Macron’s promise of African heritage returns faces setbacks

Seven years on from Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to return Africa’s heritage, frustration grows about the lack of progress and a crucial colonial bill has stalled:

it has been seven years since French President Emmanuel Macron announced his landmark plan to return African heritage to the continent. His November 2017 declaration in Burkina Faso that "African heritage can’t just be in European private collections and museums" reignited the global debate over the restitution of colonial artefacts. Since then, the journey toward restitution has been slow and challenging. In January 2022, France’s Senate approved a bill — proposed by senators Catherine Morin-Desailly, Max Brisson, and Pierre Ouzoulias — to establish a national expert commission that would be consulted on all future non-European restitution cases. This bill also proposed facilitating the return of human remains held in French public collections, a law that was passed last December [] .

 

(Tamilla Hasanova, 'Macron’s promise of African heritage returns faces setbacks Restitution or retention?' Caliber.Az 28 November 2024 )

Delusion of the Director

Dan Hicks @profdanhicks
a truly bizarre claim from the new @britishmuseum Nicholas Cullinan on @BBCr4today this morning that the museum is “a collection of 8m objects— and the number of objects that are subject to discussion or contested, it’s less than twenty, it’s around fifteen”

Well, for a start, he's obviously counting the Parthenon Marbles bits as a single "object". Their website (Contested objects from the collection) pretends they care, but washes over a whole load of issues and conveniently does not mention some items...

Trophy Antiquities Scraps Bolster Scandinavian National Self-Worth

The National Museum of Denmark, after “careful consideration”, has refused requests from the Acropolis Museum in Athens to return three fragments of the Parthenon that are currently on display in Copenhagen (George Vardas, "The Parthenon Sculptures: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” Greek City Times Nov 24, 2023​.

According to the Danish Museum’s director, Dr Rane Willerslev, the sculptural fragments are of greater importance to the National Museum than if they were sent to Greece, noting that the majority of the surviving Parthenon sculptures are divided between London and Athens and the three fragments in Copenhagen have “one particular role for Danish cultural history”.

Umm, yeah. It is materiual proof that the little peninsula and islands were part of the same European trends that everybody elae was. Oh whoopee.

France's Words, and France's Actions on African Cultural Property Restitution

In 2017, with much fanfare, at the dawn of his first term, French President Emmanuel Macron made a commitment to restitution of African heritage from France within 5 years. That was five years ago. In that time only a few works have returned, with 90,000 still held by French public museums. What happened? (see Feiza Ben Mohamed, '5 years on, where are the objects looted from Africa that France's president promised to return?' Anadolu Agency 18.11.2022)

To assess the situation, in 2018 Macron appointed two experts to study and deliver their recommendations on restitution of the African works. They are Benedicte Savoy, art historian and member of the College of France, and Felwine Sarr, a Senegalese writer and academic, who were appointed to examine the conditions under which the works could be repatriated and protected in the countries they belong to. But five years later, it seems that the restitution process, which requires a legislative basis, remains very complex, so that only a few works have been returned to their African homes. To date, no fewer than 90,000 objects belonging to Africa are still held by French public museums, according to a study by French daily Le Monde.

 

Germany Hands Over Some Looted Artefacts To Namibia

Germany Hands Over Looted Artefacts To Namibia, But On loan (Channels Television May 30, 2022).

Namibia on Monday took delivery of 23 ancient pieces of jewellery, tools and other objects pillaged during colonial rule, and returned as an indefinite loan from Germany. The return of the artefacts is part of a project to encourage rapprochement between the two nations. “All the artefacts were collected during the Germany colonial era from different Namibian communities,” said the Museum Association of Namibia chairwoman, Hilma Kautondokwa. The returned items were taken mostly between the 1860s and the early 1890s, she said. Hundreds of other objects remain in Germany.

The items were handed over to the National Museum of Namibia by the Germany’s Ethnological Museum of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The return came after three years of talks The previous year, Germany repatriated skulls, bones and human remains that had been shipped to Berlin during the period for “scientific” experiments.

Berlin Breakthrough on Benin Bronzes

 

Germany and Nigeria have signed an agreement setting out a timetable for the restitution of artefacts looted from the royal palace of Benin in a British military raid in 1897.

