Colonialism and whether Royal jewels should be returned

[AllTheseYears]

I was reading about the issue of whether Royal jewels taken from other countries during colonialism should be returned. There were arguments for and against so I just wondered what people here thought. Do you think Charles and William will be keen to return them to make amends? It seems the right thing to do in my opinion and would help modernise the monarchy.

You first OP. Explain your answer.

I suppose it depends on the individual items. Can you pick a specific one ?

I certainly thought KC decked out in lots of baubles looked incredibly anachronistic.

I don’t really like simple answers to very complex questions. So, I’ll say no at the moment. But I’d be happy to see an extremely woke version of the Crown Jewels display explaining a lot more about their origins.

The Koh-i-Noor diamond is the obvious one and what I seen most discussion on but also the Great Star of Africa, The Second Star of Africa, The Timur Ruby.

Who would you return the Koh I Noor to? India, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan all claim it.

It has been looted and changed hands multiple times over the last 500 years. Returning it to one country would cause diplomatic uproar with the others.

I'm interested in your answer OP

I picked the Great star of Africa at random, and it appears that was bought then gifted.

I agree they should be returned to where they were originally found. They were stolen in a time where morals were different and returning them would go some way to repairing the damage and showing a more ethical stance.

Who would you return the Koh I Noor to?

India as that is where it was originally stolen from.

There is ongoing projects to return stuff. Example here:

UK, South Africa return looted treasures to Ghanaian traditional king (ecr.co.za)

And as an aside, look at the problems from trying to return the Chagos Islands.

Stuff that was looted/taken, such as the Elgin Marbles should certainly be returned, but not everything is so black and white.

I don't really see why it comes down to the King OP. He does not personally own all of it.

No - not at all. The majority of these jewels were given to the ruling monarch at the time anyway. What would be the point of returning them. Just leave things as they are.

Where would you start? There's so many jewels in their posession.

I think you can't have a blanket policy for all of them, you need to look at them one by one.

The Koh I Noor diamond highlights one if the problems - who do they get returned to? This diamond passed through many hands before it ended up in our royal family's coffers.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of issues with attempting to do this.

Maybe if they were removed from the crown jewels collection, and no longer used by the royal family? But where does that stop, they have thousands of jewels, and where do they go instead? On display with contextualising info at the British Museum? They have problems of their own.

If something is gifted then it belongs to recipient, trickier if gifted to the state as opposed to the monarch because those gifts belong to us.
The crown jewels do not belong to royal family they belong to the state.
If looted property is to be returned then there are thousands of crimes as yet unresolved like all the looted possessions still held in swiss banks by the Nazis.
The Vikings, Romans, Conquistadors, Genghis khan, Alexander the great, Napoleon and Stalin looted on an epic scale.
Civil wars = murder and plunder.
Indigenous people of USA, Canada, South America, Australia, new Zealand etc had their land stolen. The church is probably the biggest offender of plundering wealth and riches. Museums have been looting for years.
Where do we start? Why just pick on our monarchy.

Hundreds of years ago my family owned acres of farmland that is now called Hampstead, not sure if it was lost or sold but I would like it back.

Where do we start?

I think that's the biggest issue!!!

If we return the jewels in our collection, what about other countries as they also invaded places.
Or as usual kick the British.

The Musrums are restricted by UK law so are developing long term relationships using long term permenent loans. That for me seems a workable model going forward. Of course private individuals or companies are free to do as they please.

Like many many issues it's very complex and seldom has simple answers. This doesn't mean change can't happen but it does mean that a one sentence solution is rarely achievable.

No, I think the royals need to concentrate on apologising and making amends to the British public for the centuries of inequality, abuse and oppression that our ancestors endured at their hands (and the hands of the rest of the upper class) ..they should be addressing the class system that perpetuates the inequality.
And not just by being the face of some charity initiatives. There needs to be real, meaningful acknowledgement and reparation.

That's far more important than some foreign government getting their hands on a shiny rock that their country owned hundreds of years ago.

The Koh I Noor wasn’t stolen. Even the Supreme Court of India acknowledges that. And neither was the Cullinan, it was mined and sold legitimately. That both of these things happened under the ‘coercive control’ of colonialism is of course the issue. But they weren’t stolen. I’m not sure what difference it makes to the UK to return them to their origin tbh, with the exception of the diplomatic issues surrounding the Koh I Noor. Either way, it’s nothing to do with the Royal family, they don’t own them, they’re state assets.

The things you mention are important but so are these jewels. If it’s just a ‘shiny rock’, we may as well give it back.

I don't think it's that simple. Modern day states don't map neatly onto the past. Power relationships seen as legitimate and 'normal' in the past look very different today, and i don't think you can simply apply a modern lens and modern beliefs to the past.

The famous horse statues of San Marco, for example, were looted from Constantinople by the Venetians in 1205, then briefly looted by Napoleon and taken to France. So their history includes over 800 years of association with Venice. Should they be sent back to Istanbul? At what point does their history in Venice outweigh their origin in modern day Turkey?

I do think historical artefacts could be a starting point for joint scholarship and public information /exhibitions about the long lasting relationships between the uk and other parts of the world. Acknowledging the good, the bad and the ugly.

But I doubt there's the money for it, and it would end up as a political football between entrenched interests.

Regarding the Koh I noor diamond specifically, the Empire podcast with Anita Anand and William Dalrymple has an interesting series

So can you give us your opinion instead of asking us like you're some kind of journalist?

"The things you mention are important but so are these jewels. If it’s just a ‘shiny rock’, we may as well give it back."
@NewYearFreshStart

Well, I didn't say they shouldn't give them away eventually if that's what they want. They're completely meaningless rocks in comparison to human suffering and human lives, they can do whatever they want with them as far as I'm concerned. What I did say was that amends to the British public should be the priority.

This comes up every now and then, and tbh it makes me sick the way the suffering and oppression of "working class" ancestors is overlooked time and time again. In fact, to the contrary our ancestors memories are constantly tarred with the sins of their oppressors merely because of their ethnicity, which is exactly why it's important that they make a very public apology.
The class system is still so, so entrenched in our society and does so much damage, yet because it's so normalised it doesn't make headlines. This is why I say it needs to be prioritised. My opinion is that zero headspace should be given to reparations for foreign governments as long as the damage they've caused people here is being ignored.

They did give their opinion. They said,

’Do you think Charles and William will be keen to return them to make amends? It seems the right thing to do in my opinion’

Only at the end of their first post. To get to that bit I would have to have read right to the end of a seriously medium length post. 😳