Source : Google photo of Western culture
Synopsis : The blind imitation of the Western culture that contradicts your own values and traditions is something to be avoided unless you are rebellious of your own values. There is always something beautiful in your tradition of dance, music or some form of entertainment that has been practiced since a very long time so western imitation can never replace it.
We see a worldwide trend of countries in Asia , Latin
America and even in Africa where people are blindly imitating the Western
culture especially the culture of night clubbing, excessive drinking and
resorting to very risky sexual behavior that is normally quite alien to their
native culture.
This brings them in conflict with those who try to
maintain their values and culture but find themselves fighting an uphill battle
with the younger generation that imitates the western culture without any
hesitation so the businessmen take advantage and set up night clubs and other
venues where young people congregate to drink, dance and resort to risky sexual
behavior all in the name of having a good time. Needless to say that the club
owners make a lot of money so they do not care how people behave as long as
they pay to have a good time.
At times things get out of hand and some people start a
fight or a ruckus when they have too much to drink that leads to some
destruction of properties that the owner does not like so he keeps a few
musclemen who step in and stop the fight by taking the trouble makers by their
cuffs and throw them outside. It does not matter to them if they continue the
fight outside because that comes under the purview of the police that soon
arrives and takes away the miscreants to teach them some manners that are in
short supply at such places.
Women who go to such night clubs to have a good time
often complain of the sexual harassment they suffer where they are groped by
some bad boys who take the liberty when they are drunk or under the influence
of drugs that are freely available so again the musclemen step in to control
them before it really gets out of hand.
We observe that night clubbing , excessive drinking and
engaging in risky sexual behavior has become a part of the Western culture that
are now being exported to other countries where the young people see nothing
wrong in having a good time after a hard day’s work or during the weekends.
When I was in college in California, the aggies with
their stetson hats, cowboy boots and big buckle belts always reminded that it
was the TGIF time meaning Thank God it is Friday time when they gathered
somewhere to drink and dance that often ended in fist fights over some girls
and breaking a few chairs but the venue owner took it as the cost of doing
business and charged the miscreants double the price of broken chairs and
glasses and raked in some extra bucks.
This TGIF culture was deeply rooted in their wild wild
West past when the only place in their ramshackle miserable frontier towns was
the saloon where the cowboys gathered, drank, gambled and went upstairs to
cavort with whores who were grateful for some business. Often gun fights broke
out between rivals over insults or perceived insults resulting in quite a few
casualties, broken glass and chairs so the sheriff stepped in, arrested the
miscreants and hanged them the next day in the public square that the town
people came to see because justice was swift in those days and entertainment
for the onlookers was always welcome.
So the saloon culture was born that made some money for
the owner and gave some employment to the whores who gathered there from
various parts of the country in search of some business. This is the staple of
the Western cow boy movies in Hollywood that is widely imitated in other
countries. The gun fights and the dead bodies was just the part of the charm of
these hovels of dirt that attracted the rough and tough people who outnumbered
the nice and decent people who enjoyed the hanging in their public squares
because entertainment was rare in their towns.
If we fast forward to the present time, we notice that
this penchant for a good time has evolved into the TGIF and other forms of
entertainment giving birth to a whole new business opportunity for those who
want to make money anyway they can so numerous joints are put up in some shady
parts of their towns where they hire some musclemen to keep law and order to a
tolerable level. The whores upstairs are gone but are replaced by amateur
sexually liberated women who do not hesitate to go out with a stranger after a
few drinks and groping to continue their fun somewhere else.
Such venues are the gathering places for the common as
well as not so common people of shady characters who supply drugs to their clients
there or mix some drugs into the drinks on the sly to some who are then taken
advantage of later. Others gather there to discuss their business of illegal
drugs, trafficking and other nefarious activities. Their goons keep a sharp eye
on who comes to their joint especially if they are policemen on the look out
for some free drinks.
