I was inspired by a recent Cracked article of somebody who said their family is in possession of a Japanese flag and sword from World War 2 their grandfather took from a Japanese prisoner. Apparently people were pissed the the guy hadn’t returned the artifacts to the soldiers relatives since the guys name was on the flag and thus they could in theory return it.
I was thinking, is it actually worth returning stuff like that? I know it was taken in war time but it’s not like they took the crown jewels or a historic artifact from a museum, literally just took some sword from a guy who was going to have to turn it in anyway. It reminds me of how there’s museums all over the world that have captured WW2 stuff from Germany and Japan, that technically were looted but unless I’m missing something I don’t hear that much of a clamor to get back unless it was a super rare prototype of something (I know Germany has been trying to get back a few ultra rare aircraft for its own museums).
Do you think stuff like that should be returned? Or in wartime are captured materials of war fair game?
Apparently there is a concept called “spoils of war”, the nuances of which I don’t fully understand because IANAL but I can put you through to someone who is:
Presumably an enemy soldier’s gummint-issued weapon is “movable property belonging to the State which may be used for military operations”? IDK, IANAL.
Do “spoils of war” as currently defined count as “repatriable cultural heritage”? (Not to be confused with earlier attitudes that all kinds of cultural heritage were legitimate spoils of war.) Beats me.
I think spoils of recent, covered-by-laws-of-war war is fair game.
Don’t want your flag and sword taken? Don’t bomb Pearl Harbour, bitches.
On the other hand, I think spoils of colonialism should be repatriated. Stuff like the Elgin Marbles, Benin Bronzes and Bust of Nefertiti. Including if they were taken in colonial wars.
Yes, I get that means the British Museum then really becomes the British Museum rather than the Stuff Britain Took Museum. Suck it up, Sahib.
But that only allows the occupying authorities to seize spoils of war; not individual GI Joe, for his own benefit.
GI Joe stole the flag and the sword; it’s as simple as that. As well as being a breach of the law of whatever country this happened in, it was probably also a breach of the US military code, but either because they didn’t know about it or because of a policy of not enforcing the code in this respect the US authorities took no action against GI Joe.
If you lose a fight, you forfeit your weapons and armor. That’s like the oldest rule of war there is - it’s in the Iliad, for Zeus’s sake. Lots of old military traditions (like, say, rape), should probably be abandoned in the modern age, but this one I think we should keep.
A lot of people think the Elgin Marbles were looted and should be returned. I disagree. Elgin didn’t loot them, he rescued them when they were in danger of destruction. Without his intervention they might have been lost forever. His claim to them was legitimate.
If that’s true (and it may be), they should still be returned, since the danger of their destruction has passed. if you rescue something from danger, you don’t get to keep it forever.
I agree with that statement. If you lose, you forfeit…especially if it’s a war your side started. I say it’s totally a matter of conscience. Imagine the uproar if a German family wanted their Luger & Nazi flag back.
If I throw out a load of old junk on the scrap heap, and you spot a valuable antique among the pile, then should I be allowed to demand that you return it, or to share it with me? Abandoned property is for the taking. That is the situation with the Marbles. Elgin retrieved them from people who didn’t recognise their value and discarded them.
For instance, take the aforementioned colonial wars of conquest. The conquered peoples lost their fights, but those were fights that were forced on them. Any artifacts the colonial powers took from them should be returned.
Now if a nation goes on wars of aggression and conquest and loses, then sure, they lose their weapons and symbols of war, and don’t get them back.
Bullshit. If he legitimately rescued them, he wouldn’t have had to make up fake permission documents. Plus he had to pay a bribe to do so, which immediately illegitimatises his actions.
And they were never really in any danger. How do we know this? Because the Greeks still have the half he *didn’t *loot.
All we have is a copy of the original. So, there’s not evidence it was faked.
And the Ottoman Empire was so corrupt that bribing a official to get such a firman would be easy. Bribing was not illegal and was a accepted way of doing business with the Ottomans.
and altho yes, some of the stuff is still there, much damage had been done previously: (wiki)Prior damage to the marbles was sustained during successive wars, and it was during such conflicts that the Parthenon and its artwork sustained, by far, the most extensive damage. In particular, an explosion ignited by Venetian gun and cannon-fire bombardment in 1687, whilst the Parthenon was used as a munitions store during the Ottoman rule, destroyed or damaged many pieces of Parthenon art, including some of that later taken by Lord Elgin.[57] It was this explosion that sent the marble roof, most of the cella walls, 14 columns from the north and south peristyles, and carved metopes and frieze blocks flying and crashing to the ground, destroying much of the artwork. Further damage to the Parthenon’s artwork occurred when the Venetian general Francesco Morosini looted the site of its larger sculptures. The tackle he was using to remove the sculptures proved to be faulty and snapped, dropping an over-life-sized sculpture of Poseidon and the horses of Athena’s chariot from the west pediment on to the rock of the Acropolis 40 feet (12 m) below.[58]
And until 1993 the remaining marbles were allowed to be badly damaged by acid rain and air pollution, not to mention a earthquake in 1981.
If the Brits gave them back, they’d simply be displayed in another museum in Athens, which has the remaining pieces. Would seeing double the amount of them make the visit better? Or is it better to have them split up, so more can appreciate them?
Countless artefacts were taken from Egypt for museums and private collections. Private collections are unconscionable. At least museums allow a much wider world-wide audience to access the culture, and countless artefacts still remain in Egypt. On the other hand, the stuff really does belong to Egypt.
This is going to sound hopelessly paternalistic, but in some countries, political unrest, war or terrorism has led to the destruction or looting of some national museums and artifacts. So perhaps it’s a good thing that some artifacts are in places like London, Berlin or Paris. Plus it allows us to visit one museum and see art and archaeology from around the world.