Africa Update Honours Indefatigable Ghanaian scholar-activist, Dr. Kwame Opoku

 

Africa Update Vol. XXVIII. Issue 3. Summer 2021

Editorial

This issue of Africa Update is a tribute to the indefatigable Ghanaian scholar-activist,  Dr. Kwame Opoku, who has spent decades enlightening the public, and the academic community, about the innumerable African Antiquities confiscated by the colonial powers, after their invasions of Africa in the 19th and 20th century.  Dr. Opoku has written more than two hundred and seventy articles on the subject, to date.

Dr. Opoku continues to give us specific details on the location of these artifacts, and what should be done to recover them. His presentations at high profile international conferences, and his careful documentation of individual and generic misappropriated items, continue to stir the conscience of diverse peoples across the globe who recognize the injustice done to Africa during the colonial era.  In addition to significant losses of population as a result of colonial invasions during the European expansionist rampage of 1884 and after, significant loss of treasure occurred.

This issue of Africa Update includes six of the numerous articles that Dr. Opoku has written, on the issue, including his commentary on the recent decision by Germany to repatriate some Benin bronzes, originally looted by the British and then sold by the latter to German museums. Special thanks go to www.modernghana.com for permitting the publication of these articles.

Ciku Kimeria, in an article entitled “The battle to get Europe to return thousand of Africa’s stolen artifacts is getting complicated,” comments on the plunder of over a thousand pieces of cultural artifacts by the French, during the capture of the city of Oussebougou that brought down the Toucouleur Empire in 1890 (QZ.com/Africa/1758619). In that issue we are also reminded that at least seventy thousand African artifacts are lodged in the Musee du Quai, in France; one hundred and eighty thousand African artifacts, in the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Belgium; seventy-five thousand African artifacts in the Humboldt Forum Germany; and sixty-nine thousand African artifacts in the British Museum.  Most of these artifacts were plundered or obtained suspiciously. In the case of Ethiopia, ancient manuscripts are scattered among hundreds of museums. Many were seized by the British at the Battle of Magdala, 1868.  Dr. Kwame Opoku’s passionate quest for the repatriation of stolen artifacts has been driven by his informed awareness of the past and present.

Africa Update thanks Dr. Kwame Opoku for his illuminating analyses and intellectual contributions to the discourse on looted African artifacts.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali

Chief Editor, Africa Update

www2.ccsu.edu/africaupdate

Table of Contents

African Treasures -  Kwame Opoku's Quest for Justice

 Kwame Opoku:   Berlin decision on Benin restitution

Kwame Opoku:    Church of England  wishes to return two Benin artefacts to Nigeria. Is that enough?

Kwame Opoku:    Is the British Museum outmaneuvering Nigeria?

Kwame Opoku:    Talking about Benin Artifacts is not Enough 

Kwame Opoku:    Benin

Kwame Opoku:    From Restitution to Digitalization: Looted Benin treasures to go online

 

Anthropologists' Private Collection Auctioned by Sotheby's

                            Tlingit robe                        

The ethnographic object collection of distinguished anthropologists Abe Rosman and Paula Rubel is being sold off by their heirs and in a few days will be going to auction and not kept together or returned to communities Sothebys "The Scholar's Feast: The Rosman Rubel Collection" 8 April 2021

"Indeterminacy in the Cultural Property Restitution Debate"

            Statue from Nigeria                   |
in the Musée du
Quai Branly,
Wikipedia

Article by Helsinki University doctoral researcher Pauno Soirila: Indeterminacy in the cultural property restitution debate

The debate over the restitution of cultural property is usually framed as the dispute between what John Henry Merryman defined as ‘cultural nationalism’ and ‘cultural internationalism’: the opposite viewpoints that argue whether cultural heritage objects should be returned to their countries of origin or spread around the world as determined by other principles. I argue, however, that the concepts are problematic both in their definition and their perception as two dialectically opposed sides of a dispute. This article analyses the restitution debate by examining some of the most important arguments and counterarguments used in the debate and by comparing them to the international law ‘New Stream’ theory. It is revealed that a similar indeterminacy which defines international law in the theory also defines the restitution debate, and that cultural nationalism and internationalism do not in fact provide answers to the debate but only function as two entry points that echo each other without a way to end the debate. Therefore, it is necessary to see beyond the two concepts in order to find solutions to the disputes.

"Therefore, it is necessary to see beyond the two concepts in order to find solutions to the disputes".... If somebody takes the bike my kid left in my front garden and I want it back, why are we quoting labels of "Merryman" and where is the "dispute"? Whose bike is it? Any "dispute" is not because I want back what was taken, but that the taker tries to find excuses for not giving it back.

