Glasgow to return looted items to India, Nigeria and representatives of massacred Lakota people in South Dakota, USA heralding the largest-ever repatriation of cultural artefacts. Rebecca Atkinson writes in the Museum's Association that Glasgow City Council has voted to return a number of cultural artefacts from its museum collections.

This includes the repatriation of seven Indian antiquities, in a move which is the first of its kind from a UK museum. Six of the artefacts were stolen from Hindu temples and shrines during the 19th century, while the seventh was illegally purchased, sold and smuggled out of India. All seven items were subsequently gifted to the city’s museum collection.

The council has also agreed to return 17 bronze Benin artefacts to Nigeria, having established that the objects were taken from ancestral altars at the Royal Court of Benin during the British Punitive Expedition of 1897.

As well as the repatriation of 25 Lakota cultural items that were sold and donated to the city’s museum collection by George Crager in 1892. Some of these items were taken from the Wounded Knee Massacre site following the battle in December 1890, some were personal items belonging to named ancestors, and the remainder are ceremonial items, all of which represent the belief, history and values of the Oceti Sakowin.

“The return of these objects from Glasgow Life Museums’ collection to their rightful owners represents the largest-ever repatriation of cultural artefacts from a Scottish museum and is a significant moment for our city – specifically, the repatriation of seven Indian antiquities is the first of its kind to India from a UK museum,” said Duncan Dornan, the head of museums and collections at Glasgow Life.

“By addressing past wrongs, we believe these returns will, in a small way, help these descendant communities to heal some of the wounds represented by the wrongful removal of their cultural artefacts, and lead to the development of positive and constructive relationships between Glasgow and communities around the world.”

Thursday 25 April 2019, Cambridge Union Debate 

This House Would Return Looted Art Back to its Country of Origin

Proposition:

Alice Procter:
Alice is an independent tour guide and art historian, best known for running the often sold-out Uncomfortable Art Tours, telling the ‘ugly truth’ about the artefacts in Britain’s museums.

Dame Janet Suzman:
Dame Janet is a renowned actor and director of both stage and screen and an Academy Award nominee. She is currently co-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, a significant lobby group working to ensure the Marbles’ return to Athens.

Professor Lord Colin Renfrew:
Hailed as, ‘The Great Restitutionist,’ Lord Renfrew is an archaeologist and Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. He is a former Master of Jesus College and a former President of the Union.

Opposition:

Dr. Kevin Childs
Kevin is a writer and lecturer on art history and has recently developed a series of pieces looking at the contribution to culture and history made by LGBT people over the millennia. He writes regularly for Independent Minds and the Independent.

Neil Curtis
Neil Curtis is Head of Museums and Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen. He is Convenor of University Museums in Scotland, Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a member of the Ethics Committee of the Museum Association.

Lewis Thomas                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Lewis is a third-year historian at Sidney Sussex College.

Below Dame Janet Suzman's prsentation

Mr President,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               The burning of Notre Dame should remind us all how much a building can mean to a people.

               Fellow debaters, ladies and gentlemen,

               I am here pleading for some exquisite pieces of stone to be returned to their birthplace. They have been given shelter for 200 years and now they need to go home. They can no longer be kept hostages to time.

              I am not the first by a long shot -

              In 1986, Melina Mercouri - in a similar debate in what you no doubt call the Other Place - the Oxford Union - was tremendously moving on this special case - specialbecause of what the Parthenon means to the Greeks…

               …means to the world.

               You might say all of Western culture is predicated on this building. It is the logo of UNESCO. Every classical building in the ancient - and modern world - springs from its genius.

               It's where democracy was born.

               And single-mindedly, incomprehensibly, a mere lordling from these isles cut bits off that edifice, which, so perfect in its symmetry, is a work of art in itself.

               The temple tells the thrilling story of the pan-Athenaic procession - carved in relief by Phydias' incomparable team - surging at a gallop round the entire building; Olympians and their creatures once adorned the pediments.

              These marbles were wrenched from a building that belonged - not to 'the one true god', not a tyrant, nor a king - but to the people.

              And there - astonishingly - it still is. After two thousand years plus it still stands atop the sacred rock, bloody but unbowed, and in the eye-line of millions of Athenians going about their business down below. It is embedded in their national identity.

