Five Activists Were Arrested After Trying to Steal a 19th-Century Artifact From Paris’s Quai Branly Museum and Return It to Africa

Five protesters were arrested after attempting to seize an
African funerary object from Paris’s Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques
Chirac with the hopes of returning it to Africa.

While the museum was open on Friday, the protesters made a
30-minute video documenting the theft, which was later uploaded
online. “The names at
the entrance of this museum are the names of colonizers who
pillaged the art that is now here,” said the activist Mwazulu
Diyabanza in the video, before grabbing the 19th-century wooden
ritual pole object from its stand. “These items were pillaged
between 1880 and 1960 under colonialism.”

The five activists were released from jail this weekend after
community mobilization, according to posts on social media. A video
posted online shows Dyabanza greeted with cheers and applause after
exiting the police station. Diyanbanza, who is from Congo,
says he is not allowed to leave France until his trial and is not
permitted on the premises of the museum again.

In a statement to the press, culture minister Franck Riester
condemned the act with “utmost firmness,” saying that actions
such as these “damage” cultural heritage.

“While the debate on the restitution of works from the African
continent is perfectly legitimate, it can in no way justify this
type of action,” Riester said. “The work does not appear to have
suffered any significant deterioration and the museum will take
immediate action to carry out any necessary restoration work.”

The incident in Paris comes amid a wave of global protests
denouncing racism after the death of George Floyd in the US at the
end of May. Europe has seen widespread protests and attacks on
colonial monuments in the UK and Belgium too.

According to a GoFundMe drive
organized for Diyanbanza and the others who assisted him at the
museum, members of the group face up to seven years in prison and a
fine of €100,000. Their trial takes place September.

“We expected this,” Diyanbanza says in the video after leaving
jail, adding that it is a fight that continues in Berlin,
Switzerland, and London. “These goods and the money accrued during
their exhibition must be returned.”

Diyanbanza did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.

The museum filed a complaint with the police and an
investigation is underway, according to the ministry. The museum
did not respond to a request for comment.

The museum’s new director, Emmanuel Kasarhérou, who is of French
and Melanesian descent, has the unique challenge of figuring out
how to honor President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 statement that the
country would return cultural heritage to sub-Saharan Africa, which
came after a landmark report urged France to take dramatic steps
toward restitution. The Quai Branly holds at least 70,000 objects
from that region alone; 66 percent of them entered the museum
during the colonial era.

Since Macron’s statement, one object from the Quai Branly, a
19th-century saber seized from modern-day Mali, has been returned. The
government also said the museum would
return 26 looted artifacts to Benin by 2021. In a recent interview
with the New York
Times, Kasarhérou described the report as “very
militant.”

“Western museology was born in the 19th century,” said a
co-author of the report, Felwine Sarr, in a video interview. “It
was a concept made for these objects.” Sarr added that the objects
should be “resocialized” into African communities, including into
schools, art venues, and research centers.

During the filming at the museum, Diyabanza noted that he paid
€12 to enter the museum. “We did the calculation to see how much
money our artworks generated for this museum” and the profits
generated by the museum is into the billions, he said. “Today, we
are recuperating what is ours.”

The post Five Activists Were Arrested After Trying to Steal
a 19th-Century Artifact From Paris’s Quai Branly Museum and Return
It to Africa appeared first on artnet News.