As Julie mentioned, they the debates around decolonising museums has really come to Oxford as a very lively conversation over the past few months.
It's been present in Mainland Europe for a little while.
The Dutch have been really quite enthusiastically discussing how best to approach rebalancing museum collections for some time now for many years.
And the Germans also, to a degree and particularly in my own area of natural history,
have been discussing decolonisation of natural history collections,
natural history collections, or perhaps a little later to the table than the collections based on human artefacts,
but the same principles nevertheless apply.
And then everything is very much accelerated in recent months, mainly due to President Macron's statements about the French policy on repatriation,
and I was fortunate enough to be a debate and international debate at the Museum of American Art in Berlin last November,
when there were representatives from Kenya and beginning to have that dialogue about the best approaches in Oxford.
This discussion has been led very much by Lowry from Brookhaven, who very unfortunately can't be with us today.
For those of you who don't know her. She's the director of the Rivers Museum, which of course, is very actively engaged in this discussion.
And given Laura's professional ancestry where she she works until three years ago in the Leiden museums,
she's very familiar with this debate and very passionate about this debate.
So across the gardens, libraries and museums in Oxford, glum we've begun to see very actively discussed this.
It's been laid out in his museum, and they are currently developing a draught policy for decolonising at decolonising policy for the Oxford museums.
It will be adopted in the rivers as a first step,
and it will be fine tuned iteratively to make sure that it takes into account all of the different voices
in this debate and then will begin to look at how it can be rolled out across the different museums.
Initially, because the debate affects all of our collections,
whether it's natural history or the archaeology in the Ashmolean or the collections and the rivers.
Perhaps less so in the history of Science Museum, it became very life is a discussion for us in the past few weeks when we were on the
fringes of a biopiracy discussion and and material that was collected in Sarawak,
for which the the presence of the necessary permits was debateable.
And so there was very active discussion about bio piracy in the leading science magazine science.
And then that was picked up by the New York Times and the Times. So this is a debate that we're going to come to.
With increasing frequency, I think, over the next few weeks, months and years.
And as Julia mentioned, it's really important that this is a dialogue, not a Eurocentric monotone conversation.
So it's particularly welcome that you're here tonight to give us your perspective, and I'll hand over this point.
Thank you very much, Professor Smith. Thank you all of you for coming here.
It's really a very good honour for me to be here talking about conditions that have our home, that initial home in Africa,
and that across different parts of Europe and also beyond Europe, the US and Australia in other parts of the world.
I must say it's a very these are very interesting times to me and I believe most of us because the world is beginning
to realise the need for truly the world to become a global village as opposed to to having a big or small brother.
And I must say that this particular debate is very welcome in Africa by virtually all of the museums,
as as far as I know it will come in Kenya is will come in,
believe in South Africa and in western Africa, where we have lots of artwork in museums across across Europe and across even beyond Europe.
But I think as we. Look into this debate and move forward in this debate.
I think we need to ask ourselves some very hard questions. How did these coalitions end up in Europe?
I think it's fair to ask ourselves that very hard question how do these coalitions find their way in Europe?
We know the east of Africa. We know we have. Most of us, I believe we are familiar with how Africa was colonised.
And this map clearly shows how the European nations are partitioned Africa and and and and really,
really were able to push Africa sometimes into some very bad and very, very often restrictions.
And a good example is Kenya, where I come from and also South Africa.
We all know that when the British colonies Kenya, a lot of people lost their lives, many people.
And there's been a debate, in fact,
in Kenya as to how feel the UK or Britain or England can compensate for the many lives of Kenyans that we have lost those many years ago.
I was talking to my wife, who is here, Grace, and I say that my my grandfather was killed when he, when he,
when he was fighting for the British and and my mom was, I think my grandfather was killed six months after my mum was was born.
So in fact, my mom never saw how her father sold.
I, six months old, is a very and you no sense of will you or your dad is?
So these are questions that a lot of people ask ourselves. Really?
Yes, it happens. And we kind of go back into that past.
So it's it's a terrible past that that's really we have to live with. And to me, being able to to stand in front of you,
all of you and talk about really how wonderful it is to see European nations taking a leading role in this debate.
To me, it's wonderful. Wonderful. I know museums across Africa lost a lot of I mean, countries across Africa lost a lot of collections.
West Africa is is it's one one big area.
They lost a lot of artwork. Mali, Sierra Leone, Benin and Ghana.
