Panic and Panegyrics:Comments on “Songs of Praise” for the British
Museum


We have had within the last few days a spate of articles, all praising
in fulsome language the British Museum and its director, Neil
MacGregor. One article, “Is the British Museum the greatest museum on
earth” written by Damien Whitworth, appeared in the Times on 12 July.


Another sycophantic article, by Ben Macintyre in The Times of July 10,
2008, is captioned, “Let’s all have tickets to the universal museum”,
arguing that “It’s pointless trying to work out who owns ancient art
objects. We need to share them around the world”. A third article, by
Tristram Hunt, “The British Museum is now our top attraction. If only
others would shrug off their deadening ways and follow its lead”,
appeared in The Observer on Sunday July 6, 2008.

It can be assumed that the publication of these article within such a
short period is no sheer coincidence but part of a carefully
orchestrated campaign to boost the popularity of the British Museum
and the prestige of its director, But why now? We have no obvious
explanation and can only speculate on the motivation behind these
panegyrics in respectable British media.


In about the same period, we know that Egypt has made in June an
official request for a loan of the Rosetta Stone, that Marbles United
has appointed a Campaign Director (Thomas Dowson) on 9 July, and that
the Benin exhibition has opened on 10 July in Chicago giving further
impetus to discussions on the restitution of the Benin bronzes. There
have also been recently several instances of returning cultural
objects to Greece, Egypt and Italy. Could these separate but not
unrelated issues have thrown somebody at the British Museum into panic
and caused him or her to seek the support of leading British
newspapers to prepare public opinion for any eventual discussions and
disputes?


As readers know, a nightmare of the museum director (and perhaps also
of his loyal staff) is to wake up one morning and find that the
Rosetta Stone, heavy as it is, the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles, as many as
they are, and the Benin bronzes have all disappeared from the museum!
In reality this will not happen over night but who knows how all this
works on the minds of those under constant attacks and who are aware
that the whole world is against them in this respect? It should be
recalled that it was panic by the British Museum, under increasing
political pressure by the Greeks for the return of the Parthenon/Elgin
Marbles that led to the British initiative to draw up the infamous
Declaration on the Importance and Value of the Universal Museums in
December 2002, signed by all the important museums with the notable
exception of the British Museum, the champion of the “universal
museums”. The leading museums, mostly European and North American,
informed the so called “source countries” that they had no intention
of returning any of the cultural objects that had been wrongfully
taken away in the past.


Whatever the motive for this spate of praise songs for the British
Museum and its director, Neil MacGregor, we need to look carefully at
the ideas they contain. We have commented elsewhere in detail on two
of the praise songs and wish briefly to comment on the article by
Damian Whitworth, “Is the British Museum the greatest museum on earth?


We may all agree that the British Museum is a great museum but whether
it is the greatest museum is another matter. For some people, a great
museum must be a specialized museum concentrating on a few subjects,
such as art or fashion for others, a great museum can only be a
“universal museum”. Obviously Whitworth is in the second group
although he does not explain his criteria for greatness which will
allow the determination of which museum is the greatest. He assumes
that Great Britain must have the greatest museum.


The greatness of the British Museum lies largely in the presence of a
huge number (some estimate 13 million) objects of all sizes from all
parts of the world assembled there. But these collections or rather
confiscations constitute a clear evidence of the violations and
denials of the individual and collective rights of freedom of religion
and culture. They also evidence a violation of the right to
self-determination of peoples since these objects should have been
returned to the various counties of Africa and Asia when they gained
formal independence from the former colonial power, Britain. These
objects constitute a permanent and constant reminder of the continued
violations of these human rights. Whether greatness based largely on
the violations of the human rights of others, greatness linked to the
suffering and massacres of many peoples in various parts of the world
deserves our admiration, is matter of conscience and morality. Some
Europeans may admire the destruction of other cultures through the
colonial expansion and aggression but they surely cannot expect
Africans, Asians and others to share this admiration.


