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  • The Financial Commitment of Repository Countries:A Key Element of Reparation
  • Dr. Silvie Memel Kassi
    Translated by Sarah Frisbie, Amanda M. Maples, and John Warne Monroe

The issue of restitution of African cultural property proves complex if we take into account the challenges that this poses for both repository countries and countries of origin. In the controversy provoked by the publication of the report by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy,1 in which we see certain Western museums claiming the title of universal museums with the vocation of "better" presenting cultural heritage and the history of [African] peoples, the viewpoint of Africa, which was never consulted, might be surprising. The example of loans of objects, which sometimes include African works, between Western museums and Western traveling exhibitions without any obligation facing the owner states is symptomatic of the unenviable fate of African cultural heritage. The international traveling exhibition Masters of Sculpture in Côte d'Ivoire, which traveled to four European countries (Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, France) in 2014 and 2015, revealed [End Page 6] that out of the 330 objects—80% of which are of Ivorian origin—loaned for the occasion by fifty European and American museums2 (not counting private collections), only twelve ethnographic specimens taken from the collection of the Musée des Civilizations were under the control of the Ivorian State. Even if these public collections benefit from legal protections against sale or seizure, the fact that they assume other functions when taken out of their original contexts leads us to wonder about their real identity. To whom do they ultimately belong? This is where President Emmanuel Macron's speech in Ouagadougou in November 2017 on the return of African cultural property to its countries of origin takes on its full meaning. Indeed, the euphoria with which this speech was welcomed, as well as the Political Declaration of December 2018 in Cotonou of the heads of state and of government of the CEDEAO3 which followed on the same subject, proves that the question of restitution is a central one. This is evidenced by the arrangements and measures taken since then at the level of each state to respond to the common desire to re-appropriate African cultural identity and repair looted memories.

The questions that Amanda M. Maples raises with the First Word "African Restitution in a North American Context: A Debate, a Summary and a Challenge" (African Arts 53 [4]: 10–15) assume a highly symbolic character for Africa. And for good reason: not only do North American museums particularly distinguish themselves with a mea culpa when they speak of their complicity in the dispossession of peoples, but for the first time, the question of reparation is clearly and relevantly addressed. This is why, while I share the point of view of all the contributors to Maples's text4—and particularly Daouda Keïta from the National Museum of Mali, who maintains that "the process of restitution of African cultural heritage will not be really effective unless the partners work together to develop a program that takes into account the specificities of each country"—I will go even further by radically campaigning, among other things, for a financial commitment from northern countries [who are] the holders of African works.

Indeed, the problem of the lack of resources of African states is a reality known to all, which is not without consequences for the cultural sector supported by museums. In fact, the activities generally funded by an insufficient budget do not prompt the desired emulation, thus showing a dissonance between the programs of these heritage institutions and where the true interests of their target audiences lie.

It should also be stressed that when we speak of African museums in the context of restitutions, the question that generally comes up in debates concerns their capacity to ensure a level of infrastructure, security, conservation, etc. A financial commitment could therefore intervene at this level in the construction of infrastructures of international stature and standard—this, to retain the local audiences who shun the museums of the continent for the benefit of what are considered the "real museums" of Western countries.

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