Cultural decolonization: restitution is a long and complex process, but worthy of a truly civilized country

This talk on the topic of cultural decolonization, signed by Maria Camilla De Palma (an experienced anthropologist with international experience to her credit, including collaborations with the Getty in Los Angeles and the Smithsonian in Washington, as well as Director of the Museum of World Cultures at the Castello d’Albertis in Genoa since 1991), appeared in abridged form in issue 1 of Finestre Sull’Arte On Paper, which hosted a debate on the topic with different positions from many of the leading experts in the field (at this link you can subscribe to the print magazine, which comes out every three months). Today we publish it, exclusively, in its entirety.

Interior of the Museum of World Cultures at the Castello d’Albertis in Genoa. Ph. Credit Museums of Genoa

Why, until recently, did it seem obvious that non-Western objects should be kept in European museums, even when this meant that no valuable and important artifacts could be seen in their countries of origin?

James Clifford, 1985

For those who work in museums, and especially in museums that preserve non-European material from Africa, the Americas and Oceania, today’s debate on cultural decolonization does not come at all new: since 1970, the UNESCO Convention has dictated the measures to be taken to prevent all illicit export, import and transfer of ownership of cultural property and is the basis of international relations to combat illicit trafficking. Ratified by Italy in 1978, it defines (art. 2) illicit trafficking as one of the major causes of impoverishment of the cultural heritage of states, and sees international cooperation as a valuable means of protecting all national property. We are also familiar with the UNIDROT Convention on Stolen or Illicitly Exported Cultural Property, signed in Rome in 1995, which aims to contribute effectively to the fight against illicit trafficking through the creation of common rules, and to facilitate the return and restitution of illegally removed property, including through new incentives such as indemnification. The Convention, moreover, provides (Article 13) for the possibility of being supported by individual agreements between member states to facilitate its implementation. As a circumscribed support to the 1970 UNESCO Convention, on March 15, 1993, the Governing Council of the European Community issued Directive 93/7/EEC for the return of objects illegally removed from the territory of a member state. Cooperation between the relevant national authorities is considered of primary importance, and in order to facilitate procedures for tracing and requesting the return of an illegally removed object, it outlines uniform guidelines for the request form (Art. 8), for notification of the operation to the national authorities of the states involved, and for the restitution and compensation procedure (Art. 9-11).

Particularly in the U.S. archaeological and anthropological sphere, the NAGPRA or Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, signed in 1990 and preceded in 1989 by the National Museum of the American Indian Act (MAIA), opened a new era in relations between museums and Native Americans, giving the latter the legal power to request the return of objects pertaining to the spheres of the sacred and the secret as well as bony human remains when there is evidence that they belong to their tribal affiliation. For several years, even in European museums, including Italian museums, delegations of native groups have been coming to visit, having identified in our collections sensitive materials that are the result of those spoliations, desacralizations and plunderings that starting with conquistadores, missionaries, travelers, scholars, or tomb looters and explorers have been conducted during the many scientific, naturalistic, military and archaeological expeditions that have taken place over the centuries. Macron’s desired report on the African cultural heritage to be returned exemplarily identifies four categories of assets to be considered: objects seized during military occupations prior to the entry into force of the Hague Convention (1899); assets collected in Africa on scientific expeditions; works donated to French museums by officials belonging to the colonial administration; and objects acquired illegally after the first decolonization (which occurred, for seventeen African states, in 1960).

Traditionally repositories of knowledge in the form of objects/works/repertoires, museums have played a key role in separating them from their producers, but they may today no longer be complicit with colonial policies and associated enterprises, becoming sites of contestation of power in terms of the possession, interpretation and holding of knowledge.

Therefore, I believe that today’s museums, which inhabit their time as sites of social change, must open themselves to processes of decentralization that change the balances and arrangements established by centuries of colonialism and postcolonialism: museums cannot claim to be innocent in their policies of acquisition nor in their practices of representing alterity.

Inuit materials returned by Danish museums to their source populations, Maori skulls to descendants in New Zealand by German museums, as, in our own small way, pre-Hispanic artifacts returned from Genoa toEcuador are just a few examples of restitution practices that are becoming the order of the day for European museums of cultures-holding non-European collections-that intend to address the ethical dilemma underlying their nature.

