ONCE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, ALWAYS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM: IS THE DE-ACCESSION POLICY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM A FARCE?

Queen-mother Idia, Benin/Nigeria, now in the British Museum. (1)
Seized by the British during the invasion of Benin in 1897.
Will she ever be liberated from the British Museum?

Normally, in cases of claims for stolen property or illegally detained objects, it is sufficient for the owner to establish beyond reasonable doubt that he is the rightful owner of the object in dispute and that the present holder of the object has no lawful right to the object. The present holder of the object then has to establish his right e.g. that he bought the object lawfully from a third party.

In the case of request for restitution of stolen objects in the British Museum, the situation has been radically changed by the British Museum, the British Government and the British Parliament. The question of legal ownership is not even posed. The fact that the object belonged to you or your family or community is rendered irrelevant. The question which is fundamental to all claims of property, the legal right to ownership, has been displaced and the main question here is not whether you have a legal right to the object but whether the British Museum can afford to dispense with the object in question i.e. whether it can and will de-accession the object. This issue came up in a recent exchange of correspondence between Toyin Agbetu, Head of Social and Education Policy, The Ligali Organization, London, and Neil MacGregor, Director, British Museum, London.

In answer to Toyin Agbetu's request for the repatriation of stolen African objects in the British Museum, Macgregor referred him to the museum's policy on de-accession (2). MacGregor also added that: “We are only able to consider requests from a representative body, such as a national government. We have never received a request for the repatriation of any artefacts in our collection from an African government.”

Some of the provisions in the policy document attached to MacGregor' letter seem to us to deserve comments and careful study by Africans and others who are interested in the question of restitution of stolen African cultural objects now lying in their thousands in the depots of the British Museum in London and elsewhere.

The preamble of the policy document mentions at the beginning the acquisitions in the collection of the British museum that are covered, by purchase, gift or fieldwork. There is no mention of acquisition by way of loot, booty or conquest. However, by all standards and common consent, most of the objects in the British Museum have been acquired as booty, by looting or conquest. Since there is no mention of these modes of acquisition, one may presume that those illegal modes of acquisition come under fieldwork. Paragraph 2.1 however makes clear that objects acquired in controversial circumstance are also covered. The policy set in the document covers “other disposal (including disposal in response to any third-party claim for restitution or repatriation of an object in the Collection.”)

Paragraph 3.3 of the document states that the museum will not dispose of objects unless (a) the object is a duplicate of another object held in the collection, or (b )in the opinion of the Trustees the object is unfit to be retained in the Collection and can be disposed of without detriment to the interest of the public or scholars; or (c) it has become useless for the purposes of the Museum by reason of damage, physical deterioration, or infestation by destructive organism. These provisions are really remarkable. What do they mean or imply?

(a) object is a duplicate of another object held in the museum

It is extremely rare that a museum such as the British Museum has a duplicate of an object already in the museum. Mostly, the objects are unique even though there may be similar ones. As far as African cultural objects are concerned, they are mostly unique. On this ground alone, hardly any Africa object in the British Museum could be released. In any case, how does a claimant know that there is a duplicate in the British Museum since most of the African objects are kept in depots and there is no readily available document or catalogue listing all the items in the museum? It seems most museums do not want their public to know too much about what they have. So even if one were to accept this provision, it would be only the British Museum which could verify and certify its application. In any case only the Museum and not another party decides this issue. For the outside claimant, this provision is unhelpful. The British Museum once sold some Benin bronze works to Nigeria on the ground that they were duplicates. Years later they expressed the view that they had been mistaken in their assessment and that the works sold were originals and not duplicates. (3)

(b) in the opinion of the trustees the object is unfit to be retained in the Collection and can be disposed of without detriment to the interest of public or scholars

There will hardly be a stolen African cultural object that could be said to be unfit to be retained in the museum where they have been for hundreds of years after having been secured through wars and bloodshed. What the interest of the public is, will be determined by the British Museum. Scholars of African culture, especially those who have spent a life time in studying a particular people or culture can easily demonstrate that the removal of a particular object from the museum would hinder their research and publications. The general interest of scholars and students will also prevent such a finding of unfitness as paragraph 3.5 of the document makes clear. So this provision is also not very helpful for any claimant. In any case, if the object is unfit to be in the museum, the policy requires that the object “shall be disposed of in a way that prevents it being rediscovered and mistakenly reinterpreted.” Even at this point, the British Museum claims a monopoly of interpretation. So Africans will have to contend with interpretations of their culture from the British Museum even if they managed, in an improbable constellation of facts, to recover some of their stolen cultural objects released for being unfit in the museum.

(c) it has become useless for the purposes of the Museum by reason of damage, physical deterioration, or infestation by destructive organism

Who would want an object that has become useless through damage or deterioration? And how often will highly paid museum officials agree that cultural objects in their care have become useless due to damage or deterioration? This provision is also not very helpful for a claimant for restitution.

