France returned a looted treasure to its country of origin, Benin. It was Tuesday, November 9, 2021, 129 years after the capture of this spoils of war by the troops of the Third Republic during the colonization of Benin by France. These are the royal treasures of Abomey which include, among other things, totem statues as well as the throne of King Béhanzin.
In 2017, visiting Burkina Faso and newly elected, Emmanuel Macron promised to facilitate the restitution process to African countries. “I want the conditions to be met for the temporary or final restitution of African heritage in Africa within five years.”, He hammered.
Promise kept, since in 2020 a law on cultural restitution is passed to allow the transfer of a work from one country to another, under certain conditions. A precious legal tool that allows countries like Benin to recover rare objects looted during colonization.
FranceInfo interviewed Pascal Blanchard, historian specializing in colonization, co-director of the Achac research group (Association for the Knowledge of the History of Colonial Africa), to understand the real significance of this event which seems to mark “the start of a new era”.
Franceinfo Culture: how is this restitution different from the previous ones?
Pascal Blanchard: The restitution which concerns Benin is the first of this importance. It is not new in terms of acts. Recently, France returned items to Senegal. I also recall that in the past, she had returned human remains to Algeria and South Africa with the Hottentot Venus. But we were not in such a symbolic, political, and global approach. And especially with so many pieces returned. For Benin, we are talking about a large collection of known objects exhibited at Quai Branly, which is a large museum. Of course, the process is not new. But this large-scale restitution has symbolic and institutional strength. Moreover, Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Patrice Talon were gathered to sign an act of restitution. This proves that there is also the will to make it a political act which initiates a new dynamic in France on these questions.
It is an approach which is therefore symbolic …
I would even say that it is the first time that the symbolism has almost won out over the act of restitution itself. This chapter signals the start of a new era. We are entering the time of restitution. And this episode will lead to several requests from other countries for the return to the African continent of goods looted during the colonial period. And not only in France, but also in Germany, the Netherlands or Switzerland, and of course in Belgium with the AfricaMuseum in Brussels which is very dynamic on these questions and in which I have just opened an exhibition this week. on Human Zoos which, again, is part of this “repair” process.
To get an idea, how many objects do you estimate from African countries currently abroad?
Millions. If we take into account the public collections like that of the Quai Branly, the private collections present in all the countries, whether they are ex-colonizers or not, we can speak of 3.4 or even 5 million pieces. But the objects concerned by cultural restitutions, since looted during a colonial period, only represent part of this volume. And the idea is not to return to Africa all the objects of our museums and our collections. It would be to engage in an anachronistic approach and ultimately destructive of the very idea of a universal museum.
Take, for example, the very large AfricaMuseum in Brussels. He owns more than 150,000 pieces today. In this collection, there are perhaps 10 to 30,000 potentially looted pieces that may be returned. You should know that not all objects are part of a logic of colonial looting. Some have been acquired, others have been the subject of a transaction. The great difficulty is that this work of identification, a mission which makes it possible to know the historicity of these objects, has barely begun in museums.
How to prove that the objects were looted when they have crossed the centuries and that they have been held by different people?
It is precisely because they have been passed from hand to hand that there is a traceability of these objects. For some, searches are easier, like the objects returned to Benin. For other pieces that have belonged to private collections or come from donations, the investigations are much more complicated. And to do them, we need competent researchers. Germany is ahead on this issue, Belgium too.
For example, at the AfricaMuseum in Brussels, you will find researchers working full time on this issue. And at this level, France is lagging behind other countries. This is something that our museums will have to do, learn to do and … commit to doing. It is necessary that people competent in art history, historians or researchers work together to retrace the history of objects. The former colonial powers, but also other countries that have never been, such as Switzerland for example, will have to get started. This work will last for years or even decades, it will require significant resources, but it is essential.
What do you say to those who say that these countries do not have the conditions required for the good preservation of works?
If we look at Benin, the country has made enormous efforts in recent years. Everything is not yet ready, the museum that was planned is not finished for the moment. Fifteen or 20 years ago, that argument might have been convincing. At the time, there was not enough human competence. There were about ten competent curators in Africa who were able to take charge of these collections. I am thinking in particular of Samuel Sidibé, director of the National Museum of Mali. Added to this, a lack of museums, resources and political will in some countries. Things are changing, but the process is not over. The former colonial powers will have to take charge of training and support work for the creation of conservation, restoration and display infrastructures in these countries. Because if the work cannot be exhibited, there is no point in its returning to its country of origin, except to satisfy the political demand. It is a vast project that will surely last 20, 30 or even 40 years.
From a historian’s point of view, do you think that in the future it will be necessary to tend towards a systematic restitution of objects belonging to African cultural heritage?
You have to be very careful on two points. The first is that we must truly retrace the historicity of each of the objects. It has to be done on a case-by-case basis. Secondly, it should also be understood that a museum does not only show its national objects. It is at odds with the universal idea of the museum. If Mali only showed objects from Mali, France only objects from France and Italy only Italian objects, no one would go to museums. The right balance must be found between what must be returned, because the object has a symbolic, political and memorial dimension, and what must be shared between museums. It is complex, because no one knows the correct number of pieces that must be returned so that the colonial past can turn a serene page.
One of the solutions that had been proposed by Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr in their report on the restitution of African cultural heritage, was to reflect on a future universal status of the object, so that it can circulate around the world without belonging to one and only authority. We must also be imaginative on this point. Canada is showing today that the cultures of Indian nations can take innovative paths. Likewise for the restitution of Jewish property looted by the Nazis, the law has evolved in depth. Finally, these questions do not only concern Africa, since America, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, Greece or Egypt are concerned and this for decades. What makes Africa so specific is undoubtedly its colonial past.