Fossil on Nigeria and Ethiopia also lost a good chunk of their artwork on eastern Africa.
Are we lost? We lost a lot of our natural history collections.
Kenya's mummy is one of them. Even today, some of our collection, some of our fossil collections are deposited in museums in here in the UK.
The Natural History Museum. We have some wonderful fossils that are two catalogued in in museums here of Tanzania.
Our neighbour, one of them, one of the very famous dinosaur.
I know we, we we all know it's an exhibition at the British Museum of Natural History.
And a few years a few years ago, I went to the museum and I was able to engage the the DG, the director general, Prof.
Vogel and I spent a lot of time talking talking about these collections with him.
And this is a clear indication that all of us need to engage with one another South Africa.
I'm sure I believe this to this to have collections housed in different parts of the world.
South Africa has some collections house in Australia.
When I was preparing for this talk, I was I didn't know that that Australia also has collections from Africa,
and I learnt about this a few days ago that some collections from from South Africa are held in museums in Australia.
So it's really an issue that that all of us need to debate.
And this month is so but as possible, because I think it's a debate that we really have to to face and in in a subtle way because as African museums,
we we need to go on the drawing on the table discussion because table really Sobha to
the to the to ensure that we don't really go and go there with the history of the past,
in our minds or in our hearts.
We need to face all the reality as some very hard questions and really move on this particular discussion in the right way possible.
I know, I know, I know this is a debate and I didn't. Place in Europe, the French President Macron has really done very well in leading this debate,
and I was very surprised today to learn to read in the papers that Italy was not very happy with this debate that that Macron erased the other day,
that some nations in Europe that are not very happy with the debate.
But I'm also very happy to see these countries are very happy to see the Germany,
Netherlands and other countries really leading the way in this debate and asking themselves some very hard questions.
What can we do to really, really change that history and help repatriate these collections to Africa?
And even I'm also aware that, in fact, that some of the coalitions from Chile also held in museums in Europe, Chile, Greece.
So these coalitions are not just from Africa, they are from other other countries across the world.
So I'm pretty sure that this debate, as we debate about the African coalitions,
other other countries like Greece and Chile was, will be able to come come on board into this discussion.
But the hard questions that we need to ask ourselves, do we just want to take the collections to Africa?
The question may be no, I think we need to ask some very hard questions.
It's one thing taking the collections to Africa and another another thing ensuring that these collections are survive in Africa for posterity.
Most African nations have a lot of challenges, a lot of challenges.
The history of Africa didn't really play very well for the continent.
We we every country in Africa with grappling with different challenges, economic challenges, political challenges, social challenges.
So most missions, most governments in Africa may not have the resources to take care of those collections just before before I came for this talk.
Originally, the news that the government of Sudan has been toppled a few minutes ago Al Bashir al-Bashir is gone.
So now if you if you if you, if you, if this country here had collections from from Sudan, the question is, is the new the transitional government?
Are they going to be ready to engage in those discussions when they have all these other issues?
There's a question of when you ask ourselves, Kenya, where I come from, we we are very fortunate.
We have one of the biggest museums of, say, in Africa or even even what over a wonderful museum.
And I'm very proud to really be a Kenyan.
We have a wonderful museum that has wonderful collections that draws people from all over the world or come to study the collections.
We have wonderful collections, archaeological collections, Palio collections are botanical collections and we are a big, big museum.
But it's too we have a lot of challenges as a museum.
We have a lot of challenges as a museum. We have issues to do with space.
Where do we? Where do we what we stole our collections like in the next 10 years?
We have issues to do with all your old.
We take care of those collections.
You may have this space, but you also need some like financial support to curate the collections, to take care of the collections and all that.
So. So if you were to ask for the return of old fossil collections housed in museums in Europe, are we going to have the capacity?
The answer is yes, and sometimes no.
Our museum may have some capacity because the government supports us in some way because like our government pays for salaries, so.
So at least we'll be able to take care of the collections. But there come a time when we may not have the resources to curate the collections
and and and as more collections come into the labs from the different projects,
then run out of space. In fact, right now, one of the issues that we are facing.
Is this issue of space in a museum and and on the Kennedy government are together with the National Museum of Kenya,
we we've we've not embarked on a very ambitious campaign to raise funds and resources to to build a new research and the centre.
The government is supporting us in this particular initiative, but I'm in, I'm in, I'm in.
Governments across Africa will have this as a priority.