Paragraph 3.9 of the document emphasizes the “Trustees shall regard deaccession as a last resort that will only be considered if they regard it as the only fair and sufficient response to the claim.” Even in the exceptional case when de-accession is decided, the document provides that “the object should be transferred to another institution within public domain rather than to private individuals or organizations (particularly where there is a risk that the object will be reburied, disappear or be destroyed).” When one considers the nature of many religious and ceremonial or festive African objects, one can see the difficulty here. There are some religious objects which were not meant to be seen by the uninitiated or were meant to be seen only once in a while. What do we do, should we manage to get them back from the British Museum? The museum requires us to keep it in a public museum. What about if there is no museum at all in the area, as is the case in many African towns and villages? So even at this point, the British Museum is not willing to relax its control over a stolen cultural object which the owner has recovered. It pretends to have a God-given duty to watch over how other peoples use their cultural objects!

A quick consideration of the policy document shows that there is no serious intention on the part of the British Museum to consider demands for restitution nor on the part of the British Parliament which passed The British Museum Act 1963 which is alleged to be the basis of such a policy that allows the museum the greatest and widest freedom to decide when it will release objects in its collection, irrespective of how the objects got onto its inventory. For obvious reasons, no exception is made for stolen or looted objects. The British Government which was responsible in the first place for the massive looting of African art objects, appears to be satisfied with such an act which it passed in 1963, shortly after the independence of most African countries. Most of these African cultural objects should have been transferred with the transfer of power to the Independent Government as part of the right of the people to exercise self-determination in the cultural area. By retaining looted or stolen cultural objects, the colonial power has confiscated part of the independence it appeared to be granting. It is a pity that those who negotiated our Independence did not seem to attach much importance to our stolen cultural objects or were not in a position to secure their return.

In his letter of 20th July 2007 to Toyin Agbetu, Neil MacGregor states that the British Museum can only consider request from representative bodies such as a national government. However in the attached policy statement, there is no mention of such a requirement. Presumably, the basis for this requirement is to be found elsewhere. Should the British Museum not clearly indicate to Toyin Agbetu this very important condition which is not mentioned in the policy document? What else is missing in the policy document? Or should one find this out after going through with other conditions? Is this a way of wearing out the claimant?

MacGregor does not go into the demands of Toyin Agbetu except to seek his agreement that “there are no easy answers to the great questions of history from the 19th and 20th centuries”. MacGregor refers to “a representative body such as a national government”. Does this exclude other authorities such as kings and queens of Africa who were robbed of their cultural objects by the British? What about Benin, would they not accept a request from the Oba of Benin or could this only be accepted from the Nigerian government? Surely, the British Museum should enlighten its clients, that is, if Pan African Organizations, such as The Ligali Organization, are also included in the clients of a museum which pretends to hold stolen cultural objects on behalf of humanity.

It is remarkable that the British Museum, a British institution created by a British act of parliament, not an international or universal museum as the director and his supporters sometimes try to make us believe, can declare that it only deals with national governments. With all due respect, there is nothing in International Law to support such pretence from a national institution. If the museum has in its collection stolen items, such as the Benin Bronzes, there will be no justification for refusing to consider a claim from the Oba of Benin. In any case when the items were stolen, Benin was a sovereign State.

MacGregor mentions that “We have never received a request for repatriation of any artefacts in our collection from any African government”. Does “we” include the British Parliament to which the Oba of Benin has sent a formal request (4) or does the British Museum take the position that requests to the British Parliament do not concern the British Museum? So when you go to the British Parliament it sends you to the British Museum and when you go to the British Museum it says you are not a “national government”? With such cheap tricks one could try to avoid all African claims for restitution since most of the States in existence at the time of British invasion and colonization no longer exist as national States. So the African peoples lose their claims for stolen cultural objects?

With this policy of the British Museum, it is no wonder that no self-respecting African government is willing to submit itself to dealing with the museum as regards the restitution cases. Such requests will be futile given the stated policy of the museum. For example, in a case involving Nazi Era-looted drawings seized by the Gestapo from a Dr. Feldmann and which ended at the British Museum in 1946-1949, it was said that under UK law the British Museum could not deaccession unique art works. (5) Most African art works are unique. This is remarkable. All parties to the case acknowledged the fact that the art works in question had been wrongfully confiscated by the Nazis and yet the British authorities were unwilling to return the stolen objects on the ground that this was not possible under English Law. Could the Court not have reasoned that Parliament surely did not intend to approve wrongful acts of the Nazis against whom the sons and daughters of the land had to sacrifice their lives and that there was a presumption that Parliament does not intend to act against common morality and International Law which have condemned Nazism and its evil acts? Once again, it seems that where British material interests are involved public morality and International Law are not really relevant. It is interesting to know that in Austria when a museum or art gallery is found with Nazi-stolen art objects, everybody gets involved and the museum is put under considerable pressure from all sides to either return the object to the owners or find a solution acceptable to the owners. It seems in accepted in Great Britain that nothing can be done about Nazi-looted objects once they enter the British Museum. Continued    Source: Kwame Opoku, Dr.

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