ART AND COLONIALISM IN AFRICA

Very often when people think of the colonisation of Africa, they only think of the violence perpetrated by the colonisers, but they never take into account a fundamental element in the construction of a country’s identity and culture: art.

In fact, the works of art that were stolen during the colonial period are numerous.

Most African works of art are not found in Africa, suffice it to say that 85% to 90% of Sub-Saharan African works of art are found outside the continent.

In 2017, Emmanuel Macron during a visit to Ouagadougou the capital of Burkina Faso proposed a survey to verify which works are stolen in the country and which are not so as to proceed with the return of the country’s art artefacts.

Requests for the repatriation of stolen works started immediately after decolonisation.

But the process started to move after 2020 due to the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement, after the death of George Floyd.

As mentioned above, the death of George Floyd has animated the minds of people of African descent to demand the return of works of art, which represent their cultural identity.

This is why countries like France, Belgium and Germany are moving to return these artefacts, but each in its own way.

The current French President Emmanuel Macron, during his visit to Ouagadougou, declared the end of the Françafrique, which was a strategy of political, environmental and military influence in Africa.

Thus starting the promises of artwork restitution.

To begin with, the French President commissioned a study and academics to analyse the best way, for a strategy to repatriate works of art.

Sarr and Savoy, authors of the study, advocated an unconditional and perennial restitution.

Obviously this result did not please many personalities working in museum contexts, and right-wing newspapers opposed it, because there would be a general emptying out of museums.

We can also say that the result of the study was not accepted even by the French state because they started the process of returning works “case by case” . This consists of the creation of laws that are not universal, but the creation of norms that have to be created only for each request that is made.

This is because in France there is the principle of inalienability over public works of art.

The case-by-case model is not only used by France, but also by Germany and Belgium.

Unfortunately, case-by-case resolution is very slow, so much so that not even one third of the art works have been returned.

Other countries, however, such as the United Kingdom, have adopted other techniques, one of them being temporary loans.

A striking example is that of the Easter Island Government who demanded the return of the Hoa Hakananai, a moai monolith illegally brought back in 1868 by the frigate HMS Topaze, the British Museum only decided to grant a temporary loan.

I leave it to you to imagine the frustration of the Government, and the citizens of Easter Island.

The citizens of the African continent, have been demanding their art artefacts back for almost half a century without getting a concrete answer from the former colonisers.

Art has been and still is a medium through which the history of a people is told.

Take for instance the frescoes, paintings and sculptures of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.

Museums are places of culture and learning, unfortunately still a privilege for many African countries.

Moreover, most citizens who are part of the African continent do not have the privilege of travelling, and seeing with their own eyes what their ancestors built.

This happens for several reasons including poverty and also the obstacle of borders, in fact very often African citizens are not allowed papers to set foot on European and US soil.

Many historians argue that it is good that African works remain in Europe so that they can be better preserved.

I will have to disagree with this statement , because there are plenty of experts who can preserve these pieces of history also in Africa, They can also contribute to help the preservation of these artifacts.

The restitution of African works of art could also have a positive outcome on an economic level, because there could be an increase in the tertiary sector.

Finally, the restitution of historical artifacts is important for the creation of a cultural identity and for the pride of African nations that have been told for centuries that they had an inferior cultural and artistic background to the so-called ‘civilized’ states.