A related question I sometimes wonder: wouldn't it be fair to return the cathedrals and the property of monasteries that were "stolen" during the reformation back to the Catholic church?
There was a lot of art taken during the Napoleonic Wars from the Catholic Church too. Napoleon took art from other European countries too but the Italian states were the least able to repatriate anything at the time. A lot of art that was looted still sits in the Louvre. I kind of wonder if repatriation only matters when the artifact came from non western countries to western ones.
What happens, when, for example, a church in Italy is the beneficiary let alone a European country? Does that make it less urgent? I haven't seen any calls for repatriations in this sense that make headlines.
No. There's also been a lot of noise over the Elgin Marbles (stolen from Greece, mentioned in the article). The Koh-i-Noor has just been in the news lately because of the death of the queen and it being part of the crown jewels.
[1]:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/18/uk-museums-f...
> I think it's debatable if Greece (or the Ottomon Empire) is even part of the western nations.
The Parthenon marbles are over two millennia old. They were looted by Elgin just over two centuries ago.
Greece's history stretches back at least four millennia (since the Mycenaeans - considered the first Greek peoples). The Ottoman empire occupied Greece for a bit under four centuries.
You're likely to get a fairer hearing for your points if you don't pepper them with errors.
Meanwhile, repatriation of artefacts taken from Asia/Africa is a more modern movement that has coincided with anti-colonialism. So although the debate about repatriating the Elgin Marbles has been going on for ~200 years, in my opinion, it is being lumped together with the anti-colonial movements and even fits into that pattern. If you don't believe there is a movement to repatriate artefacts taken during colonial times from non-western nations see the link above or do a search.
There is no movement to return loot or spoils of war to western beneficiaries. So it seems pretty clear to me that anti-colonalism motivates the current claims which is a political ideology. If it was strictly about the ethics of looting, you might see people advocating for a return of items to churches and western countries but no one does that.