Who Owns Culture?
Moral Maze
BBC
4.4 • 623 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2016
⏱️ 43 minutes
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Summary
It may not have the same impact as the Elgin Marbles, but a slightly battered bronze statue of a cockerel has re-ignited a row that has potentially profound implications for our museums and opens a Pandora's Box of moral dilemmas. The statue in question sits in the dining hall of Jesus College Cambridge, but it was originally from the Benin Empire, now part of modern-day Nigeria. It was one of hundreds of artworks taken in a punitive British naval expedition in 1897 that brought the empire to an end. In the same way that Greece has pursued the return of the Elgin marbles, Nigeria has repeatedly called for all the Benin bronzes - which it says are part of its cultural heritage - to be repatriated. The students at Jesus agree with them and are demanding the cockerel be returned. But to whom? There are dozens of high profile campaigns around the world to repatriate cultural artefacts, but the legal issue of rightful ownership is complex and made more so by the value of the objects in question. Does the fact that many of the finest treasures in our museums were acquired during the height of our imperial history mean we're duty bound to return them? If we accept the principle that art looted by the Nazi's should be returned, why not, for example, the Benin Bronzes? Artefacts like the Elgin Marbles are important because they are part of the story or humanity itself. Can any one country claim ownership over that? Would artefacts that have been returned to their original setting take on a new and more authentic cultural meaning that we in the West may not be able to understand, but which is nonetheless important to those who claim ownership? Should repatriation be part of a wider cultural enterprise to re-write our national and imperialistic historical narrative? Chaired by Michael Buerk with Giles Fraser, Claire Fox, Melanie Phillips and Michael Portillo. Witnesses are Dr Tiffany Jenkins, Prof Constantine Sandis, Mark Hudson and Andrew Dismore.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:04.0 | Good evening. A big brass cock has suddenly become an unlikely, though some might say, |
| 0:09.0 | appropriate prize in the great 21st century tussle over history, justice and restitution. |
| 0:15.1 | The cockerel stands in the Hall of Jesus College, Cambridge, has done for a century or more. |
| 0:20.1 | It was originally part of the treasure |
| 0:21.5 | taken by a British punitive expedition that overthrew and ransacked the African Kingdom of |
| 0:27.0 | Benin in the late 19th century, the zenith of British imperialism, the exact opposite for the |
| 0:32.8 | Benin Empire, of course. The students at Jesus College have voted unanimously to call for the cock to be |
| 0:38.5 | returned, not without some controversy. The original motion was deemed despicable for its supposed |
| 0:44.3 | paternalistic and colonial language, and because not enough black students in the wider university |
| 0:49.1 | had been consulted, being right on is very exacting these days. To the students, it's a simple matter of justice, wicked imperialist loot to be returned to its |
| 0:57.5 | rightful owners. |
| 0:58.8 | The history is slightly more complicated. |
| 1:00.7 | The kingdom of Benin was destroyed after it had massacred a peaceful, though doubtless, |
| 1:04.6 | scheming, British delegation. |
| 1:06.8 | Benin itself was an imperial military dictatorship that enslaved fellow Africans to sell to European traders. |
| 1:13.5 | As it no longer exists, the question arises over who exactly in present-day Nigeria it should be returned to. |
| 1:19.7 | Nonetheless, the Jesus Cockrell takes its place alongside the Elgin Marbles as cultural symbols of past injustice injustice for which we must make amends. |
| 1:29.1 | So many issues here about rightful ownership, about whether important monuments belong to the |
| 1:33.2 | descendants of those they were created for or the wider world, about where they should |
| 1:37.9 | be displayed, above all, perhaps, about how the present should judge the past. |
| 1:43.1 | Our panel, Melanie Phillips, social commentator on the Times, |
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