Although Climbing Mount Everest: Post Colonialism in the culture of ascent, may be considered informative to some, at this point in the class there was little that Slemon wrote that this class has not already discussed at length.
The subject of the ownership of Mount Everest is not so cut and dry. At the expense of sounding like a hippie, can a person really own a land? Land is immortal. How can people, whom will only be alive a short time, claim it as their own? There was a time when the Himalayas and the surrounding area were uninhabited. Since time immemorial, land has changed hands time and time again. The Nepalese and Tibetans just happened to the latest inhabitants. The only thing that keeps the Nepal and Tibet in ownership is a piece of paper.
In European history, all that was necessary for obtaining land was discovery and conquest. The British first ascended the mountain. Is this not discovery and conquest? These acts of discovery and conquest were nationally funded, while the returning climbers were hailed as heroes. I can see how a sense of ownership can arise, given Britain’s history and culture of colonization. Aside from discovery, westerners have improved upon Everest. Establishing an entire network of routs, ropes and anchors (apart from the mass amounts of littering and degradation of the mountain itself). Westerners use the mountain for their literary needs, writing their deepest feelings of life while on the mountain. In this sense Everest and westerners are spiritually connected with the Mountain. Some westerners use the mountain for their financial needs, such as guides, while others have taxed the mountain, as was the case when British citizens established a 2000-dollar toll in the Khumbu Icefall. The only reason that ownership can be disputed is that the mountain itself is not on European soil. With all of the before stated evidence and considerations, it worth arguing that Mount Everest is, by all definition, a colony. The thought of Everest as a colony is more obscure than every other colony in the world. It is not a colony any one nation, it serves as a colony for the entire world, and any citizen who can afford the trip. It is colony of any person who seeks to test his or her own grit against The Mother Goddess. Whether this is ethical or legal is irrelevant. These are the dynamics in which the rest of the world perceives the mountain. If Tibet and Nepal were to close the mountain to foreigners, adventurers would continue to view ascending Everest as their right. As we have seen, climbers have trespassed into Tibet in order to climb the Himalayas, and I doubt it will cease. Adventure seekers will always find a way to be a part of the region.
Stereotypes arise in people at a very young age; it is how people learn about other cultures. Stereotypes are embraced as elementary school children have heritage festivals at their school, where students from different cultures treat their classmates to ethnic foods and give presentations on each culture. To get rid of stereotypes in this modern American world, would be near impossible. For an individual, stereotypes can only be improved upon in time after interacting with people, traveling, and reading a wide variety of non-fiction literature. With all of that said the stereotypes of foreign lands during the 17th and 18th centuries that Said discusses are stereotyping in its purest form. Anything east or south of the Rhine River was seen as homogenous and dangerously strange. Said wasn’t even talking about school children as I was. These were full grown (supposedly educated) adults. I cannot help but to agree with Megan D., Orientalism is synonymous with classic Roman barbarism; that is the perfect analogy. Europeans, and descendents there of, have a knack for elitism.