France’s Colonial Legacy Is Being Judged in Trial Over African Art
Activists are being tried in Paris over the attempted theft of an
African artwork from the Quai Branly Museum, which they say was a
protest of colonial-era practices.
“No one has sought to find out what harm has been done to Africa,”
Mwazulu Diyabanza, an activist, said in court on Wednesday. He and four
associates are on trial in the attempted theft of an African object from
the Quai Branly Museum.
“No one has sought to find out what harm has been done to Africa,”
Mwazulu Diyabanza, an activist, said in court on Wednesday. He and four
associates are on trial in the attempted theft of an African object from
the Quai Branly Museum.Credit...Thibault Camus/Associated Press
ByConstant Méheut
<https://www.nytimes.com/by/constant-meheut>andAntonella Francini
* NY Times, Sept. 30, 2020
*
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PARIS — Wearing a long, white tunic with the names of two African ethnic
groups written on it, the defendant stepped forward to the bar, took a
breath, and launched into a plea.
“No one has sought to find out what harm has been done to Africa,” said
the defendant, Mwazulu Diyabanza, a Congo-born 41-year-old activist and
spokesman for a Pan-African movement that denounces colonialism and
cultural expropriation.
Mr. Diyabanza, along with four associates, stood accused of attempting
to steal a 19th-century African funeral pole from the Quai Branly Museum
in Paris in mid-June, as part of an action toprotest colonial-era
cultural theft and seek reparations
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/arts/design/france-museum-quai-branly.html>.
But it was Wednesday’s emotionally charged trial that gave real
resonance to Mr. Diyabanza’s struggle, as a symbolic defendant was
called to the stand: France, and its colonial track record.
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The presiding judge in charge of the case acknowledged the two trials:
One, judging the group, four men and a woman, on a charge of attempted
theft for which they could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of
about $173,000.
“And another trial, that of the history of Europe, of France with
Africa, the trial of colonialism, the trial of the misappropriation of
the cultural heritage of nations,” the judge told the court, adding that
such was a “citizen’s trial, not a judicial one.”
The political and historical ramifications were hard to avoid.
France’s vast trove of African heritage — it is estimated that some
90,000 sub-Saharan African cultural objects are held in French museums —
was largely acquired under colonial times, and many of these artworks
were looted or acquired under dubious circumstances. That has put France
at the center of a debate on the restitution of colonial-era holdings to
their countries of origin.
Unlike inGermany, where this debate
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/arts/design/germany-museums-restitution.html>has
been welcomed by both the government and museums, France has struggled
to offer a consistent response, just as the country is facing adifficult
reckoning with its past
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/world/europe/france-george-floyd-racism-slave-trade.html>.
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“Our act aimed to erase the acts of indignity and disrespect of those
who plundered our homes,” Mr. Diyabanza said.
ImageA report identified about 46,000 objects at the Quai Branly Museum
that would qualify for restitution.
A report identified about 46,000 objects at the Quai Branly Museum that
would qualify for restitution.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York
Times
The restitution debate came to a head in France when President Emmanuel
Macron promised in 2017 to give back much of Africa’s heritage held by
French museums. He later commissioned areport
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/arts/design/france-museums-africa-savoy-sarr-report.html>that
identified about two-thirds of the 70,000 objects at the Quai Branly
Museum as qualifying for restitution.
But in the two years following the report, only 27 restitutions have
been announced and only one object,a traditional sword, has been
returned — to Senegal
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/arts/design/restitution-france-africa.html>,
in November 2019. The remaining 26 treasures that were designated for
restitution, to Benin, are still in the Quai Branly Museum.
And the bill supporting these exceptional, or case-by-case, restitutions
has yet to be voted on.
Calvin Job, the lawyer for three of the defendants, said in court that
the bill, by focusing on exceptional rather than regular restitutions,
reflected “a desire not to settle the issue.”
“We should enshrine the principle of restitution in the code of law,”
Mr. Job said.
Given what they perceive as hurdles, activists from Mr. Diyabanza’s
Pan-African movement have staged operations similar to that in Paris at
African art museums in the Southern French city of Marseille and in Berg
en Dal, in the Netherlands.
At times, these actions have epitomized growing identity-related claims,
coming from French citizens of African descent living in a country
wherea racial awakening has started to take place
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/world/europe/france-racism-universalism.html>in
recent months.
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“We have young people who have an identity problem,” Mr. Job said in an
interview, “who, faced with a lack of action, a lack of political will,
have found it legitimate to do the work that others don’t.”
Speaking to the judge, Julie Djaka, a 34-year-old defendant who grew up
in a Congolese family, said: “For you, these are works. For us, these
are entities, ritual objects that maintained the order at home, in our
villages in Africa, that enabled us to do justice.”
Marie-Cécile Zinsou, the president of the Zinsou Art Foundation in Benin
and the daughter of a former prime minister of Benin, said that,
although she did not share the activists’ methods, she understands “why
they exist.” “We cannot be ignored and looked upon down all the time,”
she said.
“In France, there’s a post-colonial view on the African continent,” Ms.
Zinsou added, saying that some prominent French cultural figures still
doubted that African countries could preserve artworks.
Such grievances on France’s post-colonial legacy were in full play on
Wednesday at the trial as a small crowd of about 50 people, most
Pan-African movement activists, were barred from entering the courtroom
by the police because of concerns about the coronavirus and because some
feared that their presence could disrupt the trial.
Activists shouted “band of thieves” and “slavers” at the police officers
cordoning off the entrance to the courtroom and they chanted, “Give us
back our artwork!”
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Prosecutors on Wednesday asked that a fine of 1,000 euros, or about
$1,200, be levied against Mr. Diyabanza and a suspended €500 fine be
levied against his associates. A verdict is expected on Oct. 14.
Activists in front of the courtroom on Wednesday welcomed the
recommended sentences, which they found modest, as a collective victory.
“We all are defendants here; all of us should normally be at the stand
today,” said Laetitia Babin, a 45-year-old social worker born in Congo,
who had arrived from Belgium in the morning to attend the trial.
“It’s not up to them to decide how artworks are returned to us, it’s up
to us,” she said.
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