It’s not really complicated because the British empire fell less than one hundred years ago so it’s quite easy to be able to pin point where things actually belong. You’re talking about thousands of years of history and we’re talking about things that were looted and stolen by conquerors over the last 100-200 years. It’s not unreasonable for people to want things back and I find it strange that some people think they aren’t titled to their stuff back just because you’re concerned they might look after them the same way.
Britain has no legitimate claim to the statue and should return it.
Thinking like this is perfectly legitimate. The interest of historic conservation should be first and foremost. We owe a duty to people in the future and past to ensure artefacts are properly preserved, this supersedes hurt feelings and egos.
Things should be looked at at an individual basis though. The Moai statue should be sent back really but the British museum has done an excellent job of protecting ancient artefacts from the middle east and Asia
I mean the British weren’t perfect, the reason Hong Kong was so good is because they wanted it to take all trade away from Guangzhou to weaken China so I can understand why the Chinese wouldn’t appreciate it as much.
But yeah British rule was much better than Chinese rule at least, which is eroding everything in favour of a new super shopping mall with a Louis Vuitton outlet at the one underground station where there wasn’t one!
I dread to think what even Mong Kok will be like 15 years from now.
I wish they’d get their independence but that’s impossible it seems.
I’m a lefty and regret our imperialist history but it was our history and every nation on earth has been imperialist. Now if the British Museum were to give away every relic it bought or took, it would be largely empty. As a history maniac I would be devastated. Britain is quite probably the most tolerant country on Earth, and the British Museum is probably the best museum on Earth. People from all over the world go there in thousands every day and get to view wonderful things in a lovely environment for free. That’s a pretty amazing thing. Now I’d return a Maori statue perhaps in return for something else from the New Zealand government on account of the cultural genocide against the Maori, but I would not give anything to a country like Egypt or China. There is neither a legal or moral case for doing so.
I can get with the object by object or country by country notion. It’s the type of language sometimes used in these discussions (to the victor belongs the spoils f.e.) that’s just weird to me in the historical context.
If I may use another example; what is your position, and of others, on Jewish possessions and how they have been acquired in WW II? And when Jewish people put a claim on that? Would we apply the same logic? I use that example because I think that brings it maybe a bit closer to home.
I’m not sure it’s entirely analogous because where would the objects be returned to? Israel? I think Jewish objects (presumably you mean pertaining to the Holocaust?) displayed in German museums is probably a very good idea. We have quite a few in the Imperial War Museum in the Holocaust Wing, and even though that wing is a bit weird considering its a museum about the British military, its easily it’s best exhibit and it’s a powerful place to visit. Given how many people visit it I think its a good place to show them.
Stolen personal items should be returned to descendants, entirely correct.
Probably. I doubt there are many countries who haven’t had some kind of empire / kingdom or been part of one, or complicit in one in the last 2-300 years.
This stuff is getting out of hand, isn’t it? I tend to hold a view half way between the structuralist who recognises that we really need to locate these youths in a better environment, which is deeply rooted in money and therefore class, and the need for personal responsibility. But how to generate that when the structural problems are so bad? I think perhaps we need something like military service only without the military, a way of getting these youths out of their environment for a while, so they can develop new interests, friendships, a way of thinking, but also with some kind of discipline. Of course that would also cost money, whatever it would look like. Aside from eliminating poverty there has to be something more we can do than prison and underfunded outreach. (Of course stable families etc. plays a big part, but I don’t know how on earth to go about fixing that. More good male role models in school might help a little bit. I also think if schools weren’t so under funded and time consumed they might also be able to do more in educating parents, especially while the children are young and in the formative stage of development).