Ex-European Colonial Powers Mull Restitution Of Looted Artifacts Prompting Museums Concern

More and more countries across Europe are now feeling ill at ease with artifacts that were obtained by them in the colonial era and now constitute the lion's share of unique pieces of arts exhibited in their museums

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th March, 2019) More and more countries across Europe are now feeling ill at ease with artifacts that were obtained by them in the colonial era and now constitute the lion's share of unique pieces of arts exhibited in their museums.

Most recently, on Wednesday, the culture ministers of all 16 German states signed an agreement, pledging to work with museums to return stolen or dubiously acquired objects to their rightful owners. The news comes after the Netherlands' National Museum of World Cultures introduced new rules for reclaiming artifacts pilfered during the years of the Dutch colonial rule.

MACRON PROMISES TO RETURN HERITAGE TO AFRICA

The issue of restitution of cultural property is a lingering problem that flares up regularly. Colonial powers used to seize works of art or cult objects in former colonies or in countries where archaeologists dug, with these works of art now exhibited in the most famous museums in the world.

The list of them includes the British Museum in London, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium (former colonial power in Congo), the Louvre or the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, containing more than 70,000 artifacts from Africa, the Pacific and other places.

It was actually French President Emmanuel Macron who revived the controversy over the return of such works of art back in November 2017. Delivering a speech at University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, he said that it was high time to bring it back to their rightful owners African countries.

"The African heritage cannot be a prisoner of European museums ... I cannot accept that a large part of the cultural heritage of several African countries is in France. There are historical explanations for this but there is no valid, lasting and unconditional justification. African heritage cannot be only in private collections and European museums - it must be showcased in Paris but also in Dakar, Lagos [Nigeria] and Cotonou [Benin]. This will be one of my priorities. Within five years, the African heritage will have returned to Africa," Macron said back then.

MUSEUMS ANXIOUS TO LOSE THEIR COLLECTIONS

The lingering problem has since predictably ricocheted in London, the British Museum, in Brussels, at the African museum, and in Berlin, the Pergamon Museum, to name but a few delicate situations.

The Pergamon museum, built in Berlin from 1910 to 1930, meanwhile, is visited by 1,300,000 people every year, which makes it the most visited art museum in Germany.

The Pergamon Museum houses monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the Market Gate of Miletus reconstructed from the ruins found in Anatolia, as well as the Mshatta Facade.

From the perspective of the Iraqi governments, already in the days of Saddam Hussein, the Babylon artifacts exhibited in Berlin, London and Paris were simply stolen from Iraq, once a British protectorate.

The situation is much worse for the British Museum, which houses huge collections of artifacts taken from all of the multiple former colonies in the days when the United Kingdom "ruled the waves."

In London, visited by many more people, the key demand has been the Greek request to get the Parthenon frieze back to Athens. The long frieze, composed of marble bas-relief depicting horsemen, sculpted by Phidias in the 5th century BC, in the time of Pericles, is in good condition. In 1801, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the sculptures of the Parthenon and transported it by sea to Britain, with the lord later claiming that he obtained permission from Ottoman Porte that had been ruling over Greece back then.

BRITISH MUSEUM: FIRST DOMINO TO FALL?

There are many active proponents of the cause of handing the Parthenon frieze back to Greece.

Dame Janet Suzman, a retired actress and the chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, said back in February that as a visitor she saw "clearly that the marbles are in the wrong place."

"They need Attica's sun to shine on them with the background of the blue sky. These marbles ask to be reunited with the other half of the frieze at the New Acropolis Museum where a place is always waiting for them. The Greek government is asking for something of huge significance, which has been taken from Greece when Greece was under foreign occupation; it is a demand for simple justice," she said in an article for Athens' Ta Nea newspaper.

British Museum director Hartwig Fischer, a German, a former director of the Dresden museum, in contrast, previously stated that "the museum will not return the marbles permanently to Greece." He however was very ill at ease with the explanations, saying that "there are no foreigners" in the museum since "this is a world country, this museum."

"The museum has to be completely open about the fact that there are objects from all over the world - that's the first duty. Take the history of the Rosetta stone [the trilingual inscription dating from 196BC that led to the deciphering of hieroglyphs]. In a nutshell, you have the whole intricate layering of curiosity, quest for knowledge, understanding, discovery and possession. At the same time, it's the 'Great Game,' the story of colonial and imperialist outreach and imperial conflict. And it led to the deciphering of a language that was hitherto inaccessible, and the understanding of Egyptian culture," he explained in an interview with The Guardian.

The British Museum's collection of artifacts from all over the world is indeed probably the richest due to the country's imperial past. The sections dedicated to Australia and the South Pacific, but also to India, the middle East and Africa are incredibly rich.

The problem is that, increasingly, nations want their objects back: not just the Greeks and the Parthenon sculptures, but many others too, claiming that their art was plundered by the British.