What's really unclear is that this text refers throughout to the "indeterminacy of international law" without citing a single clear of example of the existence of any international laws (conventions are not legal instruments) at all referring to "restitution" (which actually also is not defined, is she talking about the Parthenon Marbles or/and the Euphronios Crater? How can you discuss a vague undefined concept according to non-eistent laws that dont apply to much of what is involved in this "debate"?)

This loop is maintained by the persistent notion of the oppositeness of cultural nationalism and internationalism, as the failure to recognise the nature of the argumentation has misled the participants and those attempting to find new solutions.

Who is using these labels these days? I really do not see how it is helpful to centre the whole argument on some equally vague labelling of the mid 1980s, which is basically what Pauno Soirila does.

The document Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationnelle by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, does not use these notions, but arguments based on ethics concerning the relations between groups and past power imbalances. In Germany, the return of African objects is taking place not within a framework of opposing object-centred models, but in the spirit of dialogue between nations.

Germany moves towards full restitution of Benin Bronzes

Berlin Museum Won’t Show Benin Bronzes, Begins to Pursue Return of Artifacts The Art Newspaper

Researcher gets Grant for Research into Artefact Repatriation from Europe

University of Birmingham academic gets £1.8 million grant to research into artefacts repatriation from Europe 14 Dec 2020

A researcher from the College of Arts and Law at the University of Birmingham has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant as part of €655 million (£591 million) funding of the EU’s current research and innovation programme called Horizon 2020. Professor Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, who specialises in global histories and contemporary art from the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies secured a grant of €2 million (£1.8 million) to explore 'Artistic Research in Museums and Communities in the process of Repatriation from Europe.' Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll said: The release in 2018 of the Sarr Savoy Report crystalised the debates that had been moving with increasing urgency in museums and international relations of restitution and repatriation. The REPATRIATES project is important as it will bring together internationally art-based research actions that respond to repatriation, to learn from exchanges between French, German, Austrian and British institutions and stakeholder indigenous communities. REPATRIATES examines how contested objects - whose ownership may remain unclear - can be exhibited sensitively. It develops strategies for making artistic responses to this material, to propose ways forward for the decolonization of cultural property. This research hopefully will aspire to shape a pan-European response to the complex political, historical, legal, and affective dimensions of the repatriation of cultural assets."

 

Stolen statue from Canadian University’s art collection officially repatriated to India

 

               Stolen statue of the Hindu               
 goddess Annapoorna.

The Annapoorna, a statue from the University of Regina’s collection that for the last 70 years has been in the MacKenzie Art Gallery there, will soon be repatriated to India (Stolen statue from the University of Regina’s art collection officially repatriated to India  Battlefords News-Optimist Nov 20, 2020).

The statue was part of the original 1936 bequest by Norman MacKenzie, the gallery’s namesake [...] MacKenzie had noticed the statue while on a trip to India in 1913. A stranger had overheard MacKenzie’s desire to have the statue, and stole it for him from its original location – a shrine at stone steps on the riverbank of the Ganges at Varanasi, India.

The statue is of the Hindu goddess Annapoorna, who is the goddess of food and the queen of the city of Varanasi. She holds a bowl of kheer (rice pudding) in one hand and a spoon in the other. 

When the current administration at the University and the MacKenzie Art Gallery were alerted to the documentation which revealed the statue as an object of culture theft, both institutions committed to take taking appropriate action.

France’s Benin Bronze Bill Approved

Cassie Packard 'After Years of Repatriation Debates, France’s Benin Bronze Bill Approved' Hyperallergic 10th Nov 2020

This month, France and the Netherlands took significant steps toward the restitution of looted colonial artifacts. In the Netherlands, the Dutch minister of culture promised policy changes in response to an official report recommending the restitution of stolen cultural property to former Dutch colonies. And in France, two years after a government-commissioned report called for sweeping restitution, the French legislature unanimously passed a landmark bill that would allow for the return of 27 important looted artifacts to Benin and Senegal. In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly promised that the country would return all looted artifacts to sub-Saharan Africa within five years. Macron’s pledge, and the 252-page restitution report that followed, were at odds with French laws and attitudes regarding the inalienability of the country’s cultural property.[...] The bill, which the French government fast-tracked in July, was unanimously approved by the National Assembly on October 6 and then by the Senate on November 4. The new law will enable the permanent return of the sword to Senegal. It will also allow for the permanent return of 26 of the Benin Bronzes, important royal artifacts that were looted from the Abomey Palace in modern-day Benin in the 19th century. The select 27 objects will be restituted within one year. The Senate additionally advocated for the formation of a national council dedicated to future restitution cases.

