Hong Kong, China
Dave from Musings Under the Tenement Palms wrote a sprawling piece on how museums are a symbol of colonialism and encourage us to “spit in the donation box.” (It made me laugh,)
In the post he goes into how “rich white people” drive the market of grave robbing added with a few good links that explains clearly that the majority of ancient pieces found in museums were plundered and part of an illicit trade ripping many of those pieces from it’s original context and removing it’s archeolgical value.. but I will let him tell you about on his own:
This reminded me of an unfinished post I started writing in July 2003, after Tony Blair said
“I am sorry about that. I think that’s something that happened a long tine ago.” at a Question and Answer Session in Tsing Hua University in Beijing when asked about the looted Chinese Cultural Relics in the British Museums.
This was my reply to him on Glutter Version One:
“In that case, thanks for keeping them safe during the Cultural Revolution, when the country went a bit nuts and destroyed our own history etc etc… But now all that is over. Can we have it back? You still stole it.
“I never went to the “Chinese Arts” section in the British Museum because I plan to see them in China one day.”
Then loopy fruit III left this in the comment box. (Oh, don’t you just lurve the angry white male expat China Blogging Community?)
“The British also burned Washington DC during the War of 1812 and grabbed a bunch of loot. I don’t think we ever requested any of that stuff back. Spoils of war and all that. The Chinese, of course, are special – anything they grab from other people remains theirs. The converse apparently isn’t true, for are the Chinese not innately superior?”
So I started writing this, but somehow forgot all about it. I am just going to post it as is even if it’s a bit jumpy, all my thoughts are here. Also Dave already said a lot of the stuff I probably wanted to add so I believe between the two of us, we probably touched upon most of the points I feel needed to be brought up regarding the issue.
Looted Artifacts, the British Museum, and the Right of Owning Ancestral Remains
Loopy Fruit III left the above in Glutter’s comment box referring to my refusal to see the Chinese Section of the British Museum because I said I am going to see it in China one day.
This is one of my favorite topics: the return of cultural artifacts. Museums! Archeology! Colonialism! The rights of native people! Identity! And the other reason this subject is dear to me, is because the idea another country of power is holding onto your cultural relics is a signifier (symbol) of both the past history and the present relationship of owning one’s identity.
Firstly in regard to his snide comment about whether the Chinese is superior, the answer is “NO.” Nearly every piece of “imported” artifact in the British Museum is under dispute. The Greeks, The Egyptians, The Chinese, The Ethiopian, The former Iraqi governments and other countries and individual cultural groups have all petitioned to have their artifacts returned. Jewish families who lost their art to the Nazi’s during World War II, and found their pieces now residing in the Museum has also petitioned. All have been rejected.
This is why the British Museum is seen as the arrogant last bastion of Colonial Power by many, completely coherent with the history and reason for the museum’s existence. In fact, if you have been watching such things, as I do. It turned 250 years a few weeks ago.
It is the first public museum in the world. Created to show off the spoils of the British growing colonial power, and taking the best of the cultural heritage of their colonies to place in British soil. (Now, if that’s not colonial what is?) It was the first government sanctioned, publicly funded space that allowed the public to stare and gawk at different cultures and reinforces the concept of “the other” and the idea of British superiority and ability to rule the world.
Thus it could be argued that it was the first example of Institutionalization of cultural discourse on race and colonialism. You can argue the basis of Colonialism itself is, which I would concur, but much of that, was economic and religious, and therefore if we are talking about culture and public discourse (as in what the public thinks) well this would be the first time government money went into creating a formal place for it. Previously, it was unorganized and just floated around.
There is always a discrepancy between artifacts import and export nations. The countries with rich cultural artifacts have consistently been colonized by countries with lesser ancient history.
Due to the continual unequal distribution of power, some museums have decided that they will balk the ever increasing trend of archeologically heavy countries demand’s for the return of their archeological finds. Here are a list of 18 museums who signed a statement of non returning of artifacts.
The British Museum director Neil MacGregor said,
“The point of the British Museum was the belief that every citizen had a right to understand the world, the belief that only an informed citizen can be a free citizen…. That seems to me to be the same now as it was 250 years ago.”
