All this fuss about artefacts stolen from the British Museum is simply the chickens coming home to roost. It’s ironic as the institutions, organisations and individuals who donated those valuable artefacts to the British Museum, stole them from various nation states in the first place. No country has ever asked the British Museum, or any other museum for that matter, to “take care of” their historic and valorized symbols of nationhood, as if they were somehow incapable of doing so. Most of the artefacts in UK museums, presented as belonging to Britain, were taken by force and people were killed in the process.
Do you think that it is time for the British museum, and the institutions built on colonialism and the theft of resources from colonised nations, acknowledge the wrongs committed in the name of Empire – and the impact they continue to have on racialised groups?
SOCIAL ACTION SOCIETY C.I.C. 
The British Museum has a bunch of artefacts in storage that they’re not even using/displaying. Them complaining about stuff being stolen from the museum is very contradictory, when they’ve stolen so many themselves.
My gripe: stores/people decorating for Christmas when it’s not December.
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Do you think that it is time for the British museum, and the institutions built on colonialism and the theft of resources from colonised nations, acknowledge the wrongs committed in the name of Empire – and the impact they continue to have on racialised groups?
I do believe that the British museum and the institutions that were built on colonialism and theft of these resources should acknowledge the wrongdoings committed when looking at the empire. This is because it is important that we are not zeitgeist when looking at our modern day societies; it is fundamental that we understand the history of empires to actually start to understand the present and they cannot do this if they ignore the fact that colonialism is a significant part of history. Therefore, for these institutions to acknowledge the impact they continue to have on racialised groups, they need to sit back and start to recognise that actually modernity cannot be understood without facing the history of colonialism and how this history actually affected and changed societies. It is important to note that colonialism and capitalism go hand in hand so with this it is important to acknowledge that modern capitalism cannot be understood in isolation of the functions of racism. Sophie
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My gripe is How the food system is not fair,nearly 1 in 3 young people are at risk of diet related illnesses yet there is no regulation on advertising companies, companies claim not to advertise to children yet make products specifically marketed towards them an example of this being cereal boxes; the cartoon characters and bright colours on the boxes are made to attract young children. As well as this the food system spreads all the way across society routed deep into our education system, through school food culture and free school meals; 900,000 young people live in poverty and still do not have access to free school meals and yet the government moan and complain at falling grades and underperforming students but how are students meant to concentrate on lessons when young people have to go hungry. Focusing on a your next meal should not be the concern for young people, the government needs to take more moral and practical responsibility for free school meals.
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Jay—the media has the power to creat a large morale panic within communities which lead to certain members of the community being isolated and made to be folk devils. an example of this would be how the majority of knife crime that is reported by the media is supposedly linked to young black men often said who associate with gangs, this leads to these young black men within the community being seen as violent and dangerous and can cause them to be stopped more by police or often frozen out by the community. it also leads others to become fearful of these young black men for even just standing in a group as they have been portrayed by the media as violent gang members
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Josh- i feel that places like university’s and museums displaying people from history understand there contributions to colonialism should admit they are wrong and understand why the indevidual they are displaying were wrong in history
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They should acknowledge the wrongs of colonialism as it was built on exploitation and theft. This still affects nations/communities to this day as racial inequalities still exist and are present in these institutions. -Tyra
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Do you think that it is time for the British museum, and the institutions built on colonialism and the theft of resources from colonised nations, acknowledge the wrongs committed in the name of Empire – and the impact they continue to have on racialised groups?
I believe it is time for the British museums to recognise how they display stolen artifacts, art pieces etc as if they weren’t retrieved in horrible circumstances. These institutions could return them to where they belong allowing them to to represent their nation how they please. It reinforces the systemic racism amongst many institutions that exploit those gained during Britains powerful empire reign. The continued impact is that the credit these nations could recieve for displaying their own items or economic advancement the minority countries could earn are prevented by these practices of colonialism and theft – Jadian
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I say keep the artifacts but tell the whole story about how the artifact got the British Museum. Who donated them and how it was obtained by killing innocent people and taken by force. Otherwise give it back to its rightful owners.
The history of colonialism is bloody and unfair and shouldn’t be filtered.
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The British Museum hordes and displays the artefacts of cultures they have pillaged and colonised as a status symbol, in my opinion. They lord stolen items from other cultures as a means of displaying their power and the historic strength of the British Empire and when these items are stolen once again it is seen as a slight against the empire, despite the hypocrisy of that approach. I do believe these items should be returned, British people are not entitled to these artefacts regardless of their educational purposes as they were unfairly possessed and have been requested back. I don’t believe the items will be returned, however, as ideas and entitlement born from the British Empire cannot be untangled without complete societal reform and the dismantling of capitalist systems (Bhamra, 2024)
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I believe they should for numerous reasons but at the forefront of my arguments is just humanity as a whole.
a bit of acknowledgment mixed with accountability brings a bit of ease regarding progression of races coming together and also shows that as humans we can still admit right from wrong regardless of our individual identity.
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I think that’s they need to acknowledge the mistakes of empire and admit the benefits it has had for them, because the past is not separate from the present. They should either return the artifacts or acknowledge how they came to have them and what part they played in getting them. As currently they are used for monetary benefit so its like continuing to benefit from their crimes.
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Institutions like the British Museum were built on the extraction of people’s histories, cultures, and sacred objects under the cover of Empire.Many of those items were not gifted or traded they were taken through force, coercion, or exploitative power dynamics. To pretend otherwise is to continue the harm. Yes I agree with this ro believe in this situation as come.to the impact of this situation in British museum .
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Institutions like the British Museum were built on the extraction of people’s histories, cultures, and sacred objects under the cover of Empire.Many of those items were not gifted or traded they were taken through force, coercion, or exploitative power dynamics. To pretend otherwise is to continue the harm.
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yes the british museum are shaped by colonial expansions, it is to meaningfully acknowledge the wrongs committed under empire.
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Yes — it is both timely and necessary for the British Museum and other institutions rooted in colonial exploitation to acknowledge the injustices committed during the era of the British Empire and the ongoing impacts these actions have on racialised and formerly colonised communities.
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I think it’s important for the British museums to acknowledge the conditions that their artefacts were acquired through. The oppression of the people native to the land that the object comes from is part of the history of the object and should be displayed along with any other information. History has to be studied and understood in all of it’s parts, without excluding the violence and oppression that has taken place especially under the rule of empires. In omitting this information, they are doing a disservice to native groups and this also runs the risk of history not being understood properly, which raises the likelihood of it being repeated in the future.
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