The return of cultural relics from various countries to their homeland is obstructed and long: who are the model students and poor students?

France returns 26 cultural relics looted during the colonial era to Benin Britain returns cultural relics to Nigeria twice in a week The United States returned more than 17,000 looted cultural relics to Iraq In this wave of world boom in the return of cultural relics, who is the "class teacher", who is the model student and the poor student?

The return of cultural relics from various countries to their homeland is obstructed and long

◎ Wu Bingcong

The return of cultural relics has been a hot topic in international cultural circles recently: in November, France returned 26 cultural relics to Benin, and hundreds of local people sang and danced at the airport to welcome the cultural relics that were plundered by the French army 129 years ago back to their hometowns. Previously, the United States returned more than 17,000 looted artifacts to Iraq. Germany will also return a batch of artifacts to Nigeria next year.

The return of cultural relics to their hometowns makes the local people rejoice, but for the former powers, it is a change of thinking that has undergone several twists and turns, some people have strongly supported, and some people have even ignored them. Behind the displacement of cultural relics, in addition to the historical reasons of war and colonization, there are also the real challenges of illegal theft of cultural relics and underground circulation, and urging these cultural relics to return to their homeland is the direction of the United Nations' efforts. It takes time and effort for countries to strive for the permanent return of cultural relics, and even if they resort to legal means, they still need to wait and negotiate for a long time. There are also ancient human remains that have been plundered for many years, and it is difficult to return home for many years, so letting human ancestors go home has become an important topic in the field of cultural relics return.

Cultural relics return boom Some people are active and some people are entangled

The return of cultural relics is a hot topic recently, and former powers such as France, Britain, the United States, and Germany have all made the return list. In this wave of world boom in the return of cultural relics, the new trend of historical development and the reflection of some countries on the history of war and colonization have made the return of cultural relics the mainstream, and the governments and museums of various countries have been highly exposed, but the voices of embarrassment and hesitation have also followed.

CNN reported on October 31 this year that the UK held two ceremonies in a week to return previously looted artifacts to Nigeria: at Cambridge University, a bronze statue of a rooster was officially returned to the National Museum of Nigeria and the Commission on Monuments, and the University of Aberdeen also subsequently returned a sculpture depicting the head of the King of Benin.

Successive returns have put pressure on large academic and cultural institutions such as the British Museum, which is calling on the British Museum to return more than 900 bronzes from its collection. In a statement sent to CNN, the museum said it "understands and recognizes the importance of the issue of the return of artifacts" and will continue to work to "share our collection as widely as possible." The statement appears impeccable in terms of political correctness, but the rhetoric in it is worth considering.

CNN believes that the demand for the return of the artifacts in batches is disturbing for the museum, after all, the British Museum also houses other world-famous stolen artifacts, such as a series of ancient sculptures looted from Athens, the Parthenon Marble Relief. In this regard, the "Voice of Germany" said in the report that the collections of museums in Various European countries are facing a major reshuffle, and it is a difficult process to let the former European powers face history and start dialogue.

CNN reporter Luke McGee said in the report that the British government believes that the British Museum is the best home for bronzes, where more people can appreciate these artifacts, and the collection is placed in large and advanced museums in developed cities, so that they have the best maintenance conditions.

Such arguments have also been refuted by some members of the population, who considered such claims to be extremely insulting and completely immersed in the original British Empire's mindset. "This logic suggests that Nigeria is a poorer country that cannot properly preserve artifacts stolen by the colonialists, even though It has a state-of-the-art museum waiting for them." It's a classic racist argument that The UK is a refined and knowledgeable place. Coschinder Andrews, a professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, said.

It is worth noting that in November this year, France returned 26 cultural relics to Benin by the media of various countries, and the return of cultural relics was warmly welcomed by the people of Benin, and France has become a model student in the cultural circle because of its positive attitude towards the return of cultural relics since 2017.

In his November 2017 speech, French President Emmanuel Macron called for "creating conditions for the temporary or permanent return of African heritage to Africa". On the official website of the French Foreign Ministry, the policy advocacy article begins by pointing out the necessity of returning cultural relics. "The public collections in France reflect the history of France, including colonial history. This has led to some of Africa's cultural heritage located outside Africa, depriving African citizens of access to their traditional cultures. ”

Aware of this problem, the French Government wishes to return cultural heritage belonging to Africa to its homeland and takes the opportunity to strengthen cooperation with cultural heritage in all African countries, such as investment in heritage conservation and the development of short-term training programmes for researchers specializing in African cultural heritage.

Helping to return cultural relics to their homeland and assisting in the cultural reconstruction of the former colony sparked popular discussion. Did the former powers sincerely repent and face history, or did they do face projects to build the image of a strong country? For the home country of cultural relics, it is more worthy of attention for the big countries not to simply return cultural relics to cover up the "black history" of the past, but to face up to the social problems derived from colonial history.

Pushing artifacts back home The United Nations has been in action

UNESCO has long been committed to promoting the return of colonial cultural relics to their homeland, which has led to the introduction of three important conventions on the return and protection of cultural heritage. As early as 1954, the Convention for the Protection of cultural heritage in the Event of Armed Conflict was published, which confronted the looting of museums by invading armies during World War II and worked to promote the return of stolen cultural relics in wartime to their owners.

By 1970, in the face of the international situation in which more colonial countries had gained independence, the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Heritage had been introduced, urging States parties to take measures to prohibit and prevent illicit trafficking in cultural heritage. The Convention has been so far-reaching, with 141 countries becoming parties to date and is considered to be fully consistent with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

In 1995, the Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects was launched, which builds on the previous Conventions with further detailed provisions on the return of stolen cultural objects and the restitution of illegally exported cultural objects. At this point, the legal provisions to combat illegal trafficking in cultural heritage have been perfected. The Convention also covers unregistered and undeclared stolen cultural heritage and provides that all stolen items must be returned.

On the road to promoting the return of cultural relics, if the United Nations is the "class teacher" who formulates conventions and coordinates the return of countries, then the Netherlands is a model student in last year's final examination. The report published on UNESCO's official website specifically praised the Dutch for actively reflecting on colonial history and returning the short sword to Indonesia.

The report said that the Netherlands "dared to be the first in the world", of which the National Museum of World Cultures made the most outstanding contribution. In 2014, the Dutch Foreign Ministry revoked funding for the Dutch Tropical Museum, which merged with the Museum of Ethnology and the African Museum to form the National Museum of World Cultures. At a time when the museum is facing the transformation of the whole group, the cultural relics managers have also begun a deep introspection. "This crisis has sounded the alarm for all institutions, prompting us to start questioning our own colonial history and making us realize that there are many questions we can ask about identity, control, power, inequality and decolonization," said Stigm Schöndwald, director of the National Museum of World Cultures. ”

Later, in 2016, researcher Joss van Burden published his English-language doctoral dissertation, "Entrusting Treasures to Trustworthy People: Negotiating the Future of Colonial Artifacts," which injected new impetus into the discussion in the Netherlands about the destabilization of colonial-era artworks.

Driven by such an academic trend, in 2017, the National Museum of World Cultures of the Netherlands began to formulate a "Guide to the Return of Cultural Relics". On March 7, 2019, a document titled "Return of Cultural Objects: Principles and Processes" was made public. The document states that "the overall task of the museum is to clarify the complex, chaotic and long history that gave them access to the present collections". At the same time, the document "commits to a transparent approach to handling and assessing requests for the return of cultural relics in accordance with the criteria of respect, cooperation and timeliness".

The Dutch National Museum of World Cultures' new policy on the return of cultural relics has received a positive public response, but the curator Schöndwald still worries that if the relevant policy on the return of cultural relics is formulated at the national level, it may cause dissatisfaction among far-right groups and take the opportunity to incite nationalist sentiment.