Of course he is referring to the British citizen and those few privilege people who get to travel he world. Those who will never be able to afford their trek to London will never see the best of their own heritage. We can then purport it and take it a step further that the British Colonists who never willingly gave freedom to any of their subjects, therefore was never willing to truly inform them and thus never truly free still holds true today in the form of archeological finds.
He goes on to say, “It’s very important there be places where you can look at the achievements of all of humanity together,” he said. “The museum has always been about understanding how the world fits together.” He’s also right on that, because in order to understand who the world today is fit together we cannot discount the impact of the British Empire.
In relations to the US, it’s true that the country has not requested what the British stole from them (Which won’t be very old considering it happened in 1812, and that “American Artifacts,” are mainly pop cultural iconography but that’s a whole different conversation), it is also the US that is spear heading the trend of returning artifacts to it’s “home” country.
One of the first returned artifacts was the Ramse 1 Mummy, which sadly I can’t find the exact museum link for this. The museum of San Francisco returned the friezes donated to them from the Guatemalan temple of Tika, in 1997, on permanent loan. The US also capitulated under the pressure of Native American groups to have the remains of their ancestors as well as the artifacts to be removed from Museums, universities lots in 1990 and created and sighed the: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It was 20 year battle between the native groups of America and the more powerful institutions of museums and archeological departments, many of which are government funded.
The act states that gravesites and other artifacts with valid claimant should be returned to the original tribes. Archeologists are increasingly given only a certain periods of time to examine the finds before they are re-laid to rest.
And the recent uproar of the looting of the Iraqi Museum of History and the attempts to salvage the artifacts and make sure the remain in Iraq should tell you something about the believe that the public (or at least the newscasters and the archeological world) do believe in not scattering important artifacts around the world
That was one thing I loved about Italy, all the museums there was filled with Italian art. The best, most impressive art I had ever laid eyes on. It made me understand the place and it’s history so much more. My favorite museum in London was the portrait museum because it was filled with British works, and portraits is very much a British invention. It was the only place I felt like I was in Britain. It’s true I didn’t go to the Chinese Arts Section because I said I didn’t want to see it there, I wanted to see it in China.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
At the risk of being, but without desiring in any way to be, categorised as an chip-shouldered white male, I would like to respond to some of the assertions made in your piece Yan, which was as interesting and forcefully argued as always.
I also read Dave’s piece, which had the strange conclusion of exhorting Osama bin Laden to ‘get busy’ and ‘bomb a museum’ because museums are legacies of imperialism that solely exist to make money, and ultimately ending with the throwaway line ‘Spit in the donation box’.
You say: [The British Museum] is the first public museum in the world. Created to show off the spoils of the British growing colonial power, and taking the best of the cultural heritage of their colonies to place in British soil. (Now, if that’s not colonial what is?) It was the first government sanctioned, publicly funded space that allowed the public to stare and gawk at different cultures and reinforces the concept of “the other” and the idea of British superiority and ability to rule the world.
I’m not sure what source you have for that information, but the origins of the British museum are far more noble and less bombastic and nationalistic than that. The original collection was donated by Sir Hans Sloane, who died in 1753 and was commemorated in the epynomous Sloane Square. He was a collector, and wished, after he died, that his collection of some 73,000 objects be readily available to others. The full story can be found here: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/visit/history.html
The museum as such opened to the public in 1759. It was hardly a showcase for “British growing colonial power”; Britain was very much a minnow in colonial terms compared with the powerful and vast empires of Spain, Portugal and to a certain extent France. Its territories mainly consisted of part of the east coast of North America and some island groups in the Caribbean.
Instead the museum was a testament to the Age of Enlightenment, which has been sparked by the increasing knowledge of life and the world that came from the great European explorers.
(That is not to deny the achievements of explorers from other civilisations, especially the brilliant seamanship of the Polynesians and of course China’s own Admiral Cheng Ho, or Zheng He. His undoubtable achievements came far earlier than those of the Europeans, but notably China then forbade the construction of ocean-going ships, worried that the Celestial Empire would be corrupted and imbalanced by barbarian influences. The Europeans in contrast thought their knowledge would be enriched by increasing contact with other civilisations. Read a book on Captain Cook’s voyages for instance, in the 1770s, to see how his ship interacted favourably with unfamiliar cultures and how much of his mandate was to gather knowledge.)
From the ideas of the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment came the inspiration for a universal museum, that would transcend all boundaries, of nations and of class. As you say, it would be free and available to all. When you say ‘the public to stare and gawk at different cultures and reinforces the concept of “the other” and the idea of British superiority and ability to rule the world’, you create an negative image of Britons ‘gawking’ (a negative word) at the icons of other cultures and feeling superior. From where do you get such a negative impression — of barbarians — and why do want to perpetuate it? Do you REALLY think the institution, considered one of the best things Britain has done, was set up with such narrow, simplistic and patronising values behind it?
The end of the 18th century in particular was dominated by the idea of the Noble Savage, popularised by Swiss-French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau — that ‘non-civilised’ man is actually much better off than ‘civilised’ man; that Man is corrupted by society and cities.
From from feeling superior, Western society was feeling that it had gone wrong somewhere, and could learn from the more ‘natural’ societies it was encountered in its diverse explorations across the globe. I’m not saying Europeans, far from control of their governments, did not commit atrocities abroad. But not all did, and this was not the motivation of so many explorations.
Additionally, with the loss of its American colonies in 1776, Britain had very little territory in the world, and certainly did not feel superior.
Over the centuries, the British Museum has expanded massively through the donations of private collections, often assembled by individuals who saw the value of the objects they acquired before others appreciated them. Often they gathered objects abroad which were no longer seen valuable or useful there: the infamous Elgin Marbles are a case in point. Damaged and abandoned, they were ‘rescued’ by Lord Elgin who paid a fortune (which almsot bankrupted him) to the then ruling Ottoman Empire for their acquisition. He was motivated by a desire to save them, so that they might be appreciated by others and inspire them, not ‘gawk’ at them.
Again I do not deny some of the items held in the museum were the result of looting. But to say “Nearly every piece of “imported” artifact in the British Museum is under dispute” when the museum houses millions of artefacts is a gross exaggeration, unless you can support it with facts.
You say “I didn’t go to the Chinese Arts Section because I said I didn’t want to see it there, I wanted to see it in China”. You would then consider Sir John Addis, who donated his collection of antique Chinese porcelain to the Museum, an imperialist, a looter, at best a robber from other cultures?
Yet he had begun to collect in his early days in Nanking in 1947 when he was first Secretary, he ultimately became Ambassador of Britain to China during the Cultural Revolution. He saw the value of objects that were no longer appreciated, collected them and bequethed them, not to Britain, not to be the focus of some superior culture’s derision, but to share them with a world that would appreciate them. Should the Museum give his collection of 24 pieces, which he painstakingly collected over his career, back to China? (http://www.fathom.com/course/21701728/session5.html)
You want people to spit in collection boxes?
You say: Of course he is referring to the British citizen and those few privilege people who get to travel he world. Those who will never be able to afford their trek to London will never see the best of their own heritage. We can then purport it and take it a step further that the British Colonists who never willingly gave freedom to any of their subjects, therefore was never willing to truly inform them and thus never truly free still holds true today in the form of archeological finds.
5 million people visit the museum a year, most from abroad. For many people I know it is considered one of the highlights of their trip.
The British never willingly gave freedom to any of their subjects?? They gave independence to almost all of their colonies amicably and without a fight over a thirty year period. (Compare this to China — which is an empire — and its position re Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.) Almost all of those independent countries are still willingly part of grouping of former colonies, the Commonwealth, which hardly betrays a hatred of its former colonial master.
The history of empires is obviously complicated, impassioned and highly controversial. I’m not saying my perception of it is more right than anyone else’s. But I can’t stand by if history is being distorted to fit a particular view point, rather than a view point being shaped by history.
I like the British Museum, because it doesn’t venerate and celebrate only British culture. It places it within global cultures, and never implies that the British one is better. It showcases universal culture, and allows the visitor the chance to see the many colours of the world in one place. It treats mankind as multifaceted and complex. Were all the artefacts returned to whatever culture they originally came from, that opportunity would be lost.
So spit in the donation box if you want.
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I agree with Frostie!
