{"id":95935,"date":"2019-12-02T15:48:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T22:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95935"},"modified":"2019-12-02T15:48:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T22:48:40","slug":"britain-and-post-sic-colonial-skullduggery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/02\/britain-and-post-sic-colonial-skullduggery\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain and Post (sic) Colonial Skullduggery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne<\/em> <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

\n\nA\n few weeks ago, indigenous leaders from Australia visited the Manchester\n Museum. They went there to collect various sacred ceremonial artifacts \nwhich were said to have been \u2018taken without permission\u2019 by early 20th \nCentury British colonialists.\n\n
\n\nDanny\n Teece-Johnson, a journalist for Australia\u2019s National Indigenous \nTelevision, had an interesting comment on the language of extraction.\n\n
\u2018You’re\n saying borrowed, you’re saying this and that. Nah, let’s talk about the\n white elephant in the room: you stole it, you took it without \npermission, that’s theft. If you did that these days, you’d get put in \njail for it.\u2019<\/em>
\n\nLanguage\n is cute and few are as cute about its use than the British and of \ncourse the country which borrowed their language and perfected the art \nof political cuteness, the USA. Countries are never invaded, they are \n\u2018democratized.\u2019 The victims of terrorist attacks launched by such \ncountries are not people, they make up \u2018collateral\u2019. Land theft never \nhappened. Resource plunder? Never happened. Cultural genocide? No. Mass \nslaughter? What? That\u2019s called \u2018civilizing\u2019. A good thing, surely?  \n\n
\n\nNow\n around the same time or a few days after the above return of stolen \ngoods, the University of Edinburgh, in a moment of insane generosity, \nreturned nine skulls to Uruvarigaye Wanniyalaetto. The skulls are \nsupposed to be more than 200 years old and are thought to be those of \nWanniyalaetto\u2019s ancestors.\n\n
\n\nNice. Let\u2019s say \u2018Thank you, thanks for the kind and generous gesture.\u2019\n\n
\n\nAlright.\n Enough applause. Let\u2019s talk of skulls and skullduggery, taking without \npermission and outright theft. In 1974, P.H.D.H. De Silva published a \nbook titled \u2018A catalogue of antiquities and other cultural objects from \nSri Lanka (Ceylon) Abroad.\u2019  There\n are over 15,000 items listed. Remember, these are thefts that have been\n recorded and stolen goods that are given names, numbers and catalogued.\n They have ended up, as far as we can say with absolute certainty, in 23\n countries and 140 holding facilities. This is not counting gene piracy \nand post-colonial extraction, let us not forget. The vast majority of \nthe artifacts listen in the book are in Britain. Bristol, Cambridge, \nEdinburgh, Glasgow, Berkshire, Leister, Liverpool, London, Sheffield and\n Windsor are among the cities mentioned.\n\n
\n\nAnd they return nine skulls!\n\n
\n\nSo\n we say \u2018Thank you,\u2019 and think \u2018Such lovely folks.\u2019 Well, Wanniyalaetto \nhas stated that the lovely folks in Manchester had told him there were \n14,000 more skulls and bones. Apparently they are to take steps to \nreturn them as well.  If you clapped once for the nine skulls, you would have to clap 1555.5 times if\/when these other bones are returned. \n\n
\n\nNow\n this stuff is not new. Eight years ago, almost to the day, i.e. from \nSeptember 14 to November 24, the British Council in Colombo arranged a \ntraveling exhibition of artifacts. It was called \u2018A Return to Sri \nLanka.\u2019 That\u2019s tongue-in-cheek that was lost on one and all, indicating \nhow sycophantic we have become. The following was the blurb advertising \nthe event: \u2018\u2026covers nearly 300 years of the country\u2019s history through\n 150 digital facsimiles of materials from major British collections, \nincluding maps, manuscripts, prints, drawings and photographs as well as\n other artifacts\u2019. <\/em>
\n\nThe\n first question: \u2018Only 150?\u2019 Wear an expression of incredulity as you \nask it. Second question: \u2018Facsimiles?\u2019 Whatever expression you wear it \nshould indicate the words used to camouflage without really wanting to, \ni.e. \u2018What the flower?\u2019 \n\n
\n\nThe\n then Country Director of the British Council, Tony Reilly, called the \nexhibition \u2018a partnership event.\u2019 The purpose, he claimed, was \u2018to share\n it, to experience, to enjoy, to argue and talk about 300 years of \ncultural diversity described in each piece.\u2019 He left out \u2018theft\u2019. He \nleft out \u2018butchery\u2019. He left out \u2018genocide\u2019. That\u2019s par for the course, \nof course.\n\n
\n\nThat exhibition was interestingly funded by the World Collections Program. Well! Let\u2019s talk \u2018collections\u2019.  \n\n
\n\nIn\n August 2018 the British Museum decided to return to Iraq eight 5,000 \nyear old artifacts looted following \u2018the fall of Saddam Hussein\u2019 as they\n reported it. Fall, huh? Ha! Apparently the objected were seized by \npolice from a London dealer in 2003 and had been in the hands of the \nstate for 15 years before being identified as having been extracted from\n a site in Tello in southern Iraq. The Director of the British Museum \nHartwig Fischer said at the time that the institution was \u2018absolutely \ncommitted to the fight against illicit trade and damage to cultural \nheritage.\u2019\n\n
\n\nWow!\n\n
\n\nHe\n missed this important point: Britain is the product and the repository \nof illicit trade (sanitized term for \u2018plunder\u2019 in the lexicon of British\n Apologetics).\n\n
