Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Queen- Mother Idia, Benin, Nigeria, now in the British Museum, London, United Kingdom
“The problem of the repatriation of cultural heritage to its country of origin is an old one, based on a 19th century doctrine enshrined in the Treaty of Vienna that scientific and artistic collections cannot be expatriated because they are destined to meet the permanent intellectual needs of the country of origin”. Ekpo Eyo (1)
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The Conference on International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage, 7-8 April 2010, Cairo, Egypt, ended with demands for the return of certain cultural artefacts which had been looted or stolen by colonial powers in the past. (2)
The conference called by Zahi Hawass, the energetic and dynamic Secretary-General of the Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, was attended by several States including, Austria, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cyprus, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Italy, Libya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Syria and the United States. Britain, France and Germany, countries holding most of the contested artefacts did not attend. One can understand that there was not much interest in inviting the countries holding the contested artefacts since their attitudes over many decades have not been generally positive or sympathetic to the idea of restitution. However, in the last few years France and Britain have returned objects to Egypt. My own position would be to invite them to attend as observers, ensuring however that they do not come to disrupt or sabotage the conference or even try to dominate proceedings as they are wont to since eventually, we would need their co-operation to achieve lasting solutions to the questions of restitution. Besides, the USA which is a big market for stolen/looted artefacts attended as observer and we have not heard that this presence hindered the participants from achieving their aims.
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