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Personally, I have to agree with parts of both your essays. Although it seems frostie may have a lot more experience in these matters – maybe you’re a historian?
What I got from reading both your essays is that there’s certainly a dispute as to whether how much of these relics actually should go back to China. Now I’m not gonna claim I know anything about this because I don’t.. But, despite the evidence and the viewpoint frostie presents, I think it’s only fair to acknowledge that at least a fair bit of the artifacts in the British Museum were aquired perhaps not in the best way. I’m saying this not based on any specific evidence to quote but merely on my ideas of what Colonialism actually is and what it entails. It’s very easy (and even reasonable) to believe that in the past, many items were smuggled and taken out of british occupied countries unfairly (and for the worst reasons yan mentioned) and said countries deserve them back.
However, you also raise the point that a fair number (if not the majority) of the pieces in the British museum were in fact donated and preserved with the best interests in mind. ie: certainly Elgin Marbles’ collection, who frostie mentioned, if indeed collected in the best interests perhaps deserves in a way to remain in England.
But I guess this whole business about the best interests of collectors and fairness is a little tricky and very subjective…
Oh ya, and yan if you’re still doing that ‘comment of the week’ thing I definitely think frostie should win it 😀
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Yes he deserves to win comment of the week, probably the month, maybe even possible the whole of Glutter’s history. He even added links. Dammit! He’s not a historian he’s just too smart for his own good. Don’t you have work or something better to do than rip my arguments apart you horrible friend!??!! Actually, I am gonna sleep on this because although I can concur with some of his thoughts, I don’t with others. Which is which is currently being debated in my mind. Having said that, maybe I should back off and just watch Dave and him have it out. Where is Dave anyway?
Yan
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Right. I thought about it, I don’t agree although on the surface Rick is correct in the “facts” but it’s going to take time to write it all down. It has something to do with discourse analysis vs history, the creation of the “other,” the clash of idealogies. And the historical context in which we are debating and also in relations to what some of what post-colonial theorists are saying. Half of me wants to dig up some old essays so I have references coz I can’t remember facts too well, just the theory. Half of me thinks I am insane to do this. But this is of worthy debates. I will come back, (maybe in another five months).
yan
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Then again maybe the two of us needs to finish up the straggling merging boundaries first before we spend all our energies debating this!
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No I’m not a historian, I just love history. Which is one reason why I enjoy the British Museum so much. But I’m not saying that everything there should necessarily remain; and I’m pretty sure the museum has returned some sensitive Australian aboriginal artefacts along with other objects considered sacred to certain cultures.
One of the main strands of the argument I guess is more about the whether such a museum should exist. You can visit London and see world history under one roof (though it would take a lot of visits to the museum to see everything); or the museum could return all the objects which are not British (but to whom? Who now owns objects centuries and even millenia old?) to the countries that now exist where they originated from. That would probably take about a hundred years, and someone would need to pay for it.
But more specifically, looted stuff is a tricky one. These are the result of theft, whether in times of war or not, and it is probably better to return such things if possible as they do taint the otherwise admirable purpose of such a museum. It’s good to celebrate another country’s history, but not so good if you’re partly doing it with objects your countrymen stole. Beijing’s Summer Palace springs to mind.
The Elgin Marbles is another tricky one, and a very controversial point between Britain and Greece. I don’t really want to weigh in on who they belong to, as they were sold to Elgin by an occupying power, not by the Greeks themselves. Understandably, as they comprised part of the Parthenon in Athens, the Greeks want them back.
Yan you know I’m not having a go at you personally. I’m just interested in subjects such as these. Would love to continue the debate but I’m not really sure what “discourse analysis vs history” means. One reason I gave up history at university was because I found they obscured what history was with complicated academic language.
Am well up for the merging boundaries, but good to hear your trip in China is having such a stimulating effect on you!
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Oh, and pketh, thanks for your nomination!
