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Who Decides History's Future?
"The West is wrestling with its colonial heritage in the most literal
sense: its museums teem with treasure taken on conquests abroad. Crowns
and swords, books and bones. The breadth of culture ripped from its home
is hard to comprehend, as is the sheer scale of it: ninety percent of
Africas art is held on other continents. Imagine the Liberty Bell gone,
Versailles stripped of its Hall of Mirrors, the Roman Forum empty of
columns and stones. To see them, you would have to travel across seas,
deserts, mountains; apply for visas and buy a ticket for a glance at
your peoples history behind glass. Spread that theft to Asia, the
Americas, and even other corners of Europe. The scope is unimaginable,
as are the emotional scars left by the absence of national treasures."
Alexandra Haven explores questions of ownership, ethics and the future
of the world's art in this thoughtful essay.
https://parabola.org/2019/07/25/who-decides-historys-future-by-alexandra-haven/