              Imagine the dome of St Paul's sitting in Potzdammerplatz? A Stonehenge dolmen standing in the Tuileries - no, there IS no national equivalent here.

             I was privileged to have had a meeting with His Excellency, President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos in Athens last Monday the 15th April, while I was attending a conference on the subject of these marbles.

               He wanted to make a very clear point - that the Greek government has never asked for any other piece of statuary in any other museum in the world to be returned to them. And that it never would.

               On the contrary, he said - the Greeks are very proud that the Louvre has the Winged Victory of Samothrace - they are happy to see it there.  

              They are NOT happy that Elgin attacked the Parthenon. They want their marbles back where they belong.

               The British Museum, via the Dept of Culture, stays tight-lipped. That insulting silence is way past its sell-by date.

              The reply to the President's latest request to re-consider by the Culture Secretary prompts me to offer him this simple advice: "Do NOT attempt to 'follow the logic of restitution to its logical conclusion', Mr Wright". Museum acquisitions were not exactly logically obtained, why should restitutions follow suit?

No slippery-slope-ism allowed; each case on its merits if you please.

                              --------------------------------------------------------

               A brief reminder: Greece was under Ottoman occupation when Lord Elgin was appointed Ambassador to Athens.  

               Napoleon was invading Egypt. So, on the principle of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' sacrificing the Parthenon's glories to Elgin's whims was probably for the Sultan a mere bagatelle.

               However, exactly what 'glories' was Elgin allowed to take? Did the Sultanate specifically designate which?

               Proofs, if they exist, have hitherto skulked in murky clouds of smoke and mirrors.

               There is vague wording in an Italian transcript of a 'firman' - an official permission - in the Elgin archives - which give him leave to take 'qualque pezzi di pietra' - the word qualqueindicating 'some' or 'a few pieces of stone'.

               He was permitted to 'copy, draw, mould and dig' around the base of the Parthenon only.

              Dr Tatiana Poulou, an archeologist working on the Parthenon site today likened his depredations to the destruction by ISIS of Palmyra. That is, catastrophic.

               Prof Dimitrios Pandermalis, Director of the New Acropolis Museum, understates these barbarisms of Elgin's as: 'at least surrealistic…' as he wryly points out the upper part of this horse and the lower legs of that.

              Scholars have known, and further Turkish research has confirmed that there exist no permissions to take the friezes and pediments, and none to take down the metopes.

               Hence this headline in the Greek edition of The NY Times: Dated April 16th - the day after my meeting with the President:

               "Acropolis Museum director says Ottoman archives debunk the claim Lord Elgin had permission to remove sculptures".

               The historian William St Clair knows more about the smoke and mirrors than anyone and is soon to publish his further findings, and I think he won't mind if I say that the headline above will not rock his boat.       

                                             -------------------------------------------------

               Ladies and gentlemen - there is far too much to say about the manner of Elgin's acquisitions: his huge bribes to Ottoman high-ups, his trail of 'shattered desolation' - as a witness described the rape of the metopes - the ship that sank with the marbles aboard (Poseidon briefly rejoiced!), Elgin's bankruptcy forcing him to sell to the nation instead of hiding them in his Scottish pile. Yes…he had wanted them for himself!

              Elgin was a terrible imperialist, but the truly colonial-imperial act was that of the British Parliament in 1816 in recognizing Elgin's title to his loot by buying it from him. That Act of Parliament thereby claimed 'ownership'.

               But the BM is not a private company with a board of directors. Trustees are required solely to look after things entrusted to their care, not play at politics.

               Does culture exist outside of politics? I think not.

               Anyway, look, it's done. The BM has them.

               The hornet's nest of Ottoman legalities still unraveling leads me to dwell rather on the NOW, not the THEN.

                                -----------------------------------------------------------

               Post-World War II, international laws should surely persuade parliament to re-think its position?

               Questions arise: does an occupying power have legitimacy to dispose of a vassal nation's heritage for the rest of history?

               Should Britain own a mass of foreign heritage for the rest of time?

               The ownership title that Britain exercises today surely should end at these shores?

