Back to rightful owners

By Dan Kim

Art and war trace all the way back to the advent of human history. The widest gulf separating the two is that the former nurtures humanity whereas the latter kills it. Interestingly, when a war transpires, victors largely spare artworks, carting them back home.

While it is better to take treasures than obliterate them, there remains the most fundamental question. Is it right to loot them? Anyone with morality would say an unequivocal no because stealing is wrong. Disappointingly, when it comes to artifacts plundered by invaders such as many European empires during the colonial period, this indubitable commonsense turns elusive. Morality disappears from the “debate” of art repatriation.

Fortunately, a silver lining came when French President Emmanuel Macron, who during his election campaign had described his country's colonial past as a “crime against humanity,” recently addressed Africa and promised to start returning stolen artworks to Africa.

It is truly commendable to make genuine restitution. Still, one might wonder if this act of remorse is shared among the perpetrators and if these repatriating efforts turn out to be an irrevocable success or a political charade.

Sadly, there are various arguments pervasive among many individuals and organizations against repatriating cultural heritage. Some preposterously maintain that the creators could not comprehend what they were making was art.

Didier Rykner, a journalist at La Tribune de l'art, once infamously remarked, “They became works of art in museums because Europeans said it's art. In Africa, it was not art. It was meant to disappear.”

Furthermore, others present a specious claim that they should be the ones to protect the ill-gotten artifacts because they have sophisticated museums and abundant resources. These rationales lack heavily in evidence at best and sound alarmingly racist at worst. What matters most is the undeniable fact that no argument grants anyone the right to steal things and keep them.

Thus, the least action perpetrators can and must carry out is to give the plunder back to victims permanently without conditions, certainly not on a long-term loan basis.

In 2011, we Koreans “got back” our royal documents looted in 1866 by the French empire on a five-year renewable loan basis. The French government rationalized this by arguing that the loan was more practical because it would require a change in the law to make it permanent, which would take a very long time.

This explanation comes across as awfully evasive and humiliating. Who would want to borrow their own property? Luckily, the French government is now reportedly mulling ways to change the law to make permanent restitution to African countries. Hopefully, this comes true and becomes the norm of art repatriation.

It is 2019. By now, colonialism should exist only in textbooks. Still, the colonialist perspective lurks in the art field, if not in every sector. As President Macron stated, colonialism is a crime against humanity. It is high time to exterminate it in every nook and cranny of the world for good.

Dan Kim (legendanny1224@gmail.com) teaches English at a private language school in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province.