Germany made a difference last year when it decided to return the famous bronzes from Benin to the country from which they were plundered by European colonizers in the late nineteenth century. Berlin thus became a model for the rest of the capitals that own and exhibit usurped colonial art, which were pressured to follow the same path. Now, however, doubts arise and concern looms in Germany about the final fate of one of Africa's greatest artistic treasures. The news that the pieces – reliefs and sculptures made between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries with various materials, especially brass, but known as bronzes as a whole – are going to pass into private hands has generated an enormous stir that has transcended cultural circles and has crept into the political discussion.
More information
The Long Way Home from Benin Bronzes
The Swiss ethnologist Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin has called the operation a "fiasco" for having been done without conditions, without even ensuring that the bronzes were going to be in the public domain and exhibited in a museum. The future of the pieces is unknown. The outgoing president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, has approved a decree transferring ownership of objects from the historic kingdom of Benin (not to be confused with present-day Benin) to Oba Ewuare II, the current head of the former royal family. The decree was published in the official gazette on March 23, but had gone unnoticed by the German public until the ethnologist sounded the alarm in an explosive tribune in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. "Now you can see very clearly how frivolously the agreement on the transfer of ownership between Germany and Nigeria was drafted," laments the expert.
The order grants the Oba (king) possession of all works of art that were looted from the royal palace in Benin by British troops during a punitive expedition in 1897, "to the exclusion of any other person or institution," according to the text quoted by the Nigerian newspaper This Day. For now it is unknown what the Oba will do with the works of art, if he will exhibit them, where and how. He has apparently announced that he will build his own museum to house them.
The ethnologist regrets that the Nigerian president is transferring assets – including those that until the summer of 2022 were owned by Germany, she stresses – "to a private individual or a private autocratic institution." "A public good thus becomes exclusive private property," he laments. In short, he criticizes that what was intended to be a return of cultural heritage to the Nigerian people to "heal the wounds of the past" has ended up becoming "a gift to a royal house".
The heated debate moved last Friday to the Bundestag, the German parliament, where the Christian Democrats of the CDU and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) criticized the restitution and called it a "failure" for not imposing any conditions on the return of the pieces. The coalition government, made up of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, defends the process. He assures that he has done "the right thing" and points to the other argument that runs through this debate: whether meddling in the decisions of the plundered country is not another form of colonialism.
"The bronzes were returned with the aim of repairing a historical error, the illegal acquisition and possession of these objects," says a spokesman for the German Executive. "No conditions were imposed and now it is the sovereign state of Nigeria that decides who legally stays with them and how they are made available to the Nigerian people. To insinuate now that these bronzes will disappear never to be seen again, just because Germany no longer exercises control over them, but Nigeria does, is a way of thinking that we hoped we had left behind."
"Why are they so obsessed with what happens to Benin bronzes?" asks Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor. In his opinion, the current debate is "disrespectful" and "insulting". "Europe has no right to tell us how to deal with our own affairs," he told Deutsche Welle. Experts such as Nigerian historian Oluwatoyin Sogbesan argue that, since the kingdom that possessed the treasures no longer exists, the Oba, as representative of the Edo ethnic group, is the true heir.
Souleymane Bachir Diagne, director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University (USA), also believes that Nigeria should make the decisions about the future of the bronzes. "I agree with the report by Beatrice Savoy and Felwine Sarr [authors of the work Restituting African Heritage] that restitution is an international procedure, which means that objects are returned to African nation states," he told EL PAÍS in an email. "They can decide to place them in regional museums, but it has to be their decision. In my opinion, this should be the beginning," he stresses.
In Berlin it has been bad that the pieces will probably not be exhibited in the museum that was intended to host them, to whose construction the German Government has contributed four million euros. Germany sent a high-level delegation, led by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, to the Nigerian capital last December to stage the handover of the artworks. In Abuja Baerbock assumed that the bronzes would be exhibited in the future Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA), which is planned to be built in the city of Benin, capital of the ancient Edo kingdom. This was also believed by the experts who led the negotiations with the African country, as they told EL PAÍS last year. The website of the future museum read until recently that it was going to become "the home of the largest collection of Benin bronzes in the world". The phrase has disappeared.
According to Nigerian media, behind the transfer of ownership lies a personal conflict between the Oba and the governor of the Benin region, Godwin Obaseki, one of the most determined defenders of the museum project. Obaseki's grandfather apparently worked under the British as interim regent after the destruction of Benin City in 1897 and the removal of the ancestor of the present Oba. His supporters accuse the governor of continuing to collaborate with opponents of the royal family.
The controversial decree has not yet entered into force, according to information available to the German government. The National Commission for Museums of Nigeria has tabled amendments. Berlin hopes that the royal house of Benin shares the goal of involving the societies of origin, that is, that the public will continue to have access to the bronzes after their restitution. "Germany and Nigeria committed to this in the joint statement of July 1, 2022, and we naturally maintain this position," the government spokesman stresses.
German museum collections housed more than 1,100 bronzes for more than a century, legally purchased from British collectors. After a long process, institutions from all over the country, local and regional authorities and the federal government agreed to return them en bloc. Last year Germany and Nigeria signed an agreement under which about two-thirds of the works will be moved back to the Nigerian state. A third will remain on permanent loan in German museums. In all cases, ownership is transferred to Nigeria.
The ethnographic museum, recently opened in the Humboldt Forum, reflects the new German conception of the ownership of plundered heritage. Instead of the 200 pieces the museum used to display in its previous location, the Humboldt only displays 40, which Nigerian experts have chosen to lend away. The opening of the rooms that house these collections was delayed several months until the agreement with Nigeria for the return was closed and it was possible to redesign the way in which the bronzes are presented, which are accompanied by abundant material that contextualizes where they come from and how they arrived in Berlin.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Read more
I'm already a subscriber
