Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1213458
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 FEBRUARY 2020 OPINION A lot of people predicted that Brexit would plunge the UK into chaos and confusion… but who would ever have guessed that the British people would also lit- erally 'lose their marbles'? Well, OK, maybe those Mar- bles didn't belong to Britain in the first place. They were, after all, plundered from the Parthe- non in the late 19th century, by a British diplomatic named Lord Elgin. All the same, however: the British Museum may now stand to lose its priceless collection of Greek sculptures, after the EU decided to include a demand for the return of the Elgin Marbles as part of its ongoing negotia- tions for a post-Brexit EU-UK trade deal. Actually, the wording of the EU's draft negotiating guidelines suggest that Britain may lose far more than just those Greek stat- ues. It specifies a commitment to the "return or restitution of unlawfully removed cultural objects to their country of ori- gin"… whether or not the 'coun- try of origin' is an EU member state. Taken literally, this implies that the British Museum should also have to return all its Egyp- tology collection (including the Rosetta Stone) to Egypt; its fragments of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and Temple of Artemis to Greece and/or Tur- key – depending on whose claim to those artefacts we decide is more valid – as well as its ex- tensive Mesopotamian collec- tions to Iraq, Iran and Syria… all its indigenous Aboriginal art to Australia… and so on and so forth, until there'd be nothing left in that museum at all, except maybe an assortment of rusty old Celtic relics. And fair enough, you might be thinking. After all, why shouldn't the Greeks get their precious marbles back? What's so wrong with a little long-over- due justice, for all the crimes perpetrated by the United King- dom in the name of 19th Centu- ry British Imperialism? Ah, but then again… Britain was not exactly the only Euro- pean power to have indulged in a little looting and plundering in the course of its expansionist history. What about Germany? From Poland alone – an EU state, please note – the Nazis stole "over 516,000 individu- al art pieces: including 2,800 paintings by European painters; 11,000 paintings by Polish paint- ers; 1,400 sculptures; 75,000 manuscripts; 25,000 maps; 90,000 books, including over 20,000 printed before 1800; and hundreds of thousands of other items of artistic and historical value." (Note: yes, I use Wikipe- dia. Who doesn't?) Much of this booty still re- mains in Germany – either in museums, or in private collec- tions – despite decades of re- quests by Poland for their resti- tution. And don't even get me started on the Louvre in Paris: which boasts Greek, Roman and Egyp- tian collections rivalling those of the British Museum in Lon- don… all 'acquired' under en- tirely analogous conditions. Even now, the Italians are still trying to reclaim the Louvre's most celebrated possession: Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Mona Li- sa'… which has been stolen and re-stolen dozens of times since it was painted in 1519. (Note: makes you wonder why the Ital- ians don't just steal it back again, and get it over with…) Not to mention our own little claim on plundered historical artefacts: including the bejew- elled, ceremonial sword that once belonged to Grand Master La Valette… until it was stolen from Malta, along with count- less other valuables, by a French thief named Arsenio Lupin III (or was it Napoleon Bonaparte? Can't remember now…) In any case, that sword was re- moved from Malta – where, cul- turally and historically, it rightly belongs – as part of a systematic Raphael Vassallo Great, so when do we get La Valette's sword back? Greece gets its Marbles back… we get La Valette's sword… Poland gets back everything that was stolen from it by the Nazis… and hey presto! Everybody's happy again