Robbed of heritage
Issue 145 - 28 June 2023 (6-min read)
If you have ever had a chance to visit Hawaiʻi, you may have heard about Shangri-La. It’s a museum of Islamic art, culture and design, housing the unique private collection of American heiress Doris Duke, who was fascinated by art from the Muslim world during her travels in the middle of the 20th century.
The beautiful building and the grounds that house the museum used to be Duke’s residence in Honolulu so an opportunity to visit this unique place is hard to come by. I’ve been visiting Hawaiʻi since 2016 and it was only last week that we finally had a chance to go see this exquisite collection.
One of the most prominent pieces on display here is a Mihrab (or prayer niche) with Quranic inscriptions, floral decorations and hanging lamp motif. Despite the fact that the calligraphy tiles around the piece were installed out of order, it’s an impressive piece of art, standing at almost 152 inches (nearly four metres) high. Yet, as much as it is neatly preserved and taken care of, it’s miles away from home. Our guide told us that this 700-year-old mihrab belongs to a shrine in Iran, where a plain white wall still marks the spot where it was stolen from.
That shrine in Iran isn’t the only one with a missing prayer niche — there are six other shrines around the country whose mihrab were stolen, a white wall marking their much-awaited return. In fact, we can find several sites around the global south where important architecture and artefacts are missing, the lost pieces preserved behind glass cases, or in the dingy basements, of museums around the global north.
In this week’s The Global Tiller, we look at the growing demands to return looted art and the current status of repatriations. Who is complying and who’s resisting? What are some hurdles along the way and is there an equitable way forward?
The demands to repatriate stolen art were initially made by different African governments in the 1960s during the African independence movements, according to Bénédicte Savoy in her book 'Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat'. And why wouldn’t it? By some accounts, more than 90% of all cultural artefacts known to originate in Africa—are held in Europe.
African leaders have continued to point out the 'barbarous, systemic pillaging' of their cultural patrimony and succeeded in getting Belgium into giving more than a hundred art works back to Zaire starting in 1976. That year, Unesco resolved to create a committee on the return of cultural property, with specific reference to colonial occupation.
Despite these initial successes, the movement eventually died down as European museums primarily, and American ones subsequently, employed different tactics to discourage repatriation. They began hiding their inventories and the provenance — the history of an object that traces its lineage from creation to its present location. Then, there was the idea that Western art professionals were best suited to make sense of African cultural artefacts. It is common to hear museum custodians using the Judgment of Solomon of whoever loves the baby the most, gets to keep the baby, as a logical argument towards keeping these artefacts. Funnily enough, this analogy doesn’t apply when real babies arrive on their shores seeking refuge.
Nevertheless, there has been a significant change in the conversation around repatriation in recent years. In his 2017 visit to Burkina Faso, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that, “African heritage cannot solely exist in private collections and European museums," followed by a bombshell report calling for permanent returns of looted art. Since then, France has repatriated dozens of major works to Senegal, Madagascar and Benin. This led to more dominos falling. In March 2022, the Smithsonian in the US agreed to transfer most of its 39 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, following a similar decision by Germany’s national museums. Belgium, which keeps the world’s largest single collection of African art in a gloomy palace near Brussels, has promised to review all colonial-era acquisitions with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Besides Africa, other continents have seen progress as well. The US has recently returned two ancient sculptures to Iraq, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles returned three precious terra cotta figures to Italy. The Denver Art Museum shipped four antiquities back to Cambodia and the Manhattan district attorney’s office seized 27 looted artefacts from the Met, which are headed back to Italy and Egypt. For their part, even Shangri-La in Hawaiʻi considers itself as a temporary caretaker of the mihrab until the details of the repatriation could be chalked out, whenever that may be.
The one institution that is resisting these calls is the British Museum, who Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver aptly calls "the world’s largest active crime scene". Relying on a 1963 law, the British lawmakers argue that they do not want to open the floodgates of returning objects collected as part of the imperial loot. They also insist that this free museum showcases 'our common humanity' and should be accessible to all. But this argument falls short when you consider whose access is the focus here — the people of countries where these museums are located, or those from where the artefacts were stolen?
Besides these patronising arguments, there are a few genuine questions that come up when we think about returning stolen objects. The world map has changed since these items were stolen, who get’s to claim ownership of kingdoms long gone? If by some miracle, the UK returns the Kohinoor diamond, who will it be returned to? The region where it was stolen from is now three different countries, and two of them really don’t get along. What about returning art to a country where it may be destroyed because the current government has a different religious or cultural ideology than what the art represents?
While these may be complicated issues to deal with when it comes to repatriation of stolen art, it is by no means an acceptance of the status quo. These difficult conversations need to happen otherwise we’re just endorsing theft of the most blatant kind.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira & Philippe
The Global Tiller team
Dig Deeper
John Oliver discusses some of the world’s most prestigious museums, why they contain so many stolen goods, the market that continues to illegally trade antiquities, and a pretty solid blueprint for revenge. Don’t miss the end where he shows what would happen if the situation was reversed: