My mother refused to pay the (for us) steep entrance fee to see the Kohinoor in London. I was pissed off at that time but she was 100% right. The same royal family which stole the diamond, was now charging us to see it, having imprisoned most of my mother's older relatives and given them lifelong health problems.
Should artifacts be returned to former colonies?
- Thread starter Adisa
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Well that's the point. If we're educating people the motivation shouldn't be to point out how we perhaps weren't as bad as some other imperial powers - the focus should be on the atrocities committed because plenty of people evidently are unaware.
It’s a fair point. I’d agree the average person doesn’t associate empire with brutality, whether that’s because they just aren’t aware or because any knowledge they do have is from a European perspective. History is written by the victors after all.
It’s getting better though, there’s been a massive shift in the historiography of how empire is studied, and it’s often now studied from the view of the colonised rather that the colonisers, certainly where Africa is concerned at least.
Depends. These artifacts have historical value and their protection must be the number one concern with ownership coming only after.
If the previous colony now has a stable civil government and proper facilities to take care of the artifacts, they should be. If they do not, they are better off in whichever museum they are currently in.
If the previous colony now has a stable civil government and proper facilities to take care of the artifacts, they should be. If they do not, they are better off in whichever museum they are currently in.
Sounds fair.
Sorry, got carried away with the discussion.
Don't have anything against your points here, my main issue was with the perception of art today, which your post highlighted. People act like the artists only began selling their works recently (and that it somehow undermines their work's value) and before that the art was something different, purer and more important, while in reality the likes of Da Vinci or Praxiteles (you can put any name from any era here) cared as much about the art as they did about the money that they've earned making it. And timeless works of unmatched religious, historical and cultural importance, like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, required equally impressive fees. According to the researchers, Michelangelo's estate was worth 50,000 florins - about £35 million in today's money.
I was being facetious. Of course we wont ask for it, its part of history and we moved on.
I'm now on my 6th country of living/working. I've yet to come across anywhere that tries to be ashamed of its history the way the UK does.
I presume you've not been to Germany?
Send all bog people to Ireland
No it doesn't depend. These "artifacts" (which in many cases include actual human remains), belong to the people from where they came from. So who decides if the actual home of these art works is "safe" or "stable" enough for them to be returned? Because things never get stolen or destroyed in Western museums? The level of arrogance and snobbery is off the charts here.
Well, that's a bit differentI presume you've not been to Germany?
No problem and I agree with what you are saying. My main problem and the point of the thread is countries taking antiquities from a country that they occupied and several decades latter refuse to repatriate the artefact because it was taken in a different time.
Why would it be unsafe in the country in which it belongs?
I think first and foremost the most important thing with regards to the legacy of empire is truth and honest recognition of what happened, what the motivations were, and how we've all been impacted by it. Understanding these things needn't produce a black-and-white picture of Empire - indeed, if the picture that emerges is to be in any way a reliable guide to the past, it will be dominated by grey. But it can't minimize the costs, the violence, the exploitation, the racism, etc. or explain them away with whataboutism. The problem is that there is still quite a bit of denial and/or relativism spouted when it comes to these matters.
I think some may have the recent example of Palmyra and Nineveh in mind, where ISIS went on a rampage destroying ancient antiquities. Or the Taliban destroying the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Sorry, what?
The number one concern should be that the item is with the people who rightfully own it. The problems thereafter can be managed from this.
Point taken, but that's a pretty extreme example - surely? Both are terrorist organisations with political motives in mind.
Well I think the motives in each case were probably more religious - not they they see much of a distinction between religion and politics. But yeah, they're obviously extreme examples. I can't really think of any other recent cases where groups have explicitly gone out to obliterate their own heritage - perhaps China during the Cultural Revolution or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge? I don't really know much about them.
There was stuff like the looting of the Baghdad museum in 2003 due to the lack of security in the aftermath of the American invasion, but that was purely opportunistic. And there are always cases where sites and antiquities get destroyed or moved to make way for development, e.g. the case of Hasankeyf in south-east Turkey. The case of Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt is quite interesting actually - they did an amazing job moving and preserving the statues and the entire site really to make way for the Aswan Dam - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Simbel_temples#Relocation
I don't think it is. Imagine someone toddling off with a piece of Stonehenge?
I don't want to go too far on a tangent but I saw that Orson Welles movie F for Fake from 1973 and I always wondered how many paintings really are fakes in museum and private collections? If I remember that Elmyr claimed to have sold forgeries to museums.
I'd fecking celebrate if they got rid of that!
There was also a massive fire at Brazil's oldest museum recently that destroyed thousands of priceless relics. The museum was poorly maintained.
Look up the BBC show 'fake or fortune'. Its a really great show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_or_Fortune?
Yeah
All of which are valid, but of course quite rare occurrences - which is why i'm confused why the safety of these artefacts would be a point of concern when discussing returning them.
