> The most important part is that adding these restrictions runs counter to the entire mission of museums. Museums do not hold our shared cultural heritage so that they can become gatekeepers. They hold our shared cultural heritage as stewards in order to make sure we have access to our collective history.
What bothers me more is the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium. Belgian King Leopold II ravaged modern day DRC and perpetrated a genocide there. Belgium pilfered Congo’s treasure and brutally enslaved its people. Yet, the treasure is still in a Belgian museum, the same museum that used to have a “human zoo,” displaying the conquered people like pets. The museum is reinventing itself, but its mere existence is insulting. They should return the treasure, dedicate most of the museum to Congo Genocide remembrance, and forward all revenues to NGOs and infrastructure projects in the DRC.
“When Leopold heard they were getting sick because of candy they were eating that was tossed to them by the crowd, he put up an equivalent of a 'Don't Feed the Animals' sign at a zoo, saying, 'the blacks are fed by the organizing committee,'"“
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/649600217/where-human-zoos-on...
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/30/europe/belgium-blackface-colo...
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/m_features/human-zoos-a-sh... :
"And by the time of the fair in Brussels, the notion of a human zoo was largely considered distasteful and had been banned in most countries.
Yet change didn’t happen quickly enough for those of the Congolese village in 1958. A number of the original 297 died during the show and were buried in a mass, unmarked grave."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo
King Leopold II was a bit special, even by the standards of the height of colonialism. His privately owned Congo Free State - it really was his, founded and owned by him personally was excessively bad at everything. It started public and government campaigns in Britain, America and I believe France and others too, ultimately culminating in multiple nations taking stand and signing treaties against Leopold's vanity project. The atrocities were far in excess of any other colonial power for the few years he owned it. Millions died, millions more, including children, had hands or feet hacked off. The state stepped in and it became the Belgian Congo after 15 or 20 years of Stalin ^W Leopold. (Edit: In that time, the 1919 Belgian Government Commission estimated half the population had died).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State
Belgium has been surprisingly reluctant to even acknowledge this black spot in their history, and you will still find plenty of statues, squares and streets in his honour.
Should you want to read more, and it's not an easy read, I'd recommend King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild.
You have to remember that people in these days didn’t have national geographic documentaries — if you wanted to learn how people in other cultures lived, you’d have to do it from an exhibit like this. Meanwhile the people got to live in relative peace and safety compared to their home countries.
This is an absurd assumption. Slaves can be convinced to do anything, based on threat of force to them or their families. Even returning to the Congo might be threat enough, considering how they were treated there[1]. And of course, the few they couldn't be convinced (maybe they didn't have a five-year old daughter whose hands and feet could be cut off as punishment), could simply be replaced.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free...
In what was enthusiastically termed a "parade of evolutionary progress," visitors could inspect the "primitives" that represented the counterbalance to "Civilisation" justifying Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden". ... "But the main draw was the Philippine exhibition complete with full size replicas of Indigenous living quarters erected to exhibit the inherent backwardness of the Philippine people. The purpose was to highlight both the "civilising" influence of American rule and the economic potential of the island chains' natural resources on the heels of the Philippine–American War.
That, to me, is far more "set them up to fail" reality TV than National Geographic. Delivering an artificial message to prove the inherent superiority of the racist colonial master and for them to feel smug. I think I might resent being that "less evolved" exhibit, even if it was sold to me as a great opportunity...
While the colonialists are ravaging your country why not accept their generous offer and go live at one of their zoos!