Comments on: The British Museum’s stolen African artefacts

By: Emeka Esogbue

Emeka Esogbue — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:20:14 +0000

Britain should realise that the cultural heritage of peoples cannot be stolen to represent those of others like she is seeking to do. Britain should return the stolen artifacts to the rightful owners and realise that the country (Britain) has since lost what she had as super since the suez Canal days.

By: DR.KWAME OPOKU

DR.KWAME OPOKU — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:30:16 +0000

One can only say,”Amen” to what George Vardas has said. Somehow,it seems the British Museum seems to have problems in coming to terms with a changed world in which words or ideas coming from London are not automatically accepted by all but are examined on their merits.
Kwame Opoku

By: truth

truth — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:57:04 +0000

This article was very insightful but unfortunately it is rare in the public discourse. One wonders if the British and by extension the British Museum will ever give up on this archaic idea of “empire”.

By: George Vardas

George Vardas — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:06:56 +0000

This article is illuminating because it reproduces correspondence between Ligali and Neil MacGregor of the British Museum. In response to Ligali’s eloquent and emotive plea for return of the Benin artefacts MacGregor responds that the BM will only deal with representative bodies such as a national government, ie, it will still reject the claim but it first has to come from a national government. More interestingly, in his letter of 20 July 2007 MacGregor again refers to the BM’s standing as a “universal museum”. At the recent UNESCO conference in Athens there was talk in the margins of that conference that the British Museum was no longer referring to itself as a “universal museum” and instead was resorting to phrases such as the museum of enlightenment or the encyclopaedic museum. This is just a semantic game as the real agenda of the BM is revealed in the letter to Ligali. The museum world is slowly coming to terms with requests for repatriation in an increasingly enlightened way … except for the British Museum which continues to be blinded by its own nineteenth century self-conceptions. It is time the BM properly engaged in the debate rather than hiding behind spin doctored slogans and rhetoric.