The illegal trafficking of cultural relics is the main cause of the displacement of cultural relics in the new era

For decades, the United Nations has advocated and persuaded not only to bring cultural relics home, but also to combat the increasingly rampant tomb robbery and illegal sale of cultural relics. On the table, government agencies and museums began to reflect on the history of colonization and war, pushing cultural relics home, but the displacement of cultural relics in the new era was caused by a large number of underground transactions and illegal excavations.

In its promotional article, UNESCO said that in the 51 years since the 1970 Convention was introduced, UNESCO has been working to raise public awareness of the risks involved in illicit trafficking in cultural objects and to assist States parties in developing laws and precautions to encourage the return of cultural heritage that has been illegally transferred.

In the autumn of 2019, two cross-border pursuits of smuggled cultural relics were launched in cooperation with the World Customs Organization, the International Criminal Police Organization, Europol and the Spanish SWAT team. In an international operation spanning more than 100 countries, police seized coins, ancient weapons, ceramics, fossils and paintings from different historical periods, and 971 Afghan artifacts were intercepted at Afghan customs at Kabul airport alone. In Madrid, Spain, a number of precious artifacts from the pre-Columbian period (before 1492) were seized, including a unique Tumáco gold mask.

The two transnational chases have seized more than 19,000 pieces of archaeological relics and other works of art, and the number of items seized is so large that the public understands that the illegal flow of cultural relics in recent decades has been rampant. The lucrative art market attracted unscrupulous participants, with mafia and terrorist groups increasingly involved in the illegal trade in antiquities as a way to launder money or finance terrorist activities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also exacerbated the theft and smuggling of artifacts, with teams working on antique trafficking and heritage anthropology noting a resurgence of the sale of stolen artifacts on social media, predominantly from the Middle East and North Africa, at the height of the pandemic in 2020. As a unesco partner, the research team conducted a survey that prompted the Facebook platform to start banning users from trading historical artifacts online.

The pursuit and crackdown on cultural relics dealers and the sending of cultural relics home have always been joint plans. In August, the United States returned more than 17,000 previously looted artifacts to Iraq, the largest ever repatriation of artifacts to Iraq, CNN reported. After all, "since the U.S. invasion in 2003, a large part of Iraq's cultural heritage has been plundered and sold." ”

Over the past 20 years, wars and upheavals have led to the displacement of thousands of artifacts from Iraq's temples, archaeological sites and even museums and into the international art market, CNN concluded. During the Iraq Civil War from 2014 to 2017, forces stole and smuggled many ancient artifacts to finance their war operations.

The cultural heritage of the Mesopotamian plains has thus unwittingly spread around the world, with some of it entering online trading sites or, after several turns, finally appearing at some art auctions. A cuneiform tablet inscribed with the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is 3,500 years old, entered the United States in 2003 through an antique dealer, but was not legally declared at the time. Over the past decade, the artifact has changed hands several times, eventually seized by the judiciary from the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., and ordered it confiscated by federal court in New York and included it in the list of artifacts returned to Iraq.

"Institutional arrogance" makes "ancestors come home" is also a long way

The Uk's "Archaeology and Contemporary Society" popular science website summarizes several possible ways to return cultural relics, including recovering the ownership of cultural relics through friendly negotiations, resorting to legal channels to prevent the circulation and sale of cultural relics, borrowing cultural relics to return them to their home countries for exhibition, and purchasing donations through personal actions. But no matter which path you look at, it is a protracted war for the home country of cultural relics.

The Los Angeles Times chronicled the return of influential artifacts in 1993, when Greece first legally recovered a shipment of ancient jewelry from dealers in New York. The public case of returning cultural relics has become a typical example of the early legal demand for the return of cultural relics, but whether Greece's demand for the return of cultural relics has been extended and whether cultural relics dealers can be hit, the public case does not seem to give a clear answer.

