美国国家公共电台 NPR Across Europe, Museums Rethink What To Do With Their African Art Collections

Across Europe, Museums Rethink What To Do With Their African Art Collections

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Early on in the movie "Black Panther," there's a confrontation¹ in a fictional² British museum. A visitor is arguing with a curator over African artifacts.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK PANTHER")

FRANCESCA FARIDANY: (As Museum Director) These items aren't for sale.

MICHAEL B JORDAN: (As Erik Killmonger) How do you think your ancestors got these? You think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it like they took everything else?

KELLY: A similar discussion is happening in museums around the world over the African art in their collections. Germany has plans to return art and artifacts taken from Africa during the colonial period, and last month, France announced a 20 million euro loan to the West African country of Benin for a new museum to house returned objects. Emma Jacobs reports.

EMMA JACOBS, BYLINE³: In 2006, France's Quai Branly museum lent a set of wooden statues and carved furniture to Benin.

MARIE-CECILE ZINSOU: People were queuing for three or four hours.

JACOBS: Marie-Cecile Zinsou established the Fondation Zinsou, the Benin museum that hosted the objects originally seized from the region by a French military expedition in 1892. People who came to the exhibition left lots of messages in the visitors' book - thank you for sharing this piece of Beninese history.

ZINSOU: But why do these objects have to go back and forth⁴, exactly? People were really saying, like, do you think we could have them back for real soon?

JACOBS: According to the most commonly cited figures from UNESCO forum⁵, 90 to 95% of sub-Saharan cultural artifacts are now housed outside Africa. Many, like the works from Benin, were taken during the colonial period and ended up in museums across Europe and North America.

GUIDO GRYSEELS: Some of them were brought by missionaries⁶. Others were brought by civil servants.

JACOBS: At the Africa Museum in Belgium, director Guido Gryseels says 85% of the museum's collection comes from the country's former colony in Central Africa, the Belgian Congo.

GRYSEELS: Also, some were resulting from military expeditions and sometimes even from plundering⁷.

JACOBS: For decades, Congolese leaders have asked for these objects to be returned. Most of their requests, and those by African countries to other museums, have been refused, with some exceptions particularly for human remains⁸. But recent events in Europe have raised the possibility of returns at a much larger scale. Last year, French president Emmanuel Macron commissioned a study on how much African art French museums are holding and to make recommendations about what to do with it. Senegalese economist⁹ Felwine Sarr was one of the authors.

FELWINE SARR: (Foreign language spoken).

JACOBS: Sarr says the problem is you can't lend people an object that you basically stole from them. The study recommended the return of a wide range of objects taken during the colonial period by force or where there's simply no documentation of consent. The report got mixed reviews in France, where Sarr estimates there are at least 90,000 African items in museums, the vast majority in just one - the state-owned Quai Branly in Paris. Its director Stephane Martin said in an interview with radio station Europe 1 that restitution¹⁰ shouldn't be a dirty word but that the report was too drastic.

STEPHANE MARTIN: (Speaking French).

JACOBS: Museums, he said, should not be the hostages of the unhappy history of colonialism. The wrangling¹¹ over where art comes from and where it belongs isn't new. The most famous example is Greece's long-standing dispute with the British Museum over what the British call the Elgin Marbles, sculptures from the Parthenon that have been at the London Museum for almost 200 years. Alexander Herman of the Institute of Art and Law in the UK says that in 2002, a group of directors from major international museums issued a general declaration on the topic of restitution...

ALEXANDER HERMAN: Claiming we shouldn't just be kowtowing to these claimant countries and giving everything back, and things need to be shared with a world audience, and we're the best places where this can happen.

JACOBS: That sentiment still lingers, he says. The Elgin Marbles are still in the British Museum.

HERMAN: But I think on other fronts, there is more of an openness.

JACOBS: The director of the Africa Museum in Belgium, Guido Gryseels, acknowledges that attitudes are changing.

GRYSEELS: We are fully¹² aware that it's not normal that such a large part of the African cultural heritage is in Europe or in Western museums.

JACOBS: Gryseels says he's in discussion with his counterpart in the Congo to return works. In France, some press coverage¹³ has suggested returns could leave vacant shelves in French museums. Cecile Fromont, a French historian of Central African art, says that's not going to happen.

CECILE FROMONT: We are talking about hundreds of thousands of objects.

JACOBS: One way of thinking about it, she says, is that more African art can go on display.

FROMONT: As somebody who wants to champion the display and study of the expressive¹⁴ arts of the African continent, if we can get more objects on view in more settings, in more museums, in more places around the world, that sounds like a great solution.

JACOBS: For now, those wooden objects from Benin are back at the Quai Branly. It will take an act of the French Parliament to release them from the museum's collections and another law to allow for wider permanent returns. For NPR News, I'm Emma Jacobs.

1 confrontation   

n.对抗，对峙，冲突

参考例句：

• We can't risk another confrontation with the union.我们不能冒再次同工会对抗的危险。
• After years of confrontation,they finally have achieved a modus vivendi.在对抗很长时间后，他们最后达成安宁生存的非正式协议。

2 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

5 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

6 missionaries   

n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some missionaries came from England in the Qing Dynasty. 清朝时，从英国来了一些传教士。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The missionaries rebuked the natives for worshipping images. 传教士指责当地人崇拜偶像。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 plundering   

掠夺，抢劫( plunder的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The troops crossed the country, plundering and looting as they went. 部队经过乡村，一路抢劫掳掠。
• They amassed huge wealth by plundering the colonies. 他们通过掠夺殖民地聚敛了大笔的财富。

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

9 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

10 restitution   

n.赔偿；恢复原状

参考例句：

• It's only fair that those who do the damage should make restitution.损坏东西的人应负责赔偿，这是再公平不过的了。
• The victims are demanding full restitution.受害人要求全额赔偿。

11 wrangling   

v.争吵，争论，口角( wrangle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The two sides have spent most of their time wrangling over procedural problems. 双方大部分时间都在围绕程序问题争论不休。 来自辞典例句
• The children were wrangling (with each other) over the new toy. 孩子为新玩具（互相）争吵。 来自辞典例句

12 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

13 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

14 expressive   

adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的

参考例句：

• Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
• He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的，富于表情的，生动活泼的脸。