If anything I would argue that returning items which were stolen would be cause for celebration in the country of origin - and can be used as a pivotal moment in history to help preserve culture and boost tourism, as well as improve the facilities which they are stored in.
Plus if the threat is so great, then replicas can be placed in a museum with the originals being stored safely elsewhere.
Sorry, I don't disagree, just thinking out loud really.
On your last suggestion, it seems that in Nineveh ISIS actually ended up destroying a load of replicas, thinking they were originals.
Being objective, I quite like @villain 's idea of replacing everything with a replica - but I'm struggling to see where all the safe places for storage might be.
This.
My grandfather was jailed for around a decade and tortured for participating in the freedom movement.
Stuff like this confuses me. How can people take pride in something in which they took no part, regardless of whether it was a good or bad thing in retrospect? It's like being asked whether I'm proud to be British - I have no feelings either way, as I just happened to be born here, I can't take pride, credit or blame for anything that's pretty much circumstancial.Here are some specific questions:
Agree with you 100% mate.
I built a lot of the storage for the British Museum a few years back, feck me they have way more than you'd ever think.
Being Nigerian, I have a dim view of imperialism, obviously. But is not uncommon for nationals of former empires to be proud their imperialist past. Look at Turks for example or Russians.
A lot of it is driven by ignorance. My great great grandfather was forced to fight in British wars.
As for the artifacts, they should be given back. But I think there should be an international body that guarantees their safety or maybe treaties would suffice. I wouldn't trust our government not to sell it to some corrupt politician or it being displayed in some corrupt crook's home.
It's a shame really. I've been to the BM and the national history musenm in Lagos/Abuja. Our most important artifacts by some distance are in London. I think that's wrong. A trip to see them would cost the average Nigerian two years wages.
A lot of it is driven by ignorance. My great great grandfather was forced to fight in British wars.
As for the artifacts, they should be given back. But I think there should be an international body that guarantees their safety or maybe treaties would suffice. I wouldn't trust our government not to sell it to some corrupt politician or it being displayed in some corrupt crook's home.
It's a shame really. I've been to the BM and the national history musenm in Lagos/Abuja. Our most important artifacts by some distance are in London. I think that's wrong. A trip to see them would cost the average Nigerian two years wages.
Not surprising. The UK colonised half the world.
Maybe it's just being the former head of what was, until relatively recently, the world's largest empire then? The Empire took advantage of huge swathes of the world and today's generations feel less comfortable about that fact.
Yeah I was speaking quite generally tbh
Yep my grandfather had his land destroyed & gold stolen forcing my dad's side into instant poverty, other great uncles & aunts have their own stories too.
The effects aren't 100's of years old at all.
Presumably it would be on a case-by-case basis - but most can be preserved in a vault especially given their age.
Yep, all museums will. It's because a lot of what is found at archaeological sites commercially just isn't of much value to an exhibition but is archived by law and therefore needs to be stored at a museum never to be seen by anyone again.
I would tend to agree with you but to play devils advocated maybe it is because the effects of the empire are still present today? A lot of the commodities and our ingrained culture is because of the empire. It's also why I myself feel guilt in part for that, as I have benefited from colonialism in a number of ways.
Another thing that hasn't really been mentioned is the fetishism of indigenous artefacts and archaeology which is disconnected by many in the western world from the indigenous people, past and present.
It's quite tough to fool an expert, I'd even say that it's almost impossible. The problem is, if it's not a Picasso or Matisse, there won't be many experts that specialise on this particular artist, and no one wants to send a painting abroad just to check it's legitimacy (or pay a huge sum for an expert to fly in). Auction houses usually hire authenticity experts beforehand, but there are many cases when they were not ready to spend a huge amount on a real expert and went with a cheaper option.
It's almost impossible to pass chemical and physical tests that not only tell you the age of this painting but also, for example, the specific chemical formula of paint that the artist used at that period, but those tests are ridiculously expensive and they're never done unless there is a huge doubt over a very expensive piece's authenticity. Most of the fakes are easily spotted by a trained eye — it'll either be a random compilation of images from other works or a painting of a lesser-known artist from that same school/period with a little editing.
So it's all is about your resources. You won't find many fakes if you go through the best and the biggest museums that don't have problems with financing and employ the most competent personnel. But, obviously, the risk grows as the institution gets smaller. There is also a risk with international exhibitions — something that Ghent got caught in. They exhibited a private collection of Russian avant-garde artists and there were obviously no experts in Belgium on the matter. So, instead of going to the real experts, they decided to ignore the issue and the questions that were raised about the collection owner's credibility earlier. I suspect that the director was in on this though, and it was a corruption rather than an incompetence.
Most of the fakes go to private collections. Collectors are often more enthusiasts than experts themselves and there are tons of questionable influences around them that can offer you ill advises. Plus they don't often know who is the best expert on the particular artists, so they go to the first one, who may not be familiar with all the details needed for a thorough check. I know a lot of stories when the experts told the owner that their piece is fake and they did nothing about it — because that will only hurt them, so they kept pretending that they have an original piece.