I know that most posts I make begin with me pointing out that this week’s reading was something we have been vaguely discussing all semester, but we have discussed many things this semester, and colonialism/imperialism has been a large topic. Especially when dealing with the ‘golden age’ of mountaineering, when a first summit for all different groups of mountaineers was being made. Stephen Slemon writes that: “My thesis is that this language of triumphalism in climbing Mount Everest is predicated on an allegory of symbolic management for actual colonial relations” (Slemon, pg. 55). He equates the triumphalism and the excitement over summiting Mount Everest to colonialism and imperialism, and having one foot in Nepal and Tibet, claiming both countries at the summit of the Mountain. He writes “symbolically ‘the monarchy-of-all-I-survey’– sutured mountaineering to the principle of imperial paramountcy, and ‘Everest’ became the inevitable site for an allegory of colonial continuance”(Slemon, pg.53) Everest was looked at something to be colonized and taken under whoever was strong enough to summit the mountain. All semester we have dealt with the imperial aspect of mountaineering, whether in relation to the power held by the mountaineers in relation to imperialism, or by whether mountaineering missions were actually just a colonization pursuit, of claiming the highest lands on Earth as belonging to a certain country rather than belonging to the Earth.

 

Slemon poses the question of ‘post-colonialism’ and Everest’s belonging, by writing “who does Everest belong to?–becomes postcolonial, self-reflective, and brooding: ‘Who belongs on Everest?'” (Slemon, pg. 62). This brings up the commodification of Everest. With past readings about the price that climbers pay to climb Everest even with little experience, and hiring guides and Sherpas, should anyone that is wealthy enough be able to be a mountaineer on the world’s highest mountain? In my opinion, no. Everest, being a sacred place to the Nepali and Tibetan cultures, and mountains playing a large role in many religions, cultures, and people’s own interests, I feel like money should not be able to buy a persons way up a mountain, especially for environmental reasons. With the environment becoming a larger problem in mountaineering, and the way climbers are leaving the mountain, more thought should be going into “who belongs on Everest?” Slemon writes on mountaineering and commodification on Everest in saying “where nations join together in the making of freely negotiated but profoundly unequal commercial relations that produce overwhelmingly environmental damage and translate entire populations in service-industry providers” (Slemon, pg. 63). This shows the impact that mountaineering has had on the mountain as well as the population of Nepal and the impact happening environmentally. I want to use this material as well as other material in my final essay to explore further into the environmental impacts from colonialism and post colonialism that Slemon talks about and the commodification that contributes to this.