If the British Museum gives away the Parthenon frieze, it is likely to trigger a "domino effect." The museum would have to justify the acquisition of each piece and fight endless legal battles at home and abroad.

In the case of the Parthenon frieze, it could for example claim that Lord Elgin received the authorization and probably paid the Turkish authorities in Athens when he took away statues and the frieze of the Parthenon. The questions remains whether it could still be considered a legal acquisition.

The famous Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Greek headless female statue on top of the Louvre stairs, one of the most photographed sculpture of the world, or the Venus of Milo at the Louvre, may also have to go back to Greece if a Pandora's box of restitution opens.

The Quai Branly Museum in Paris � founded by Jacques Chirac, a former president and a great admirer of primitive art, � houses some 70,000 artifacts from all over the world, mostly collected by colonial France. In case of restitution, the museum might have to close doors.

According to culture expert Jean-Loup Pivin, European museums continue enriching their collections by purchasing pieces of art, despite the "shady" origin of some of them.

"When Western museums from around the world like the Museum Quai Branly want to fill the gaps in their collections, they buy objects on the world market, even if the origin is quite shady. This is amoral or at least anachronistic, even though France (or the US ...) does indeed have the financial means to make these acquisitions," Pivin told Sputnik.

The expert said that when the Quai Branly Museum was "making heavy acquisitions" in the 1990s, he proposed to it "to acquire in order to return to the countries of origin."

"Those countries of origin would have become lenders to the Musee du Quai Branly for a period to be determined by mutual agreement, the time of an exhibition or longer, until the country or origin has built a space of conservation with international standards, for the few who do not have one. It would have been a nice work of restitution, very pragmatic," he said.

The museums' authorities, however, rejected such a cooperation project, stressing "the inalienable nature of French public collections," according to Pivin.

"What a lost opportunity to buy back the stolen or dubiously acquired artifacts! Just like ivory, there should be a moral and formal ban for Western museums, to supplement their collections with donations or acquisitions that would not be discussed with the countries of origin," he opined.

HOW TO DETERMINE WHAT BELONGS TO WHOM?

French historian Benedicte Savoy, one of the authors of the report into restitution of cultural property, commissioned by Macron, meanwhile, believes that "unless it could be proven that objects were obtained legitimately, they should be returned to Africa permanently, not on long-term loan."

Sindika Dokolo, a Congo-born businessman and collector, welcomes the intentions of Germany and France to "decolonize their ethnographic museums."

"We need other countries and institutions to embark on a similar process of historical self-reflection. After all, institutions in Austria have returned around 50,000 works of art and objects from public collections to the heirs of collectors whose works were looted by the Nazis; righting the plunder of Africa's heritage should be no less urgent," Dokolo told Sputnik.

Some Africans, however, doubt the very possibility of full restitution of African heritage.

Simon Njami, editor of the Paris-based African art magazine Revue Noire and head curator of the 2016 Dakar Biennale, once described Macron's promise as "foolish," wondering: "How would one define what belongs to whom?"

SEARCH FOR FORMS OF COOPERATION

Commenting on the issue of restitution, Etienne Clement, a Belgian lawyer, who headed the Asia-Pacific Agency of UNESCO in charge of cultural heritage, meanwhile, recalled that there is a model treaty for the prevention of offenses related to movable property that are part of the cultural heritage of peoples, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly back in 1990.

"This is a model treaty that is intended to serve as a basis for bilateral or even multilateral negotiations for the elaboration of a specific treaty between States wishing to strengthen their cooperative fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property. States are invited to encourage the lawful circulation of collectibles between museums and other similar institutions in different countries by trade or loans or, in the case of existing goods several copies, by definitive assignment," he told Sputnik.

According to Clement, a good option could be to have a network of museums, including a leading European museum and newly created museums in African countries, "between which collections could rotate."

An interesting example in this regard could be the Royal Museum for Central Africa, just outside Brussels. It used to be the museum of colonial Congo, founded by the King of Belgium, Leopold II, who owned his "private" colony, Congo, before handing it over to Belgium.

The "colonial" museum hosted a large section on nature, on natural riches of Africa (mining, agriculture, forestry) and on the social structures of the African society in the 19th century.

The curator of the museum and the Congolese community in Belgium held long discussions, sometimes difficult, to come to the new approach and re-open the museum in 2018, with an enlarged section on the Congolese societies and on colonization, including its bad sides. At the movement, the issue any restitution has been out of agenda, since Congo does not have the facilities to host the collections in a secure way.

As of today, about 90 percent of Africa's cultural heritage are kept outside the African continent. In case of restitution many European museums would either risk closing their doors at all or losing many essential pieces of their collections in case of restitution, such as the Neues Museum in Berlin would have to lose the iconic head of Nefertiti, while the British Museum would say goodbye to the Rosetta Stone.