Thinking Allowed - 29/07/2009

The 15th century mosques of India were built by Hindu craftsmen trained on temples. Shakespeare borrowed from Seneca and emulated Ovid in the writing of his plays, and reggae was introduced to Britian by Jamaican immigrants who had brought African influence to the development of ska which in turn had borrowed from American R and B. No wonder that Edward Said said that, 'the history of all cultures is the history of cultural borrowing'. But is that cultural borrowing a fair exchange? Are some cultures more readily imposed than others and is there any sense in resisting the influence of foreign ways of life? Laurie Taylor discusses cultural hybridity with Tariq Ali, Peter Burke and Angela McRobbie.