AIBU to wonder why the British Museum gets singled out?

[BluesandClues]

I am forever seeing posts on social media about how the British Museum stole everything, and they should give things back. It always someone just ranting at the camera as well, with lots of bad guy/good guy vibes. There’s never a discussion of the various facts of the matter.

I never see posts about other museums, why is it always the British museum?

I think we should go after the Italians for reparations from them enslaving us and taking all our tin and gold. We should ask for reparations from the Norwegians for enslaving us and taking our natural resources . Same with the French and the Norman conquest .

Nobody has asked for reparations on this thread.
But some people appear to confuse buying with looting.

The post I am replying to very self pitying about the nasty left and their effect on poor old Britain

What I was trying to say is that a lot of figures ‘on the left’ are kind of narcissistic self-promoters who degrade the real and important issue.

Same reason nobody mentions how a disproportionate number of slavers were Scottish, or how Ireland was neutral in WW2

If you don’t understand why Ireland was neutral in WW2, I’d suggest some reading might be appropriate.

Ive got my Irish leaving cert babe, thanks. Im saying nobody mentions it

But in what context? It doesn’t seem remotely relevant to a discussion about potentially sending back artefacts from the BM.

Pmsl!

I'd like to see someone use that as a defence in court:

"It was crime prevention, your honour, I only nicked it to stop it being stolen or trashed..."

Because despite having been derailed into a generalist argument about artefact theft, the OPs question wasnt about whether that in itself is wrong. The question was really about why some nations are held to higher standards than others

@Sagealicious, YES - I completely agree.

Still not clear on the relevance of Irish neutrality.

It's true even if you don't like it.

Little has been found since that law because most was returned earlier. But when one is found, they generally don't mess around legally and just permanently loan it back under long repeating agreements, the unspoken part being they aren't really expecting it back.

And even if you disagree with someone, don't list one of two exceptions and say it is the only one.

Absolutely this. I’m glad people have seen through him, as are many I know in the field.

They belong to humankind and the world. And that is probably the most sentimental statement I have ever made on here. Their ingenuity, skill, use of precious and other materials ( ie earth's resources), meaning, importance, all means that if we can we should do our best to preserve them for future generations.

Humankind ain't getting no visas to.come here to see them.

Youve had it explained to you on this thread that the museum act does not allow British national museums to de-accession items full stop, except for a couple of exceptions including human remains. Other museums have trusts that prohibit as part of the settlement loans in or out or disposals. The Wallace Collection recently went to court over 100 years after settlement to slightly vary the terms of their settlement. Were you expecting this to be a quick process?

I recently talked to a curator in my field about de-accessioning low value in all regards items, due to storage costs and.constraints. His museum has duplicates, many. Staffing is so cut

An interesting Provenance conf at the V&A last year. Certainly many items were given that turn out to be from plunder and the collectors would have known. But also given in good faith as when purchased there was no idea that the item had been looted.

It's good that the V and A Provenance conference finally used the term ' loot' for many of the objects, including Tipu's tiger and the Srirangapatna treasure, instead of pretending that they had bought it. But they have no intention of returning it, despite acknowledging it to be looted. So let's not argue that all looted objects have been returned.

For some reason, I can't add a link to that, but you can see it on V and A provenance.

Or that the recent Silk Roads BM exhib clearly highlighted at least 5 separate cultures enslaving the defeated and overrun , over 1000 years. Add in the Romans, Egyptians and many more, yet the only slavery that seems to be of major note is the African - Americas slavery of the 17th C onwards. That needs to be placed in world wide historic context, where we all look to prevent current slavery.

The point is the English are held to a higher standard. The U.K. as a nation has a long history of doing some good and some bloody awful things. Ireland has a much shorter history and within that has done some good and some bloody awful things - de facto support for the Nazis, the treatment of Irish veterans that helped defeat the Nazis etc.
No country is perfect yet (some of) the Irish often cast themselves as moral arbiters and will quickly point out all the UK’s failings (of which there are many) while paining themselves as never having done anything wrong - which is clearly not true - Irish actions during WW2 being a case in point.

Thank you, I will check them out.

You know what, I did a ‘virtual’ tour of that place on YouTube and the amount of stuff they have is insane!

And the BM has most of its ‘loot’ catalogued and is available for academic research - not the Vatican they have so much they don’t know how much they have or what they have. It quite cheered me up to know that someone else were bigger baddies than the U.K.😉

Well I really could give a damn And sure I'm not alone in thst