France asks: Should ex-colonizers give back African art?

The debate over African artifacts in French museums has intensified

Big royal statues of the Kingdom of Dahomey dating back to 1890-1892 are pictured on June 18, 2018 at the Quai Branly Museum-Jacques Chirac in Paris. Benin is demanding restitution of its national treasures that had been taken from the former French colony Dahomey (current Benin) to France and currently are on display at Quai Branly, a museum featuring the indigenous art and cultures of Africa. / AFP / GERARD JULIENShow less

From Senegal to Ethiopia, artists, governments and museums are eagerly awaiting a report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron on how former colonizers can return African art to Africa.

The study by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr, being presented to Macron on Friday in Paris, is expected to recommend that French museums give back works that were taken without consent, if African countries request them. That could increase pressure on museums elsewhere in Europe to follow suit.

The experts estimate that up to 90 percent of African art is outside the continent, including statues, thrones and manuscripts. Tens of thousands of works are held by just one museum, the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, opened in 2006 to showcase non-European art — much of it from former French colonies. The museum wouldn't comment ahead of the report's release.

The head of Ethiopia's Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Yonas Desta, said the report shows "'a new era of thought" in Europe's relations with Africa. "I'm longing to see the final French report," he told The Associated Press.

Senegal's culture minister, Abdou Latif Coulibaly, said: "It's entirely logical that Africans should get back their artworks. ... These works were taken in conditions that were perhaps legitimate at the time, but illegitimate today."

The report is just a first step. Challenges ahead include enforcing the report's recommendations, especially if museums resist, and determining how objects were obtained and whom to give them to.

The report is part of broader promises by Mr Macron to turn the page on France's troubled relationship with Africa. In a groundbreaking meeting with students in Burkina Faso last year, Mr Macron stressed the "undeniable crimes of European colonization" and said he wants pieces of African cultural heritage to return to Africa "temporarily or definitively."

"I cannot accept that a large part of African heritage is in France," he said at the time.

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The French report could have broader repercussions. In Cameroon, professor Verkijika Fanso, historian at the University of Yaounde One, said: "France is feeling the heat of what others will face. Let their decision to bring back what is ours motivate others."

Germany has worked to return art seized by the Nazis, and in May the organization that coordinates that effort, the German Lost Art Foundation, said it was starting a program to research the provenance of cultural objects collected during the country's colonial past.

Britain is also under pressure to return art taken from its former colonies. In recent months, Ethiopian officials have increased efforts to secure the return of looted artifacts and manuscripts from museums, personal collections and government institutions across Britain, including valuable items taken in the 1860s after battles in northern Ethiopia, Yonas said.

In Nigeria, a group of bronze casters over the years has strongly supported calls for the return of artifacts taken from the Palace of the Oba of Benin in 1897 when the British raided it. The group still uses their forefathers' centuries-old skills to produce bronze works in Igun Street, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Eric Osamudiamen Ogbemudia, secretary of the Igun Bronze Casters Union in Benin City, said: "It was never the intention of our fathers to give these works to the British. It is important that we get them back so as to see what our ancestors left behind."

Mr Ogbemudia warned the new French report should not remain just a "recommendation merely to make Africans to calm down.

"Let us see the action."