There are several types of these night clubs depending on
the types of clients they attract. I was cautioned by my French teacher in
Washington, D.C. not to go to the place near my hostel that perked my curiosity so
one day I went in, paid for an expensive glass of beer and saw a naked woman
only in her panty gyrating on a table. The clients were all men with beard,
tattoos and rough clothes who were drooling and shouting obscene vulgar things
at the poor girl who was only trying to make a few dollars to pay for her rent.
The whole place reeked of stale beer, smoke and vulgarity that disgusted me so
I walked out and realized that my French teacher was right after all and I should
never have gone there.
Then there are more fancy places where a band plays on
the stage where a naked or nearly naked woman wraps her legs around a shiny
pole to do what they call pole dancing while men shout insults at her while
gulping down their beer or liquor. Some even get excited after some drinks and
try to climb onto the stage to grab the poor woman so at that point the
musclemen come in to cool them down that may require taking them by their cuffs
and throwing them out.
I remember walking the streets near Pigalle in Paris
where the touts will try to pull your hand saying naked women are on show so
come on in .This sort of sordid joints appeal to those who get excited just
looking at the naked women while others go there out of curiosity. The Amsterdam
night clubs go a step further where women do sinful things that I will not
elaborate here for the sake of decency.
These so called night clubs offer variety of services to
their clients who are mostly men who have nothing better to do than to go out
and drink until they can’t walk so I call them sorry people who are shallow
with low level of education lacking sophistication, manners and taste.
There was a small town in Texas where the criminals
opened up a sinful place to cater to sinful people so the town folks were very
angry that such a place was corrupting their folks and the youth so they
complained to the sheriff to shut the place down. The sheriff then raided the
joint and smashed the liquor bottles and trashed the place that did not sit
well with the owner who was a mafia man. The sheriff also outlawed all the
whore houses that had come up to cater to a growing clientele so that too was
opposed by the owners who did not like to be deprived of their lucrative source
of income so they planned to kill the sheriff. The sheriff had a sport car that
he liked to run at high speed but one day his brakes failed that crashed his
car and killed him on the spot. This led to the resurgence of the shady places
once again. This is a true story that was made into a Hollywood movie
later.
Now I come to the night clubs that are sprouting like
mushrooms everywhere that attract men, women, boys and girls and the in
betweens who gather there to drink and dance often with strangers because they
are lonely and need a venue that provides them some excitement. The club
usually has a high dais or platform where a fellow called disc jockey plays
loud music that he modulates by scratching the LP on the player back and forth
exciting the crowd below into a frenzy. These DJs are highly paid for their
talent to scratch the discs and putting up a good show.
To make the joint more exciting, they use fireworks,
blinking colored lights that rotate on a big ball hanging from the ceilings.
They also have numerous night clubs especially for the LGBTQ crowd.
There was such a joint in Manila where young people
gathered one night to celebrate something or other and were drinking and
dancing like there was no tomorrow not knowing that literally there was going
to be no tomorrow for them. The place had one narrow door to enter that opened
only from outside into the club. Soon the firework and overheated wires caught
fire that burned swiftly the very flammable ceiling material turning the whole
place into a blazing inferno. By the time the revelers realized the danger they
were in, it was too late. They frantically tried to push the door open to
escape but the door could only be pushed in from outside so more than 200 or so
young people burned to death very horribly.
Then the funeral parlors descended on the burnt bodies
like hungry vultures and fought over them to rake up business even before the
relatives and friends could claim the remains that shows the dark nature of
human beings at such tragic times.
We hear of such tragic incidences in many such clubs in
different countries but it does not stop or discourage the revelers frequenting
the night clubs because of their belief that bad things may happen to others
but not to them. Most of these night clubs violate the safety standards that
often lead to the disasters like in Manila while the corrupt safety inspectors
fill their pockets to ignore the fire safety violations.
Why do we then imitate this western culture that is being
promoted by the Holly wood movies, various TV shows and the social media? What
does it have in common with the culture of the country and why young people are
so attracted to it that they forget the tragedies that many joints of this
nature produce? This culture imported from the West promotes drinking,
promiscuity among women and men, irrational behavior, drug culture and outright
criminality.
