France returns artefacts to West Africa, but Denmark also has stolen artefacts.
The French Senate has decided to return 26 artefacts that were stolen in West Africa during colonial times.
These include a royal throne and several large statues that French colonial soldiers looted from the Dahomey’s palace in 1892.
According to Heidi Bojsen, cultural researcher and associate professor, Roskilde University, it makes good sense to return the objects that are in the Branly Museum in Paris.
For although in Paris they are seen by more people than if they were exhibited in Benin, they are also exhibited outside the cultural and social significance they have for the people of West Africa.
– For some who are a bit like if the Nazis had taken the Sun Wagon from World War II and argued that now it should be in Berlin or another German city, she says to P1 Morgen .
It is estimated that there are 90,000 African objects in French museums.
When President Macron visited the former French colony of Burkina Faso in 2017, he announced that it was time to return some of the items.
Benin’s president, Patrice Talon, sees it as a “small but welcome” step that 26 items are now being returned. But he has also previously called for a “global return based on accurate inventories”.
Bronze reliefs in Denmark
Also in Denmark, the National Museum holds looted artefacts from the powerful kingdoms of the time on the West African coast.
These are some bronze reliefs that the British plundered in 1897 from the Kingdom of Benin in present-day Nigeria. Here the British stole over 200 bronze reliefs, the majority of which are today in the British Museum in London .
But some of them ended up in free trade, where four were bought by the Danish National Museum .
Christian Sune Pedersen, head of research at the National Museum, acknowledges that this is a “problematic case”.
Therefore, the dialogue group set up between museums with large collections and representatives of the Edo people, African descendants, has also been addressed to the court in Benin in present-day Nigeria.
– We have been in contact with the dialogue group until several times, to hear how we should relate to it, he says to P1 Morgen.
– And we have been told in the first place that we are a little too small to be part of this collaboration. One is interested in concentrating on the large collection nuggets, these are the British Museum and some large German and Dutch museums, he says.
