Recently I visited the British Museum and when I was there I was astounded at the obvious lack of British artifacts, and this prompted me to think more about our colonial past and what we still have vast quantities which are not and have never been ours to keep, yet we still insist on it as we don’t trust these countries to look after it! If someone broke in to your house, killed your family and stole your stuff is it fair for them to keep it if they think that they would take better care of it? Well that’s what we have done, and are avidly celebrating it! We have taken many things, from coins, statues, busts, board games and we even picked up and stolen the Nereid Monument! One of the most famous examples of our greed is the Elgin marbles which was taken by Thomas Bruce in the early 1800s to decorate his house. We kept them for over 200 years and have only just entered negotiations for their return, our excuse? We didn’t belive that Greece was competent to look after bits of history, even after them investing in multi million pound museum to hold them.
Personally I believe that whilst it may be interesting to a British national or tourist, many of those who live in the countries which it was stolen from will never have an opportunity to visit and see these parts of their history, which I think is the most important part of history.
