Towards the end of last year, Rishi Sunak went to a small amount of trouble to get a large degree of attention. The prime minister blew off a meeting with his counterpart who was over from Athens, because the Greek leader was publicly demanding the return of the Parthenon marbles. Rather than discuss that issue face to face, Mr Sunak indulged in a diplomat’s version of cancel culture – and much of the press rallied right behind him.
This is where the public debate over art that the British took (other verbs are available) from other countries remains stuck – in a language and tone that displays the red-faced defiance of an angry toddler. Whether it’s Greek statues or bronzes from the old kingdom of Benin (in today’s Nigeria), the response is: it’s not yours, it’s ours. Sticking out one’s tongue may be momentarily satisfying, but it rather gets in the way of a conversation. A country that within living memory ran an empire on which the sun never set has to have a more open and nuanced discussion of how it thinks about, and accounts for, the artefacts it amassed along the way.
