The borders of culture

A fascinating article in the new Abroad column of the NY Times. Though I don't necessarily agree with the final conclusion. The author misses perhaps the argument about power, the power of those who take and of those whose patrimony is plundered. Oftentimes, those plundered were poor and brown or black-skinned. Historical memory is strong, and there is something to be said about restoring a people's rights to the artwork that's a source of their pride.

Who Draws the Borders of Culture?
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Published: May 4, 2010

IT was gridlock in the British Museum the other morning as South African teenagers, Japanese businessmen toting Harrods bags, and a busload of German tourists — the usual crane-necked, camera-flashing babel of visitors — formed scrums before the Rosetta Stone, which Egyptian authorities just lately have again demanded that Britain return to Egypt. From the Egyptian rooms the crowds shuffled past the Assyrian gates from Balawat (Iraq is another country pleading for lost antiquities) and past the Roman statue of the crouching Aphrodite (ditto Italy), then headed toward the galleries containing what are known in Britain as the Elgin marbles (but in Greece as the Parthenon marbles, or simply booty), where passers-by plucked pamphlets from a rack.
READ MORE AT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/arts/09abroad.html


And here is the rest of it.