Recently a beautiful young woman was gang raped by no
less than 14 people in a place in Mumbai where drugs, liquor and sex was the
theme. The poor girl was not only raped, she was beaten unconscious and was
thrown from the balcony of a 14th floor building. Her naked body was
found smashed on the sidewalk below but the police called it a suicide because
some prominent people had raped her and participated in her murder. The
investigation is still going on but no real culprit has been arrested.
Some people say that imitation is a form of flattery but
why there is this need to flatter anyone or any culture? We notice the
pernicious effect of this sort of imitation on the younger people in so many
ways. They now buy blue jeans only to shred the jeans on the thighs and knee
with razor blades so that they can follow the trend. If this is the latest
Western style then they must also imitate them no matter how ridiculous they
look.
If the women in the West wear thongs on public beaches
then women in Asia also start to wear them creating quite a scandal in some
countries. If skin tight yoga pants that emphasize the crotch is the fashion,
women in other countries start imitating because they want to be up to date
when it comes to fashion.
Young girls shake their butts in a very sexual manner and
upload their videos in U tube that gets them a lot of viewers because they have
seen such behavior in Hollywood movies and TV shows so they imitate.
Some boys color their hair bright yellow or pink, wear
tattoos and ear rings or put safety pins in their eyebrows and studs on their
lips because they too are imitating this part of the punk culture of the West.
The hippies started the counterculture trend during the Vietnam war to show their
rebellion that soon spread to other countries where the young people started
imitating them. Some started throwing away their bras because that became a
bold fashion statement. These counter culture people congregated in places like
Kathmandu and Marrakech in Morocco where weed is very cheap and easily
available.
So I come back to the question – Why do we imitate? I
will post here a video made by Karolina Goswami where she discusses the reasons
so you should watch it. She makes some very valid points and warns the young
people of the danger of imitation that is so pervasive in many cultures that
are suffering the loss of their own values and traditions so please watch it
here.
https://youtu.be/gejriFaImIg
Source : U tube video of Karolina Goswami
The urge to imitate the Western culture is inherent in
the psyche of the younger generation of many countries where less restrained
young people with money in their pockets see nothing wrong in imitating the worst
aspect of the West in the name of having a good time. They say they like to
have a good time so they tend to modify their definition by including drugs,
alcohol and free sex. This prospect excites both sexes so now we see a
proliferation of night clubs in many countries that shows the growth of the
counterculture.
The parents and the authorities find themselves at a loss
to provide an alternative to them because a classical theater that presents
only classical music, dances or drama does not excite the younger generation as
much as the loud music, wilder dancing and the free flowing alcohol and the
prospect of some sex . Women dance lasciviously in skimpy clothes and freely
imbibing drinks that may be laced with drugs on the sly. Such places are often prowled
by bad boys who are on the lookout for a vulnerable woman who may later agree
to go out with them to continue their fun.
Then there are bars where single or divorced women gather
to have drinks and talk but they notice right away if a good looking gent is
sitting alone so they ask the bartender to send him drinks. If the man raises
his glass to thank the women, they move in and start a conversation. This sort
of place is also sprouting in many countries now.
People who tend to imitate others lack originality in
themselves. You may imitate the good example of someone because it may help you
develop a better personality or skill. You may imitate a beautiful design of a
house that you like and build one similar to it. You may imitate the good
manners and polished behavior of a person who impresses you or you may be
inspired to imitate the person who studies hard to pass tough exams to become a
successful professional. You may borrow books from him or study with him so
that you too may have a bright future.
But to imitate blindly a bad culture imported from
somewhere does not improve your life in any way possible. If you have your
strength of character and are the kind of person who is not easily swayed by
the peer pressure then I salute you. To the rest I can only say that not all
imitation is flattery.
Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.
La biografía de anil en español.
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