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And even if they had some kind of king/dictator, it is certainly was a decision of a free people.
What antique France monuments did France give away just like that for no reason? Do not take what should not have been offered.
It may stretch the definition of "antique" but does the Statue of Liberty count? Nations give other nations things all the time, and when power changes hands that doesn't negate those gifts of the spirit in which they were offered.
It was in principle still part of the Ottoman Empire, but not really meaningfully under their control.
Romans also considered Herolds to be a just ruler of an "free" Judea as far as they are conceres. That's how often subjugation works.
Oh, no, definitely not. I mean, it was the early 19th century; not _literally having slaves_ was considered a dangerously radical experiment that even revolutionary France could only half-commit to. Freedom wasn't a big thing in the early 19th century.
But Egypt under Muhammad Ali was about as independent as any country was at the time, really. It controlled its own domestic and foreign policy, had its own military, and _invaded its nominal suzerain_, taking Syria off the Ottomans.
According to wikipedia[0], the frenchs did think about stealing it during the Napoleonic wars, but didn't. Some time later they "suggested" to the Ottomans that the obelisks be offered, in exchange for a monumental clock[1]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisks#Luxor_Obelisk...
Getting it as gift from a conquering entity, does not make any of it better.
But things stolen with violence or threat of violence, should probably be returned (if they want it returned). While we shouldn't hold children responsible for the actions of our parents, we can also be better than our parents and return things we know aren't rightfully ours.
Off-topic, but you're probably one of the top 3 persons in the world with the most similar first+last name as myself, with a Levenshtein Distance of only 6 :)
> to fix the sins of those who are long since dead
A good number of land right issues and acts of racism began with those long dead and continued forward under the actions of generations that followed, perpetuated in some form by some still living.
In a US context there are still current acts of administration that impact native title and rights to reservations that are current and contentious.
I mean, we should try where it's possible and reasonable and the impact is ongoing. When a bunch of long dead people passed a law saying that women can't own property we were right to later correct that sin. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be trapped by the horrible choices of the dead. We just have to be careful about when and how we try to correct the wrongs of the past.
That we don't know what was traded exactly (some people say it's the Cairo clock, but it is unclear and probably false) doesn't matter. The fact that Champollion already translated the rosetta stone from ancient greek and that hieroglyph could now be translated probably had an impact on this decision, especially since among all the Obelisks in egypt, Champollion singled out this particular one.
The empires pillaged it and gifted it among themselves.
The "we took it to keep it safe" argument is kinda of weak, and still morally wrong
I suppose the nice thing to do in those situations would be to return those artifacts to the areas they came from once the place was reasonably stable, but in some situations that day has yet to come.
You may be right that the political situation has become complicated (the specific case of this obelisk is complicated) but let's not retroactively claim noble intent behind what at the time was little different than what the Vikings did when they showed up at Lindisfarne.
I have to admit I don't agree, I personally think the morality of a crime doesn't depend upon a value judgement of the of the victim. Theft is theft even if you steal from thieves, and two wrongs as they say don't make a right. But I suppose some people need to assume the victims of imperialism had it coming, but of course they themselves don't.
Good luck with that, and keep your doors locked.
That's not my point, no – if only because inter-personal relations are not and should not be handled like inter-state relations.
My point is that human history, especially in crucibles such as e.g. the Mediterranean is such a mess of victors turning to losers, conquerors to conquered, migrations, emigrations, remigrations, internal & external invasion, pillaging, destruction and so forth, that not only (i) the modern countries are all but representative of the people that inhabited them through History, (ii) so deeply intertwined, that trying to bring reparations is a lost cause from the very start.
Let us accept that the French should give back the obelisk: but then, to whom? To Turkey, the descendant country from the Ottoman Empire, who originally gifted it? To ethnic Mamluks, who controlled Egypt at the time as a client state of the Ottoman Empire? To Arabic people, ruled by Mamluks, who invaded Egypt before the Mamluks came into the picture? To Italian, Macedonians, or Greeks, that ruled over Egypt before that? Or should they launch some DNA sampling campaign to find what population in Norther Africa is the closest to the Ancient Egyptians, and bring back the Obelisk there?
And yet they/we changed, and have preserved countless artifacts that even their original cultures are only now interested in. Not to forget that the very promotion of those foreign artifacts played a big role in making Westerners recognize the value of those other cultures and how much we have destroyed!
And as far as instability is concerned, a lot of that was caused by the same imperialist governments that looted the artifacts to begin with, so blaming those governments for that doesn't seem fair.
This is kind of where I stand on zoos. It sucks to see animals taken from their homes and held in unnatural captivity but the science, conservation, and educational aspects have a lot of value which is hard to ignore. A lot of people would never care if they didn't see with their own eyes what they stand to lose.
*Great Britain, and whoever.