Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
I read with interest and sometimes, with astonishment the article by Professor John Picton, Emeritus Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, in the Art Newspaper of 24 January 2011, entitled
“Compromise, negotiate, support”. (1)
To start with, I was surprised that Picton describes the British military force, the so-called Benin Pre-emptive Strike Force that went to Benin on 4 January 1897 and was almost annihilated as “British personnel”. “Personnel“evokes in the average English-speaking person, a group of employees other than a military force. One thinks of the personnel of Shell or other British firms in Nigeria or elsewhere. Perhaps the Professor did not reflect on this but he, as a specialist on African art must surely know that this military force consisted of 9 British military officers and some 250 African mercenaries disguised as carriers. The mission of this army was to launch a surprise attack on Benin City, overthrow Oba Ovonramwen and put in his place an Oba amenable to British imperialism. Frank Willet, in writing about this military force, said they had their guns at the bottom of their boxes. (2) What Picton does not mention but would have painted a more accurate picture of the situation is that the Oba had stated clearly, when informed of the intention of the British to send a group to visit him, that he could not receive them at the time proposed because he would be involved in some traditional rituals and during that period no foreigners were allowed to come into contact with the Oba. Thus the group went to Benin despite the warning from Benin not to come. Since when do we visit monarchs when they expressly state their inability or unwillingness to receive us?
But why did the military force visit Benin despite warnings not to come? It would appear, from messages sent to the British Foreign Office by Captain Phillips, acting Consul-General that a decision had been taken long ago, reflecting the view of Captain Phillips that Oba Ovomramwen constituted the main obstacle to British imperialist expansionist designs in that part of West Africa and that his removal was imperative if the British were to achieve their aims. So the military force Picton calls British personnel was not an innocent group killed by “rebel chiefs in the area”. It was an army that intended to surprise the Oba but were themselves surprised. (3)
Picton states that Eweka II set about to rebuilt Benin City when he was made Oba: “Eweka set about the wholesale reinvention of Benin City, reviving its ritual and ceremonial culture, making the best of such political authority as the colonial overlords would allow within their policy of government by indirect rule, and commissioning the writing of an authorised history of the city, kingdom and empire, by a local chief. Eweka also commissioned new works of art, setting up altars dedicated to his father and grandfather, and their predecessors: the artists, after all had not been exiled nor their skills somehow taken away from them. It was altogether the greatest and most successful of all anti-colonial projects in sub-Saharan Africa.”
I have serious difficulty in understanding Picton’s characterization of the renewal projects by Eweka as “anti-colonial”. The Oba must have believed in the need to set up “altars dedicated to his father and grandfather, and their predecessors” Why must the performance of such a filial duty that Africans expect of their rulers be considered as “anti- colonial”? Most of us will understand by “anti-colonial” activities directed against the colonial authority and intended to bring about the downfall of that regime or at least to hasten its demise. From where did Picton get this idea that rebuilding Benin City, after the wanton destruction by the British in 1897 was an “anti-colonial project”?
It should be noted that to this day the British have not paid any compensation for the killing of thousands of innocent children, women and men as well as for the destruction of property in that city. (...)
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