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Repatriation & Museums

BP Protestors at the British Museum

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The British Museum & Collection Retention 27 A description of how the UK and other nations have argued to retain their collections with the help of international bodies maintaining the status quo of Western cultural dominance. image_header 1011072 2020-07-23T14:32:52-07:00
The British Museum & its government has come under a lot of scrutiny lately due to continuous rejection to the claims of repatriation. This is due to the increased cultural pressure over the years to reassess what universal or encyclopedic museums are for, and what they represent globally. There has been a fear for the last few decades that if these large institutions acknowledge the wrongs they have committed throughout their history in terms of how much their acquisitions are unethical, that the museums would be "emptied" (Crouch, 2010; McIntosh, 2006).

In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered a report be made about French museum collections and African artifacts, known as The Macron’' or ‘Africa’ Report. 'The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics' report was published in 2018 by Senegalese academic and writer Felwine Sarr and the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy. In this report the authors include several recommendations including a request that France should grant restitution to African countries that petitioned for the return of objects claimed during the colonial era. This is largely due to the results of the research speculating that 90% to 95% of sub-Saharan cultural artifacts are housed outside Africa. France similarly to the UK has laws that make it difficult to restitute items, as in their constitution they claim all items in France to be French and thus cannot be removed. Savoy and Sarr say in the report that “to speak openly about restitution is to speak of justice, rebalancing, recognition, restoration and reparation. But above all, it is to pave the way for the establishment of new cultural relationships'' (Sarr & Savory, 2018; The Guardian, 2019).
The British Museum's response to the report was similar to the claims they have been giving the public for the last 20 years. A spokesperson for the British Museum said it welcomed a “transparent focus on the provenance of objects”, adding that the museum agreed with the report’s call for the establishment of “new and more equitable relationships between Europe and Africa” (The Guardian, 2019). Similar to the twitter statement made by the museum after the murder of George Floyd and the protests thereafter, the museum stated that it:
"stands in solidarity with the British Black community, with the African American community, with the Black community throughout the world. We are aligned with the spirit and soul of Black Lives Matter everywhere”.
Much of the public contested that returning contested objects might be a good place to start. 1000s of tweets responded to the British Museum asking for them to return artifacts, petitions against the museum and related articles. The public demands the museum to walk the walk, to quit postering and to take actions to act in solidarity with where the museum's collections were stolen from (Vogue, 2020).
The authors of the 'Macron' report have compared the British Museum's response to that of an ostrich with its head in the sand, just another response that is just a spin-off of colonialism (The Guardian, 2019).
The reason the British Museum is able to reject the will of the public is due to several factors including:
1. The backing and protections of the British government
2. The Trustees cannot and will not act to change this cycle
3. The backing from ICOM and similar universal/encyclopedic institutions
4. Donors and sponsors are still backing the museum because they have shared interests of maintaining the status quo
The British Parliament has implemented several codes of law that protect museums and archives around the UK, the most important one is the The British Museum Act of 1963. This act makes it nearly impossible to remove any artifacts from the collection as the only approved reasons for removal are if its a duplicate, that is a fraudulent (fake) item, or that it doesn't provide an educational purpose to the public. This combined with the opinions of the Prime Ministers disagreeing with the very concept of repatriation leaves little wiggle room for the Trustees to act in opposition to Parliament.

As recently as 2009, it was brought to parliament to update the act to allow slight flexibility to be able to repatriate items and was ultimately rejected. Recent prime ministers have also been rather vocal on the dismissal of repatriation of items such as the Parthenon Marbles, and the Koh-i-Noor diamond (BBC, 2010).

In 2019, Ahdaf Soueif a British Museum Trustee since 2012, resigned from their post due to the unwavering stance of the museum on repatriation and the museum's endorsement of the oil giant British Petroleum (BP). She felt largely ignored when she would bring these topics up in meetings and discussion and felt she needed to take more drastic action to be heard. She is not alone as there are a coalition of staff who have been actively protesting since early on in the year when the deal with BP was finalized as a partner for the exhibits. The museum is making the appearance that without the donation and support of BP the museum would not be able to operate freely for the public which isn't true, say the staff (The Guardian, 2019).

Institutional support also comes from coalitions like ICOM (International Coalitions of Museums) such as the case with the letter of declaration made in 2002 that was to persuade the public to also reject the claims of repatriation then. The Declaration of the Importance and Value of Universal Museum is a letter signed by 18 museums directors in Europe and the United States which was published in the Wall Street Journal December 12, 2002. This letter is now hidden either deleted off of news websites and archives or hidden behind membership paywalls such as the case on the ICOM website. The declaration calls for the enforcement of the belief of universalism and that cultural artefacts belong to humanity and the public which can only be protected in Western institutions when that is not the case any longer considering examples like the Parthenon Marbles. Greece has a current place in their museum directly across from the Parthenon itself waiting for the items to be returned to them, as they have been asking the British Museums for these antiquities since 1834.

References:
- BBC. (29 July 2010). Koh-i-Noor diamond 'staying put' in UK says Cameron. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-10802469
- Crouch, Michelle. (2010). Digitization as Repatriation? Journal of Information Ethics 19 (1):45-56.
- McIntosh, Molly L. (2006). Exploring Machu Picchu: An Analysis of the Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding the Repatriation of Cultural Property. Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law. 17. 199-222. Retrieved from: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/djcil/vol17/iss1/
- Sarr, F., Savoy, B. (2018). Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationnelle. Paris 2018; The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics. Retreieved from: http://restitutionreport2018.com/
- The Guardian, Bakare, L. (21 June 2019). British Museum 'Has Head in Sand' over Return of Artefacts. Guardian News and Media. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/21/british-museum-head-in-sand-return-artefacts-colonial
- The Guardian, Bakare, L. (23 July 2019). British Museum staff express support for the trustee who resigned. Guardian News and Media. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jul/23/british-museum-staff-support-ahdaf-soueif-trustee-resigned
- Vouge Magazine, Tsjeng, Z. (2020, June 10). "Fundamentally, It's A Question Of Empathy": Why Britain Needs To Return Its Colonial Artefacts. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/should-british-museums-return-colonial-artefacts