\n\nBritain\u2019s\n partners in crime in this business across the Atlantic, the USA, uses \nthe same kind of language. In September 2019, US authorities returned a \nstolen coffin to Egypt, two years after it was acquired by the \nMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The 2,100 year old coffin \nof a priest called Nedjemankh had been featured in a exhibition of \nartifacts from Egypt. Apparently it had been looted and smuggled out of \nEgypt in 2011. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, speaking at a \nrepatriation ceremony, opined that this was one of hundreds of \nantiquities stolen by the same \u2018multinational trafficking ring.\u2019\n\n
\n\nMultinational\n trafficking ring! That\u2019s a descriptive worth holding on to. That\u2019s what\n colonial rule was all about, wasn\u2019t it? That\u2019s what’s happening even \nnow, isn’t it? Wars are not about democracy, resolutions are not about \nhuman rights. It\u2019s about creating conditions (including the support of \nor installation of pliant governments) for the highly profitable \nbusiness of plunder. Land, oil, strategic geographies, water, genetic \nresources, you name it, it’s all \u2018open to exploration,\u2019 let\u2019s say.\n\n
\n\nWhat\u2019s\n the market value of nine skulls? What’s the market value of 300 \nfacsimiles compared with that of the originals? Of course, the curators \nof museums and custodians of other \u2018collections\u2019 didn\u2019t kill anyone or \nrob things. They are, however, holding on to stolen goods. There is no \ntalk of returning these to the descendants of those who were robbed and \nprobably killed in the process as well.\n\n
\n\nAnd\n it can\u2019t start and end with artifacts. Yes, it is hard to ascertain the\n true value of everything that was stolen and even more difficult to \nobtain the true cost of the damage in terms of cultural erasure, \ndestruction of livelihoods and lifestyles, forced dislocation and all \nthe trauma that was part of such things.  Britain\n is reported to have paid out 20 million sterling pounds to slave owners\n in the colonies of the Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope \nas per a census on owners as of August 1, 1834 under the Slave \nCompensation Act of 1837. Words! It was not the slaves who were \ncompensated but the slave-drivers!\n\n
\n\nThat\u2019s\n a benchmark. Contrary to the Anglophiles in Sri Lanka, who get \nnostalgic about a \u2018British Rule\u2019 that took places long before they were \nborn, and who talk about roads, railways and such, the truth is that the\n British were out and out brigands.  They\n didn\u2019t build roads and railways. A subjugated people\u2019s labour is \ncongealed in all that was built with money extracted through brutal \nsystems of taxation (without representation, mind you!). In addition to \nmass slaughter, they destroyed temples (and built churches on their \nfoundation \u2014 \u2018to civilize the heathens!\u2019 Yeah, right!)  and\n either burnt or robbed countless invaluable Buddhist manuscripts. Yes, \nwe can add the theft of intellectual property to artifact theft, \nresource extraction, labor exploitation and gene piracy. If the British \ncould quantify and compensate slaves, we could quantify reparations for \ncolonial plunder.\n\n
\n\nAnd they return nine skulls! Did someone say \u2018Hooray!\u2019?\n\n
\n\nThere\n are no facsimiles of the blood they spilled, the tears shed, the \nscreams before butchery. No facsimiles of villages torched and children \nkilled. No facsimiles of temples razed to the ground or forests cleared \n(and the timber shipped out) for coffee and tea. And it\u2019s not facsimiles\n of artifacts and manuscripts that are now housed in the British \nLibrary, the Victoria and Albert Museums, the Natural History Museum in \nLondon and other loot-holding facilities. \n\n
\n\nEight\n years ago, when the British Council was bragging about facsimiles, a \nfriend offered the following: \u2018they fokkin’ brazen aint they? so let’s \nsee, they steal and then show us pix of what they stole but wont return?\n No one asking for reparations or loot? Is there a catalog of the stolen\n in collections? Is Keppetipola’s skull still in Scotland?\u2019 And I wrote,\n \u2018This is not a return\u201d to Sri Lanka.  This is about slapping one cheek\n and slapping the other too for good measure.  Returns that can be \nXeroxed\u201d sums up the season of plunder that does not seem to have ended \nafter the British left\u201d.   They could return what they robbed and keep \nthe facsimiles in their collections, after all. \n\n
\n\nBut they\u2019ve returned nine skulls! Hooray!\n\n
\n\nBut\n then again, they\u2019re refusing the return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius\n despite an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of \nJustice (ICJ). The archipelago is now the site of the US military base \nin Diego Garcia. And the USA, which just the other day threatened to \narrest and sanction judges and other officials of the International \nCriminal Court if it moves to charge with war crimes any US citizen who \nserved in Afghanistan, would probably thumb its nose as the ICJ if it \n\u2018tried to be funny\u2019.  \n\n
\n\nWell, funny is the word. It\u2019s hilarious. \n\n
\n\nThey returned nine skulls. I could die laughing.  EXCEPT, it is no laughing matter.  It\u2019s skullduggery in cute form indulged in by multinational artifact traffickers. \n\n
\n\nDanny\n Teece Johnson was correct. They should all be serving time in prison, \nthese do-gooding, skull-giving beneficiaries of skullduggery. \n\n
\n\nSkulls. Indeed! \n\n
\n\nREAD ALSO:\n\nIf the Common-Welt is to be erased…<\/a>Returning facsimiles of loot does not compensate, sorry<\/a>
malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne A few weeks ago, indigenous leaders from Australia visited the Manchester Museum. They went there to collect various sacred ceremonial artifacts which were said to have been \u2018taken without permission\u2019 by early 20th Century British colonialists. Danny Teece-Johnson, a journalist for Australia\u2019s National Indigenous Television, had an interesting comment on the language of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}