              The BM's Director, Hartwig Fischer, has developed a trope about separation being a 'creative act'. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? The Marbles are one of the BM's star attractions.

               The Rodin show last year re-inforced the marbles' supremacy in execution and their diminished meaning in isolation.

               The BM once said the Greeks couldn’t look after their own marbles. The stunning New Acropolis Museum opened all of ten years ago, with the Parthenon serenely in view from every glass-walled gallery. One of them empty of its own. But waiting…

               We can't put Humpty together again but now you can visibly link the two - a revelation for visitors.

              The BM is a great encyclopaedic institution - and the Aladdin's Cave of conquest.

               There's a mood abroad that it must wake up to.

               A revolt against colonialist attitudes.

               The violence of the "Rhodes Must Fall" movement at Cape Town University made sure he did. That's the blunt end of hurt feelings.

              The Museums Association takes a more nuanced and ethical approach. When the balance of power was so heavily skewed towards imperial authority, blunt 'no's are not enough, it says. Polls taken in 2012 are 73% for the return of sculptures to Greece.

               The director of the Rijksmuseum recently said: "It's a disgrace that the Netherlands is only now attending to the return of colonial heritage…We should have done it earlier and there is no excuse".

                Guidelines for their return, he suggests, intend to offer a framework similar to existing directives for Nazi loot claims.

               The V & A is showing an open mind, Macron is thinking out of the box, St Mark's horses are back in Venice, Sweden has returned Icelandic Sagas, Easter Island will have its guardians back, Nigeria its Benin figures - and look! - the heavens have not fallen!

              It is high time the BM showed us a heart within the beast. Make models for heavens sakes! - but do the right thing!

             In the name of fairness and morality' said Melina in 1986 'please give them back. Such a gesture from Great Britain would ever honour your name'.    

26 February 2013

Cameron's views on returnism not supported by BCRPM

Prime Minister Cameron's views on 'retunism' not supported by BCRPM and others too.

Sharon Heal for Museums Journal :

http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/26022013-cameron-condemned-for-lack-of-understanding-over-returnism-restitution-elgin-parthenon

PM's concept is simplistic and inadequate, say critics Prime minister David Cameron has been condemned for a lack of understanding following his statement last week about restitution of cultural objects.

Cameron was answering questions on a state visit to the site of the Amritsar Massacre, where British troops killed 379 Indians, when he was asked if he thought that the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is part of the Crown Jewels, should be returned as goodwill gesture. The prime minister said he didn’t believe in “returnism” and that wasn’t the right approach.

He added: “It’s the same question with the Elgin Marbles and all these other things. I think the right answer is for the British Museum and other cultural institutions in Britain is to do exactly what they do, which is link up with museums all over the world to make our collections, all the things that we have and look after so well - are properly shared with people around the world.”

But the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles has censured the prime minster for conflating the two cases.

Eddie O’Hara, Chairman of the BCRPM, said that each case must be judged by its merits.

 “In the case of the Parthenon marbles it is the probably unique demand for the reunification of the integral sculptured components of a Unesco world heritage monument, acquired in circumstances that were at best dubious, in an act of cultural vandalism.”

 He added: “The fact that he conjoined two such widely differing cases as the Koh-i-Noor diamond and the Parthenon Marbles, and the fact that he called the latter the "Elgin" Marbles suggests that he does not appreciate what a simplistic and inadequate concept ‘returnism’ is.”

 Additional notes:

1. "By the way, did Mr Cameron not notice the simultaneous outburst of "returnism" in the popular press at the removal in dubious circumstances for sale abroad  of a Banksy mural from a London building whose only cultural pretension was this spray on addition?" Questions Eddie O'Hara Chairman for the British Committee for the Reunification of the Partrhenon Marbles
2. Decolonising Culture by Christopher Price, Vice Chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (updated by Marlen Godwin)

Time was when European imperial powers assumed that theft and despoliation of cultural treasures from more fragile countries could be carried out with immunity.This is why in the 21^st century, the issue of looted art from the colonial era, refuses to go away.

