Who owns history?
Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is one of the most remotely-inhabited places in the world. It lies 4,000 miles off the coast of Chile and is about 2,000 miles from the island of Pitcairn in the Pacific Ocean. The delegation from Easter Island who visited the British Museum in mid-November this year had thus traveled a very long way to participate in the event.
They had good reasons for coming. Standing on the steps of the museum, the Governor of Rapa Nui, Tarita Alarcon Rapu, made a demand. She came to ask for the return of a statue that was taken from the island 150 years ago. Hoa Hakananai, which has special religious significance for the inhabitants of Rapa Nui, is a giant towering statue that weighs four tons and occupies a prominent place on the first floor of the museum. “You have our soul”, Rapu said to the gathered audience and the museum officials, pointing to the statue, adding that she herself had seen the artifact for the first time.
The delegation’s demand to return the statue follows closely on the heels of several such examples questioning the ownership of cultural and historical artifacts currently displayed in western museums. The controversy surrounds the fact that thousands of objects taken during the colonial period were in reality looted. Hakananai from Easter Island was stolen in 1860, when a British naval captain, who had landed on the island because of a shipwreck, ordered his men to dig it up, before taking it back to England. The statue was badly damaged during transportation. However, when it arrived in the United Kingdom, it was gifted to Queen Victoria, before finally ending up in the museum. Other objects in the museum, whose owners are demanding that they be returned, include pieces from Africa and the famous Elgin marbles that were taken from what is now Greece.
The British -- the imperial giants that they were -- are not the only culprits when it comes to looting objects from the colonies that they controlled. According to a recent report, more than 90 percent of pieces traced to African history (including historical and other objects) are held in museums out of the continent. Of the 90,000 objects of sub-Saharan art that are in France, 70,000 are in a Paris museum called the Quai Branly. The entire collection of art held in all of Africa adds up to only about 3,000 objects. In response to the findings of the report, French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to return 26 objects to the African country of Benin.
The are many ways through which historical objects were removed and later sold to museums, with a sizeable number of objects taken between 1860 and 1960. War, in particular, creates a great opportunity to buy stolen antiques from areas that are experiencing conflict.
Rafia Zakaria
The are many ways through which historical objects were removed and later sold to museums, with a sizeable number of objects taken between 1860 and 1960. War, in particular, creates a great opportunity to buy stolen antiques from areas that are experiencing conflict. With an absence of security, smugglers can easily penetrate into museums and steal everything. These objects, in turn, find their way to the antique-arts market where they are bought by collectors and even museums. In many cases, objects are bought and then stored for years, even decades, before they are displayed. This is because museums are not universally required to explain their provenance or how they acquired the items.
One example of this sort of shady dealing was by the newly-constructed Bible Museum, which opened in Washington D.C. recently. Constructed by Christian groups who sought to claim the heritage of the Bible, the museum has acquired many objects whose provenance is unexplained. This is particularly disturbing given the fact that these objects were reportedly collected during a time of conflict in Iraq and Syria. To sum it up, the fact that a museum will buy what looters and smugglers have stolen creates a market for stolen goods and makes it difficult to end the illegal trade of antiquities and artwork.
The case for the return and recovery of objects stolen, either during the colonial period or more recently, has some weaknesses. One of these is whether the country that is demanding that they are returned has the capacity to keep and preserve these objects. In Pakistan, for example, several pieces of art and ancient artifacts find their way into the private homes of bureaucrats and politicians and other wealthy people who use them specifically for display purposes. When these objects are not taken “on loan” from the museum, they are bought from smugglers and then disappear forever into someone’s home.
An even more crucial factor is that the task of preserving and conserving antiques is not an easy task. If objects are returned, would they be preserved in the same manner in which they are currently kept in the Louvre or the British Museum? Should a particular nation or state be accorded the privilege to be the owner of artifacts over the larger interest of preserving the objects so that the future generations can continue to learn from them?
While the questions are good, they are devoid of good answers. In the case of Hakananai, the answer is much simpler. Easter Island is already home to hundreds of statues that are used in religious rituals. The inhabitants of the island have preserved the statues for many centuries; they are quite capable of taking care of this one, too. Because of its towering height, the statue brings many visitors to the British Museum. This desire to gather more revenue, however, should not be a reason to overrule the interests of a community for whom the statue represents a piece of spiritual and religious history.
– Rafia Zakaria is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan (Beacon 2015) and Veil (Bloomsbury 2017). She writes regularly for The Guardian, Boston Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications. Twitter: @rafiazakaria
