, with the benefit of hindsight, we’ve realized that Karl May’s stories were historically inaccurate and naively romanticized our view of the Wild West. But were they racist? We, as children, certainly did not perceive it that way, and even today, we do not. For us, the characters of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand directly symbolized peace and harmony between cultures.
Yielding to the Western society’s susceptibility to the voices of pressure groups and certain hyper-correct activists fills me, to use their words, with “cultural constraint”, leaving me uncertain about which part of my identity, memories, or childhood I might have to let go of tomorrow. Could they turn their attention to classics from our literature, like Lad’s cat Mikes, who was afraid of Gypsies, or how they were referred to by Karel Capek or Karel Hynek Macha? Will the activists also target these works? Will they make us feel guilty for who we are and who we were? Will they try to take our culture from us? Deprive us of the greatest names in our poetry and prose?
But perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope for better times. Voices of reason are becoming more frequent, and despite the threat of ostracism, they aren’t afraid to speak the truth. For instance, amidst the criticism of the recent campaign against Winnetou, a genuine member of the Sioux tribe spoke out. “I stand with Winnetou! I wholeheartedly support his stories, and it angers me that they’re trying to almost erase him. I don’t feel discriminated against at all, and I don’t see anything discriminatory or racist in Winnetou,” he said.
The entire campaign to make any minority feel offended by white people is particularly incomprehensible to us Central Europeans. It’s a classic example of applying collective guilt, which some activists are so quick to protest against. Have we ever colonized anyone? Traded in black slaves? Suppressed the rights of Native Americans? Must we truly endure statements from figures like Whoopi Goldberg, claiming that the Holocaust was merely white people killing each other, and thus not racism? We’ve been on the receiving end of European nations doing as they pleased for most of our history, depriving us of our culture, language, and territory. It wasn’t so long ago that, according to Nazi plans, we faced the threat of relocation to somewhere near the Arctic Ocean. And today, one side shouts that we oppress minorities, and the other side claims that we adore Nazism.
“We must live with our history, not try to erase it, because, as is known, a nation that doesn’t know its history must relive it. Like most, we have our rights, our culture, and our pride. We shouldn’t be afraid to defend them and draw the line between the rights of minorities and the arrogant imposition of collective hereditary guilt on people who, besides their skin color, have nothing to do with the deeds of their ancestors.
Ivana Tykač,
