The debate about cultural appropriation does not stop at Winnetou either: After the Ravensburger publishing house decided to remove two books about the Apache chief from the program, a heated argument broke out in Germany. Now Jörg Pilawa has also spoken out: “To take Winnetou out of the rule would be complete nonsense. You have to bring out commented editions today, where you just explain and tell what’s going on,” said the moderator on Wednesday (August 24) on Sat.1 breakfast television.
Pilawa demands selectivity – and commented editions
He continued: “Otherwise you would have to ask Ravensburger: ‘What drives the publisher to release a book like this in 2022 and not to ask themselves whether it might be funny?’ But then to react reflexively when there is a bit of protest and take it out again…” In addition, the Hamburgian demanded selectivity in the debate: There is a difference whether in 2022 a book comes on the market “in which Indians are still spoken of “ – or whether Karl May Winnetou wrote in 1893.
In his opinion, the Ravensburger books could have been “left in the offer with comments”. “Just taking the book out like that doesn’t do the First Nations and America any good because we don’t discuss it any further. But we have to discuss the topic and that’s only possible if we have these books,” says the 59-year-old.
parting spirits
For the Karl May expert Andreas Brenne, the books based on the children’s film “The Young Chief Winnetou” are harmless: “I don’t think it’s right to take such a book out of circulation just because of a shitstorm,” said the art education professor “New Osnabrück newspaper”. It is already made clear in a preliminary remark that the book is to be understood as a fictional story and not as an appropriate representation of the life of indigenous peoples.
In doing so, he took up a core argument of the critics of the Winnetou story. They claim that the stories romanticize the lives of indigenous people: white people use a culture that is not their own. This is particularly problematic when members of the majority society commercialize individual elements of the culture of a minority and take them out of context. The Ravensburger publishing house also stated in the course of the sales stop that they did not want to “repeat and spread trivializing clichés.”