The English invented curry and paisley, right?
The dabke (or debka) is an Arab dance. I’ve seen Arabs dancing it in several countries. Zvi Gotheiner is an Israeli-born choreographer in New York. He has a dance called the “Dabke,” and the New York Times has given his dabke a lot of ink over the last year or so.
June 3, 2012 in the Times:
The dabke is a line dance of the Levant. At weddings in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, people link up arm to shoulder or hand in hand and stomp out rhythms and patterns. Israelis, so often at odds with their neighbors, also have a version. Dances are easier to share than territory.
The Times again, June 19, 2013:
The dabke is a line dance, traditionally for men only, often performed at weddings and celebrations in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian territories. But it is just Mr. Gotheiner’s starting point. Music makes people dance communally, and the sense of community in “Dabke” is so strong that at times we feel that we are on a kibbutz.
The Times August 1, 2013, in dance listings:
ZviDance (Saturday) Inspired by the Arab Spring, the Israeli-born, New York-based choreographer Zvi Gotheiner created “Dabke,” named for the traditional, celebratory line dance performed at Muslim weddings in the Middle East. (The title means “stomping the ground” in Arabic.) A free class in Lebanese dabke and its Israeli offshoot, debka, precedes this Lincoln Center Out of Doors performance, which is a split bill with El Gusto, the recently reunited Algerian band of Muslim and Jewish musicians.
Hasbara: First we made the desert bloom. Then we invented hummus. Then we came up with an amazing line dance. Thanks to Helen Schiff.
I guess that the reverse of “cultural imperialism” is worse. Shortly after the battle that saved Vienna from being conquered by the Ottomans, Viennese bakers invented crescent shaped pastry to commemorate the victory. When an Austrian princess became a queen of France, croissants became and remained popular in France, and since the episode of French rule, also in Syria. Now Muslim fundamentalists in Syria try to outlaw that decadent anti-Muslim pastry.
By the way, croissants were also noticed by the Israeli theocrats. Starting this year, the parve and non-parve filling should be indicated by curved and straight shape (I do not remember which is which).
Don’t forget the kefiyya yisraelit: http://jewschool.com/2006/11/22/11485/the-kaffiyeh-yisraelit/
It would be Hasbara if it was appropriated without acknowledgment and made to seem as part of a sui generis miracle in contrast to a nonexistent or inferior Arab landscape.
Looking for cultural purities (in the colonizer and in the native) is not only fanciful but simplistic and always in the service of a static and conservative world view. Food is the most appropriated and reinvented. Curry did change to what we know it as now because of its export to England and a world demand and ingredients from all over the world, not just Indus Valley. You can find California Rolls on the menu of traditional Japanese sushi restaurants now, (sushi being a Mekong Delta originality btw but don’t tell a Japanese nationalist this.)
Chicken tikka masala is now as British as fish and chips. It is not clear whether or not it was invented in Glasgow, though this is widely claimed.
British supermarkets sell chicken tikka pizza. In the US there are pizzas with Mexican toppings, and here in Australia we have Thai chicken pizza.
I use these as metaphors for the type of integrated society I want to see, as distinct from societies with separate “cultural” “communities”. Then I eat the pizza.
“celebratory line dance performed at Muslim weddings in the Middle East.”
It has no religious significance, ye ignorant. It’s also routinely performed by each and every creed and faith in the region. Every one!