European culture? – A deeply hurtful stereotype

I witnessed a discussion yesterday on an author’s forum that made my blood boil. The subject of the discussion was interesting: Is it OK to borrow from other cultures’ myths and legends when you are not born into them?

It circulated mainly around the objections made by the indigenous people of America, who objected to fantasy authors using their mythological creatures in their books. I won’t dive into it because it is a delicate subject that, in my opinion, has too many minefields and too few answers.

I’m a Slav. My books are based on Slavic mythology – that is my trademark, so I didn’t have an actual interest in this discussion as no one can accuse me of borrowing anything, and the forum was mainly American-centric. Still, I watched it because it somehow turned into a dumpster fire, and I’m a sucker for drama.

Well, I didn’t have interest up until I heard the words ‘European culture’ and ‘white oppressors’. There is no denying the fact that white colonisers, whether Vikings, Iberians or English, landed in America and started taking from the indigenous population. However, they weren’t spreading European culture, but Christianity.

There is no such thing as European culture – there are European cultures, and even then, they can vastly differ between countries or regions. We have our own indigenous people and racial subtypes, but because of the type of climate we have, evolution has shaped us as being predominantly white.

We are also not all ‘colonisers’, though you can’t find a country that hasn’t fought with its neighbours or tried to purge one another over the centuries. However, only certain countries—not even cultures, but countries—took part in setting up colonies.

Putting all Europeans under the banner ‘white oppressors and European culture’ is a racist, xenophobic and deeply hurtful stereotype, and no, you can’t change my mind on this.