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I still agree with Frostie
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Except when I finish with him. Frostie is going to agree with me! 😛
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I don’t want to derail this into a completely different discussion, but I wanted to start by saying I don’t think people should keep going on about things that happened in the past. I think this issue should be dealt with in the present (though, if anyone has a time machine…). I think governments have an obligation to make sure that certain artifacts, the ones that are important to a country’s culture, the ones that are part of the country’s identity, are available to the people. No matter how they ended up where they are now. If the country thinks they’re important enough – then get them back. For example; a few years ago our government bought the Victory Boogie Woogie by Mondriaan for 80 million guilders (over 36 million euros). Simply because it thought that it shouldn’t be elsewhere and in private hands. I think that was a good thing and that’s how these things should be dealt with.
There are two problems with this. The first is that the owner might not agree to the deal. Since this is an issue on a big timescale this can be solved by simply waiting for another owner (in the case of a country; another administration) who is more willing. The other one is the lack of money of the poorer countries, like Afghanistan. But if a country hasn’t got the finances to buy such artifacts in the free market, will they have the resources to take care of it? The artifacts will probably be better off elsewhere. (of course, you could see them as a source of income, but then you would have to treat it as just an investment)
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Hey, just a quick visit, not sure how much I can really enter the conversation.
First, my position is different from Glutter’s in that I don’t really have much to say about returning artifacts to their native lands. Though I was being facetious about bombing museums, I strongly disagree with the market they are not only part of, but basically give academic legitimacy to. I don’t think museums are so much for “making money”, as frostie said. Rather, the collectors like making money, and museums help them feel good by making their accumulation an act of charity as well as a contribution to a body of knowledge. The point of the articles I cite in my piece (New York Times, Village Voice, Muscarema) is that when artifacts are collected by grave robbers, they destroy archaeological evidence embedded in the site of excavation that often is of far greater value than the material dug up itself. But the idea of being “cultured”, of preserving artifacts and being “scholarly” is so strong that collectors are blind, knowingly or not, to the simple fact that they are destroying knowledge. Museums and auction houses court these “scholarly” elites, help to establish a marketplace that encourages grave robbing, and basically contradict their own mandates.
As for the British Museum, I looked up Hans Sloane, and he looks like a decent fellow. But I’d point out a few things about the Enlightenment. The Baconian project was to explore and seek knowledge, and that’s a very nice idea on the face of it. These same ideas would be the justification given for colonialism itself – the notion of “progress” that came out of the Enlightenment found itself in the service of Empire, because it was a noble duty to help the savages lift themselves up through progress, whether they liked it or not, and through which they couldn’t guide themselves through alone because, well, they were unprogressive savages.
The idea of the noble savage was a cute little fiction that found itself a perfect tool for anthropologists, who would simultaneously idealize a people, study them, and give that study to a Western government that was encroaching on their territory. The noble savage was a redux of the Garden of Eden, couched in terms of Christian sin – these savages were free of sin, ignorant of the harsh realities of life. What a crock. It was yet another distorted view separating the two groups, not both as human beings but one as human and the other as quasi-divine. Which was which, well, I don’t think 18th or 19th century people could ever keep that straight. Or 21st century from the looks of it.
The problem with studying a culture or people is that it creates identities for both the observer and the observed. In colonialism, the observer created both identities, and then the beauty of it is that both parties would end up believing it. Ever see “Cry Freedom”? Watched it last night, and Densel Washington (as Steve Biko) points out that the real beauty of apartheid was that the white South Africans got the indigeneous to believe the whole story that they are inferior. This is why Biko wanted to provide more examples of black achievement with no help from whites – to show to themselves that they could do it themselves.
Sure, the British Museum got 5 million visitors from abroad last year. And over it’s 400 years, was that typical? How many came from outside Europe and North America? While the BM opens its doors to anyone, those doors are too far away for most. Lots of museum curators are aware of these problems, and they have gotten alot smarter about the sticky issues of representing another culture to an audience that will always be primarily their own culture. But museums still have to deal with the fact they pick and choose what is important about a people, what defines them, and then put that in a display for all to see. How about selling off the entire British Museum and putting it in a fund to send 200 british secondary students to a foreign country every summer? Why stare at a case when you can be surrounded? Why look at the dead when you can talk to the living? Let other cultures tell you who they are – don’t tell them.
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Hey, be nice. My name’s John Addis, too.
I stumbled upon the John Addis gallery by accident while visiting friends my first time in london.
See: http://www.symphy.com/london/me1.jpg 🙂
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