That MacGregor is not leaving the British Museum is presented as if he
had rejected an offer to become the Director of the Metropolitan
Museum, New York. It is even stated that the American media pressed
him to state whether he was leaving or not. One can only reject an
offer if it was ever made. When you look at the reports from the USA,
it is clear that he was never offered the job and could therefore not
have refused it. Lee Rosenbaum who knows more about such matters than
most of us wrote:


“This headline on Bloomberg sure got my attention this morning:


British Museum’s MacGregor Was Asked to Run the Met, Said No


Who knew? But the much more carefully phrased article by Farah Nayeri
seems to indicate that no such thing may have actually occurred.
Nayeri writes:


British Museum Head of Press Hannah Boulton…said, “He [MacGregor] was
approached by them, he had a conversation with them, but in the course
of that conversation he ruled himself out of the job of running the
Met.”…


Asked today if he was offered the Met job, MacGregor said only that
the Met’s search committee had “a very large number of conversations
with people who were not candidates” about the Met’s future”.
CultureGrrl. www.artsjournal.com


The presentation of this matter by Whitworth reminds one of a practice
which used to be current in the then West Germany. Professors who were
well-established in their positions would set in circulation rumours
that they were planning to leave their posts and some even organized
to receive in fact offers from other universities only to reject them
later. This strengthened their bargaining position as regards their
employers. But does MacGregor really need this?


We leave uncommented Whitworth’s statement” the saga began to look
like the museum equivalent of Real Madrid and Manchester United’s tug
of love over Cristiano Ronaldo.”


Whitworth is free to describe the job of Director of the British
Museum as the best job in the museum world. Not all of us will agree
with this assessment. Some of us world not sleep well, knowing that
our museum has stolen artefacts from the whole world and that the
Cambodians, Chinese, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Ghanaians, Greeks,
Indians, Japanese, Nigerians, and Peruvians all have claims against
the objects in our museum. Sleepless nights would become normal. This
is a matter of belief and individual conscience. If you take the
injunction “Thou shall not steal” seriously a museum like that is
hardly the place for you. Many Europeans seem to believe that that
moral prescription does not apply to art and artefacts. On the
contrary, they believe they have a right and duty to seize such
objects to preserve them in the interest of mankind, including
presumably the peoples they are robbing.


The British Museum may be a creation of the European Enlightenment but
the realization of that idea was only possible during the colonialist
and imperialist period which enabled the British Government to amass
those huge and varied objects from all over the world. Small and weak
countries, lacking in a strong army and a powerful navy could never
have established a museum such as the British Museum. The colonialist
were strengthened in their devastating attacks on innocent and
unprepared Africans and Asians but the moral support they derived from
the writings of the philosophers of the European Enlightenment. These
philosophers were of the opinion that the colonial peoples were not
really human beings and in any case were at the bottom of the ladder
of evolution. The Europeans on top had to “civilise” them even if
these attempts involved the use of force and violence.


Macgregor is quoted by Whitworth as saying “that such cultural
diplomacy can bring nations together by enhancing wider understanding
of a country beyond modern-day politics. Museums have a mission to
help us to understand ourselves. A great exhibition should make us “a
little more questioning and uncertain” about our society. “As well as
being interesting in themselves, the collections raise questions about
us and about now.”


Despite all the exhibitions that have been presented at the British
Museum, there does not seem to be any sign that the institution is
working for a wider understanding beyond modern-day politics nor have
the collections raised much question about the British and their
society, at least from the point of view of the British Museum. The
museum and its director do not show any sign that they have doubts
about the legitimacy of their possession of the Parthenon/Elgin
Marbles, the Rosetta Stone and the Benin bronzes.


Whitworth can praise MacGregor as much as he likes. He even cites a
British historian who is alleged to have described MacGregor as a
“genius”, a description most of us would use with the greatest
caution. None will doubt that anyone who can run a big enterprise such
as the British Museum must be a person of great ability but a
“genius”? Or is this part of the inflation of words, almost endemic on
the other side of the Atlantic that is now reaching this side of the
ocean?


As for the British Museum being “a museum for the world” or “a museum
for mankind”, could we kindly ask these writers to spare us the pain
in tracing the creation and expansion of this museum? The British
Museum is a British Museum, created by the British Parliament by the
British Museum Act of 1753, financed by the British with a Board of
Trustees appointed by the British Sovereign and the British Foreign
Secretary. Does this sound like an institution for mankind? The fact
that the museum contains confiscated materials from all over the world
does not make it a museum for the world. As for the entrance to the
museum being free of charge, one can only add that yes, it is free of
charge provided one can go to London where the museum is situated. How
many can afford the trip from Africa or Asia to London? Would the
Africans and Asians who seek to visit Bloomsbury in order to go to the
“museum for mankind” even obtain a visa if they advanced such a visit
as the reason for their travel to London?


I start wondering when I read the following statement with regard to
Hadrian: “Expressing his passion so strongly that he was called “the
Little Greek” was “like Kennedy saying, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’,”
says
MacGregor. Or “the equivalent of George Bush speaking Arabic or
writing Arabic poetry “.


Should we take all this seriously?


Kwame Opoku, 14 July,2008.