Very few, very few countries, other other countries like Benin, which is a very, very poor country.
Other countries like Mali, Mali, they are having a lot of issues. They are munitions all over the place.
There is no way Mali will think about a beautiful facility like this because they they have to do the issues,
the issues of insecurity and the militias all over the place. So you really have to take all the artwork that are housed in Europe to Mali.
That government will face a lot of challenges.
So I think I think what I'm trying to say is as this debate moves forward, we need to ask ourselves, is it the right time to do this, to do this?
The answer may be yes, but then ask ourselves then what needs to be done for these two to do?
What will we need to worry?
And I was very happy to hear Professor Smith talking about how Germany and other
countries coming up with some policies now on how this process will be moved.
Policies that that will that will ensure that it's are a smooth transition
through the departure of the collections from from Europe all the way to Africa.
And I think those policies need to be put in place.
And that's why the museums are the African museums, the African governments and the European governments that hold African collections,
neutral goods that African governments as much as possible. I think it has to be a two way traffic kind of a discussion whereby there is need to be
proper engagements between between the UK government and Kenya and other countries,
and also between the different museums. Because the government may not come off the nitty-gritty of picture of the very the very clear picture
of how things are on the ground because those are those are those are because they lead from the top.
But the coalition manages those guys all together, coalitions the research as they have a wonderful picture of all things out of the ground.
So these discussions need to involve the the administrators are the government officials and also the curators who take care
of those collections because they understand the all the challenges that they face on a daily basis as the as the cure rate.
These these collections, then a very good example of of how these discussions should go has been given by Tanzania, Tanzania.
They have. Be that.
Sorry about that. OK.
Yeah. There's been a push for the return of the dinosaur fossils from from Tanzania and then the government.
But recently there are some very interesting engagement can come up come about the Tanzania government as us as proposed,
that instead of that fossil being taken back to Tanzania,
let the Yemeni government or the British Museum of Natural History raise funds to train Tanzanians because it's one thing returning
that fossil back to Tanzania and another thing ensuring that that particular fossil is taken care of these these good space,
these these, that the capacity in terms of the training for them to take care of the collection.
So they're proposing that they would provide for the Yemeni government,
can raise funds to train Tanzanians and to build capacity and and the situation in Tanzania.
It's not. It's a very interesting one for a long time.
A museum in Nairobi held vitamin collections that we have collected from Tanzania by by Mary Ann and Rich and Nikki many, many years ago.
Those collections were taken back to Tanzania about maybe more than 10 years ago or they about.
But today it's those collections of I've not been unpacked.
There's two boxes. And this is a shipment of material from Kenya to Tanzania.
It's just driven next door how both of these collections come in from Europe to Tanzania.
So the challenges are so big that I think we need to really, really engage one another as much as possible, as much as possible again.
Also, there is also the issue of the safety of the collections.
We have some very, very nice fossil collections that are held in in the Ebru Museum in Israel.
The other day I conduct I conduct conducted by the curator of that particular museum.
And she said that as much as they would want to to have the fossils shipped to Nairobi,
it doesn't make sense because they are very, very fragile, very fragile.
So what would what we would do is we will try to recreate some 3-D images and out
of the images are reproduced replicas of the same and those will be transported,
transported to Nairobi. So I think we need to be also also very sensitive and ensure that the movement of these collections from
Europe to Africa does not really jeopardise the safety of the safety of the collections and the good.
A good example is our collections, the wonderful crocodiles, and Chris Broussard, one of our colleagues from America,
has been studying these collections and he went to this museum and he took pictures and other photos of me.
These collections are very, very fragile, so there's no way, even as the national museums of Kenya,
there's no way you will push this museum to transport the collections to Kenya, because all we will receive is just powder of just yet.
Nothing more than that. Yes, I think we as as we engage one another,
we also have to look at case by case and really whether this particular fossil can be
transported to Africa or whether it can still be curated in the European Museum or institution,
but have replicas of the same in the African museum.
So these are really different scenarios that all of us have to deal with.
I will say that I want to say that it's a wonderful debate. I think we need to engage one another as much as possible.
I don't think these these these days enough compensation that the European nations can can offer to Africa.
But I think we need to engage one another as much as possible in this discussion.
I think it's a wonderful start and we all look forward to really pushing this discussion forward for the
benefit of the all the nations involved and for the benefit of humanity and also for the benefit of science.
Thank you very much.