The issue becomes more complex if we speak, for example, of the spoils of the precious materials from Benin City looted by British soldiers in 1897 in modern Nigeria and now preserved in the British Museum, as in Hamburg, or of the famous Elgin Marbles also kept in London: the question touches far more delicate balances of a political and economic nature, the restitution of which would trigger a dangerous chain mechanism no longer controllable by those who have always held power and control over a part of the world, along with the physical appropriation of the works.

In order to maintain this unbalanced presence of works in European museums compared to those in their countries of origin, the child of a worldview divided between the West and the rest, a group of museum directors from around the world are inspired precisely by universal encyclopedic art museums such as the British Museum, believing that such universal encyclopedic institutions constitute with their collections not instruments of an empire but evidence of a tradition; for them, antiquities are universal and public heritage, intended for the world’s encyclopedic museums such as the Louvre or the Getty, whose mission is precisely to house representative examples of human artistic/archaeological heritage, highlighting connections between cultures and promoting their understanding in terms of universal aspirations.

For them, the acquisition by a museum of works without documentation of their provenance in no way violates the Code of Ethics of the International Committee of Museums (art. 2. on acquisition policies, ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums), but on the contrary violates the cosmopolitan breath of an institution that from its origins has the task of serving the public by ensuring the preservation of heritage, man’s desire for knowledge and access to knowledge. For them, therefore, UNESCO policies and the laws of each individual nation-state in favor of returning them to their countries of origin foster a form of nationalist culture in which antiquities are used to serve the purpose of a single nation. For them, instead of worrying about returning a work to a nation for which it may no longer have meaning because it may no longer be culturally linked to the ancient civilizations once present on its territory or because there may no longer be a correspondence between today’s political boundaries and the cultural boundaries of yesteryear, the ideal might be to restore the past custom of partage, of sharing archaeological finds between the excavation partners-obviously more powerful-and the obviously weaker host country-no longer practiced since the mid-20th century because it is now considered a relic of a colonial past. Clearly, this position aims to avoid the despoliation of European museums by hiding behind the false ideal of a phantom universal heritage. Certainly the artworks and artifacts of antiquity are our common heritage, which requires our joint work for its preservation in the name of a new Humanism, in a borderless humanity in which we are all migrants and members of one or another minority. What we must strive for is more border control to prevent illicit transportation, more restrictions on the import and purchase of antiquities without a declared provenance, more equality between countries’ national laws.

In Italy, international directives and conventions flow into the 2004 Cultural Heritage and Environment Code, from Art. 75 to 86. In particular, Art.75 on restitution itself states:

Cultural property unlawfully removed from the territory of a member state of the European Union after December 31, 1992 shall be returned in accordance with the provisions of Section.

Art. 76 closes on the fact that the Ministry shall ensure its cooperation with the competent authorities of other member states in finding and returning cultural property belonging to the heritage of another European Union member state.

In order to curb illicit trafficking of Italian and foreign cultural property, the MiBAC General Secretariat cooperates closely with the Ministry of Defense, in particular with the Carabinieri Nucleo Comando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale.

All of these institutions operate a web portal at http://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/export/MiBAC/sito-MiBAC/MenuServizio/TutelaCulturale/ where the operational guidelines to be followed in case of reporting and requesting the return of illegally stolen property can be found. For the procedure of requesting the restitution of goods present in Italy but illegally stolen by other states, the Ministry collaborates with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The country that believes it is entitled to the return of an asset illegally present in Italy must contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, specifically the Office of the General Directorate for the Promotion of the Country System that deals with the recovery of illegally exported works of art.

Repatriation or restitution establishes new contexts of action thus opening larte, archaeology and anthropology to a greater number of actors in the field, expands our concept of the past and our way of interpreting history, and requires the great leap in decentralizing our worldview.

Indeed, the process of repatriation results in information sharing, daily consultation and periodic return of materials covered by current legislation. It is often a matter of establishing relationships and recognizing, on a case-by-case basis, the legitimacy of the other to determine the final outcome of the agreement/exchange, without seeing this process in terms of loss of materials, time or information, but on the contrary as an opportunity to embrace a less imperialist, more inclusive and better knowledge-based worldview with a more solid and broader foundation.

The report sought by Macron, for example, is a good starting point for an inevitably long and complex process: in addition to the identification of the categories of assets to be considered, the document in fact lists the criteria and timelines necessary for the restitution process, which, as is desirable, can only take place progressively and must be supported by rigorous historical and archival analysis.

It will take a long time for this to really take place, for Italy as for countries with a great colonial past, but this alone is a path worthy of truly civilized countries.

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