In the Netherlands, one day after the draft law passed through the French National Assembly, a special advisory committee on the national policy framework for colonial collections released a report commissioned by Dutch culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven that has advised that the Netherlands recognize the injustices of owning stolen artifacts and unconditionally return “any cultural objects looted in former Dutch colonies if the source country so requests.”

Jamaica To British Museum: Hand Back Taino Sculptures.

  The Jamaica Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport is moving to retrieve precolonial indigenous sculptures held in the British Museum (Jonathan Mason, 'Jamaica To British Museum: Hand Back Taino Sculptures', The St Kitts Nevis Observer November 10, 2020).

Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Hon. Olivia Grange, said that “as Minister, I am determined to ensure the repatriation of cultural objects taken from Jamaica, which constitute our rich cultural heritage,” [...] Minister Grange said the return of the artefacts “will fill the gaps in our history that are critical to the process of understanding ourselves and fostering greater cultural awareness”. [...] She noted that in 1981, the British High Commission in Jamaica had identified approximately 137 objects from Jamaica that were housed at the British Museum.[...] the Taino sculptures were removed from a cave in Carpenter’s Mountain in the parish of Vere, now known as Manchester, during the 18th century. Those objects are also called Carpenter’s Mountain carvings. “The objects are slated to have been acquired by the British Museum in the period between 1799 and 1803. They were formally entered into the Museum’s collection in 1977,” the document says further.[...] Hopefully some kind of arrangement can be worked out between the Jamaica National Museum and the British Museum over the future of these historically important objects. Perhaps a time-share arrangement by which the originals and replicas are swapped back and forth would allow for the artefacts to be viewed and studied by the largest number of people on both sides of the Atlantic.

British Museum's Stuff "All Bought and Paid For" Director

Hartwig Fischer said it was a 'simplification' to treat the British Museum's collection of 13 million historical objects from all over the globe as a hoard of stolen goods that can be returned because many of its artefacts were bought and paid for (Craig Simpson, 'The British Museum's 'loot' was bought and paid for, says director', Telegraph 27 August 2020).

Mr Fischer has argued that many significant pieces in the museum were acquired by less controversial means, including purchases, donations and treasure finds. These items cannot simply be sent back to their country of origin, the director said, and the legitimate acquisition of objects had to be taken into account. [...] the museum has worked to address its colonial legacy, and the issue of possessing cultural artefacts taken during the pomp [sic] of empire. [...] When asked why treasures cannot simply be handed back, Mr Fischer referenced the complex histories of many of the displays. Items from the Sutton Hoo hoard were gifted by Edith Pretty, the landowner of the site where the famous ship burial was found, and pieces like the Bronze Age Ringlemere cup were given to the museum after being legally declared as treasure finds.

See the text by Kwame Opoku: "Did British Museum Buy Most Of Its Thirteen Million Artefacts?" in Modern Ghana who analyses Mr Fischer's apologism.

It is depressing to realize that those who often preach the rule of law and human rights seem not to care much for the human rights of others to an independent cultural development and the right to determine freely the location and use of their artefacts. If the British Museum wants to discard its reputation as a citadel of looted and stolen artefacts of others, it should stop trying to advance baseless arguments and justifications for its illegitimate and unjustifiable detention of artefacts of others. [...] A large portion of the 13 million artefacts in the British Museum were clearly acquired under colonial rule with all the force at the disposal of the defunct violent British Empire.

Also, in the relationship to the debate on "who owns?", note the issues that it runs the Portable Antiquities Scheme handling finds for the most part dug and brought in by artefact hunters. Has legal title of the many individual objects the PAS handles been cleared with the owners of the property they were taken from? Or do PAS not really bother about title assignment and provenance documentation? 

.

Denver Vigango go back to Africa

Denver Museum of Nature and Science repatriates thirty looted wooden carvings to Mijikenda people in Kenya and northern Tanzania. "We should not be curating people’s souls," said Stephen Nash, the museum’s director of anthropology and curator of archaeology.