Thankfully in the last decade we have had ‘movement’ starting with Tony Blair and the initiative to return the human remains of the Aborigines back to Australia. Italy has used the extent of their legal powers to promote arrangements with US museums to return disputed objects. At the same time initiatives and amendments to the Museum Law  also produced positive results for Holocaust looted objects being returned to ‘first peoples’ to whom they are meaningful and precious. UNESCO and ICOM continue with their efforts for a  global code of conduct over restitution of disputed cultural objects. More recently the European Commission is also planning to help Member States recover national treasures, which have been unlawfully removed from their territory by amending its current legislation.

Yet UK and the British Museum are sadly ‘stuck’ and this was reinforced by Mr Cameron’s comment that he doesn’t support ‘returnism’.

The majority of the surviving pieces of the Parthenon sculptures are mainly divided between Athens and London, between two superb museums: the recently opened Acropolis Museum and the long established British Museum.

In order to safeguard the ‘new’ reasons for keeping this peerless work of art divided between two major European cities, Neil MacGregor, the charismatic Director of the British Museum launched his History of the World and he has emphasised in interviews that the Marbles ‘tell a different story’ in the British Museum. A story that only suits the British Museum's narrative? Surely and as a sign of respect for what the ancients left behind, the best story that these sculptures ought to narrate is that which can be understood when they are viewed as closely as possible to the Parthenon, which still stands!

Research on museum visitors has concluded that the average visitor does not make meaningful connections between the randomly acquired objects held by ‘encyclopaedic’ museums. Indeed, given the choice between viewing the Parthenon Marbles within the artificial contexts applied to them by British Museum curators and experiencing them in the city of Athens from which they originate, the overwhelming evidence is that the majority of the public would prefer to see them returned to Athens.

Sharon Waxman in my opinion was the person that got closest to the core of the problem. She insisted in her book “Loot” that current “political possession” should and could  be replaced by “cultural cooperation”.

Although the British Museum trustees are not convinced, the British public (to whom the trustees are responsible) disagree. Polling results including the Museum Journal’s poll prior to the BCRPM’s International Colloquy in London last June, clearly show that there is a strong belief that the fragmented Parthenon marbles deserve to be reunited and seen as a whole in context  and with views to the building they were created for.

The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles now in its 30^th year of campaigning  believes that a solution can be found. A solution which would earn the respect  for both museums and would not be seen as a victory or defeat for either. This solution needs imagination from the museums and support from their respective governments.

The worldwide support for reunification would recognise that progress can be achieved and abandoning the relics of cultural colonialism will improve cultural cooperation, which in turn may have a far reaching effect on other sectors . Mr Cameron’s goal of increasing trade relations and improving  the economy and indeed earning him and his party more votes, starts here. It isn’t about ‘returnism’ Mr Cameron but about cooperation - a word that would instantly enhance David Cameron standing, not just in this country but globally.

Geraldine Kendall Adams reporting in the Museums Association writes: 

The UK Government is to exclude national museums and galleries from legislation that would have enabled them to restitute objects on moral grounds.

Under provisions in sections 15 and 16 of the Charities Act 2022, the trustees of national museums and galleries would have been allowed to seek authorisation from the Charity Commission if they felt compelled by moral obligation to make a transfer of charity property – a voluntary gesture of goodwill known as an ex gratia payment.

This would have provided them with a route to restitution, undermining existing statutes that prevent most national museums and galleries in England from deaccessioning items in all but limited circumstances.

The government says the implications of the legislation were not made clear when the bill passed through parliament.

In January this year, the arts and heritage minister, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, wrote to the Charity Commission to set out the government's position on the bill.

"The policy of HM Government is that national museums and galleries should continue to be bound by their governing legislation, precluding them from resolving to restitute objects from their collections other than in the limited and specific circumstances expressly provided for in legislation.

"To that end, we will specifically exclude those national museums and galleries from the commencement of sections 15 and 16 of the act."

The government is looking to bring sections 15 and 16 of the act into force later this year.

Some sector leaders, including Tristram Hunt, diirector of London's Victoria & Albert Museum, made clear that they would like national institutions to be given more leeway to return objects.

Read this Museums Association article in full.

An analysis of the issues around repatriation and restitution in national museums will be published in the March/April issue of Museums Journal.