In the village of Adonia in southern Greece, a 3,500-year-old tomb was stolen by tomb thieves, and the gold jewelry, crowns and jewelry in the tomb were transported out of the tomb and used the nearby village as a circulation station, gradually entering the markets of Munich and New York. After several turns, the shipment fell into the hands of a gallery merchant with the status of a scholar, who coincidentally was working for the government's investigation team to prevent art smuggling. After the treasures were to be auctioned at the Michael Ward Gallery in Manhattan in 1993, american experts familiar with Greek archaeology saw on the news that they must have been lost Aidonia jewelry because their ornaments were highly consistent with the museum's collections.

Athens could not sit still when it heard the news, and the Greek government issued an ultimatum to the gallery through lawyers, saying that the artifacts belonged to Greece and asked to stop selling and return them as soon as possible.

Greece is far from the first to make such a request from a country with a rich heritage but an underdeveloped economy, according to the Los Angeles Times. Previously, Thailand, Turkey and other countries had made demands for the return of cultural relics to the United States through governments, scholars and public opinion. However, in this kind of dispute, it is very difficult to get the cultural relics home. While anti-smuggling laws in home countries of antiquities play a large role in protecting heritage, laws in wealthy collecting countries often emphasize the protection of free markets and buyers. The Los Angeles Times report quoted Boston University scholar Elia as saying: "These smuggled artifacts were illegal when they first circulated in the country of origin (such as Greece), but were eventually legalized through money laundering procedures." ”

In the Ethiopian Jewelry case, the Michael Ward Gallery initially denied the allegations and refused to return the jewelry, and Greece filed a lawsuit. As the pretrial investigation progressed, the gallery proposed a new settlement: donate the jewels to the nonprofit charitable organization Greek Heritage Preservation Society, which then freely returned the jewels to Greece. Still, even after the artifacts were returned, the gallery told the media that the jewels were not stolen. For galleries, social donations are a great way to both preserve their reputation and avoid financial losses — they can both avoid the potential embarrassment of returning the jewelry directly to Greece and receive about $150,000 in tax breaks through donations that offset the purchase price of the jewelry.

For Greece, out-of-court reconciliation is mixed. Greek officials said they were happy to get the jewels back, but with no formal trial in court, they lost their only chance to learn how the Edonia jewels flowed into New York.

According to the website Archaeology and Contemporary Society, countries solemnly demand the return of their cultural relics on four levels: First, after the end of war and colonial history, cultural relics are a core part of the formation of a new sovereign state identity. Second, countries use their cultural heritage to tell their own wonderful stories and build their cultural image. In addition, having cultural treasures can support tourism and promote sustainable economic development. Finally, it is a matter of dignity to take back what belongs to you.

Among the various cultural relics that have been recovered, the remains of human ancestors are more unique. For early colonists and scientists, the remains were "artifacts" that examined the culture of ancient societies, but for some people, they were just ancestors far away from their homeland. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) said in a 2020 report that "returning the human body" is still an important issue in 2020, and that people around the world are still fighting for the return of ancestral remains.

In 2020, an academic conference at the University of British Columbia in Canada provided an opportunity for Indigenous peoples from around the world to discuss the return of their artifacts and ancestral remains. Indigenous peoples from Canada, the United States, Nicaragua and New Zealand participated in the meeting. During the meeting, New Zealand team leader Harivini said: "Unfortunately, artifacts and human remains were taken from sacred treasures by invaders and traded for value enhancement and circulation through colonial museums around the world. In New Zealand, the looting of ancestral remains and artifacts took place in the 1860s, however more than 150 years later, due to "institutional arrogance", this remains a legacy. "Institutions and museums around the world do not recognize indigenous peoples' right to retrieve their people's cultural heritage and ancestral remains, and these institutions still consider them to be the owners of these ancestral remains."

With the efforts of many parties, the long road of "ancestors returning home" has finally ushered in a turnaround. Susan Raleigh, director of the museum and chairman of the Repatriation Committee, said that the museum has introduced its own return policy, and after the corresponding procedures, the relics and ancestral remains will be reasonably returned to the residents after the corresponding procedures.

Source: Beijing Youth Daily