The Denver Post reports that the Denver Museum of Nature and Science has repatriated 30 wooden carvings to the Mijikenda people of Kenya and northern Tanzania. The museum received the carvings as a gift in 1991, according to Stephen Nash, the museum’s director of anthropology and senior curator of archaeology, but are now thought to have been looted. The long, rectangular carvings with round heads, known as vigango, memorialize members of the community who have died and are thought to embody their spirits. “Once we realized that we were curating the physical embodiment of 30 dead people’s souls, that’s when we said ‘Look, the Mijikenda never had a chance for informed consent like you and I enjoy when disposing of our loved ones. We should not be curating people’s souls,” Nash said. The original site where the vigango stood is not known.

Actor Gene Hackman donated the 30 vigango to the Denver museum in 1991, Nash said. When the museum contacted his representatives, they said they had no record of the transaction. Nash and Chip Colwell, the museums’ former curator of anthropology, believe a late art dealer whose clients included Hollywood actors and producers ended up with most of the vigango. The people who looted the grave sites likely got paltry sums while the traders who sold them got thousands of dollars and buyers got tax write-offs for donating them, Nash said.

Display It Like You Stole It – Museums and Ethics

Conway Hall Ethical Society presents:

*ONLINE*

Thinking on Sunday: Display It Like You Stole It – Museums and Ethics

Sunday 28th June @ 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

** This event will be held ONLINE. Please register using the “Book Now” link. **

** Conway Hall is a charity and we politely ask you to add a donation of at least £5 when registering. **

In a country that’s repeatedly failed to come to terms with its colonial past, led by politicians who seem to think the past is the future, Alice Procter seeks to resist triumphalist nostalgia with art history. How did the narratives of Empire come into being? Who controls them? And how can we learn to see through the whitewash to the truth?

“Display it like you stole it” is a call for museums to rethink the politics of display in their galleries. From label text to lighting, how is ownership created and dissent shut down? Who is the authorial voice here, and what is considered worthy of inclusion? It’s well past time for museums to be honest about their acquisitions history and how objects arrive in their collections in the first place.

Could Greece Force EU to Demand Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles after Brexit?

A European 'us' against an alien 'them' row may possibly break out soon on matters of cultural identity. It is argued that the EU could get tough with the British (possibly soon to be renamed "English") Museum after the Brexit (Philip Chrysopoulos, 'Could Greece Force EU to Demand Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles after Brexit?' Greek Reporter, 17th Dec 2019):

As Britain leaves the European Union, it is taking with it one of its members’ most invaluable cultural treasures. It is likely now that the issue of the repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures will take on a new dimension. As a member of the EU, Britain remained adamant about the British Museum’s rightful ownership of the sculptures in response to Greece’s repeated requests that they be returned. [...] After Britain’s withdrawal from the Union, the country will have to sign new agreements with the EU on a range of important issues. One of these concerns the realm of culture and cultural artifacts. And without a doubt, Greece’s ancient Parthenon sculptures belong to this category, and take pride of place in it. What Greece can push for now is the issue of the repatriation of these particular cultural artifacts to their original and rightful owners, regardless of any possible claims of legality from centuries ago expressed by the British Museum. 

Claims which seem pretty dodgy anyway. In 2015, the United Nations began an initiative called “The Restitution or Return of Cultural Property in the Countries of Origin,” which includes an explicit reference to the return of the Parthenon Marbles.  What Greece simply must do now is bring the issue of the repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures to the Brexit negotiation table. As a member of the European Union, Greece can at last take a hard stance and use its veto power in all future deals made between Great Britain and the EU. Greece could be able to force the EU to demand the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles as part of the Brexit deal. Keep the Parthenon Marbles in Europe, where they belong.

James Acastor on British museums and colonial theft

James Acastor on British museums and colonial theft.

“Sorry, but we’re still looking at it.”—@JamesAcastor on British museums and colonial theft pic.twitter.com/J29S3rKXFX— Dan Hicks (@profdanhicks) December 1, 2019

hat tip: Dan Hicks @profdanhicks

Sacred shield returning to Acoma

The Pueblo of Acoma will be getting back an object that they hold sacred that was stolen (Ryan Laughlin, 'Sacred shield returning to Acoma' KOB news November 18, 2019).

The Acoma shield was stolen in the 1970s, and its whereabouts were unknown until it popped up at an art auction in Paris in 2016. The shield was eventually pulled from auction, and the Pueblo of Acoma began a fight to get it back. The man who was unknowingly in possession of a stolen sacred artifact came forward this year and decided to give the shield back to its rightful owners. [...] The knowledge of shield's true significance is closely guarded by the Acoma people.