 Thank you very much to Professor Jody Coromines and Celeste Martinez for inviting me to be part of the third seminar on historical justice and colonialism. I've prepared my lecture, as a lecturer, so I hope you don't mind. Apologize for not being there in person. As we collectively explore modalities for addressing heritage and colonialism, I've titled my presentation today, Restitution and the Question of Ethicality, Post-colonial Missiology and the Future of African North in Post-Imperial Europe. I want to begin my presentation by talking about a wonderful festival called Dukas the Art. Every year, August in the town of Earth, in Belgium, people gather to celebrate David's victory over Goliath. This festival features a character that is called a savage, which is a white man clad in black costume, his face and hands covered in black paint, his head are done with a feathered wore bonnet, and a golden piercing protruding from his nose. With chains clanging from his neck, wrists and ankles, he yells incomprehensible sounds, scares children, and leaves black paint on their faces. Now, for UNESCO, Dukas the Art is a piece of intangible cultural heritage. For Belgians, as this minister of culture so wonderfully declared, Dukas the Art is a piece of cultural form, harmless cultural form. But if you look at it from the perspective of Africans, then you will print a different view. Dukas the Art perpetuates stereotypes of barbarity and primitivism projected on Africa during the slave trade and colonialism. Now, Dukas the Art symbolizes the challenge we have today of balancing perspective on what we consider to be heritage on the past colonialism, nationalism, and ethicality, especially for cultural experts those connected with ethnographic museums. Why specifically does this problem have so much emphasis within the museum space? This is because ethnographic museums are fascinating institutions with sophisticated taxonomies in the West. However, since the gaze is mediated by ideologism, museums are not innocent, which explains why they have recently become spaces for intense battles. The ambiguity of attempting to instill progressive thinking and at the same time preserving past hegemonies of empires and their legacies are factors that have led to the recent criticism of ethnographic museums. But understanding this criticism requires some context. There will be no European museums without empires and there will be no collections without colonialism. The British Museum, for example, was founded in 1753 but only became a relevant material repository when it started accumulating colonial loans. Just as the Muzi Royal Delafreak Central in Belgium expanded in 1897 with ties to colonialism in Congo. The Ethnological Museum of Berlin rebranded as the Royal Museum of Ethnology in 1886 also shares imperial ties. What we need to understand from an African perspective is that the expansion of museums after the Berlin Conference precipitated epistemicide against cultures outside Western Eurasia. Take the case of the splitting of the Petrivers and the Ashmolean museums in Oxford, for example, one to display European sophisticated civilization and the other objects from so-called degenerate or extinct cultures. It marked the colonization of knowledge through anthropology as museums became sites for authenticating cultural evolution theories that promoted white supremacy. The misconstrued narratives around African and other indigenous objects to materialize racism of the likes of Louisa Gaziz, for example, who argued for the canonization of social inequality because he believed that the Negro race was inferior to whites, not to mention Frederick Hegel, which is theory that Negroes lack consciousness, subjectivity, and culture. This imperial ideology of racializing difference to Assad authority was the impetus for various European removal of objects from Africa in the guise of so-called punitive expeditions. Abyssinia in modern day Ethiopia in 1868, the Ashante Kingdom in 1874, Cameroon and Congo in 1884, Mali in 1890, the Benin Kingdom in 1897, Guinea in 1898, Tanzania in 1907. Museums and empires went hand in hand in the exploitation and dehumanization of the colonized. This explains why the American curator Hannah Mason MacLean argues that museums displayed wealth and power so that the artifacts on display became visual affirmation of oppression and the creation of fictional representations above the order. Now, this brings us to the question of recitation. This imperial entanglement of ethnographic museums, their collections is responsible for Africa's clamor for the decolonization of European museums and for some the return of some of the objects. Premise on Africa's agitations and the eagerness or the pretence of the eagerness to atone for the atrocities of the empires of England, Belgium, Germany, Holland and France, restitution, that is the planned return of contested indigenous objects to former colonists is floated to create a new kind of ethical relations. One cannot overstate the importance and significance of restitution because the presence of indigenous objects in Europe, whether they were looted or now commonly perceived as looted forces in the genes of former colonists to endure the humiliating spectacle of experiencing their objects exhibited in animated suspense. By animated suspense I mean exhibited out of the context of their creation. However, the question we need to ask ourselves is if restitution in its current format is succeeded. And the answer of course is no. Emmanuel Macron's 2017 political declaration in Burkina Faso that he wants to see all African objects return to Africa and the commissioning of his wonderful Sir and Sir, Sir and Sir Boy Report credited for amplifying contemporary restriction dialogues have opened a Pandora's box in Europe and South Saran Africa. Now what we see is the cohorts of politicians, cultural experts, art critics, historians, all attempting to realize restitution from political, economic, diplomatic and cultural perspectives. The problem is that with several different groups pursuing diverse interests, restitution gradually dissolves into aimless diplomatic politics of economic and power maneuvering. Political theatrics with full media publicity, while repatriating a few objects to Africa are choreographed by European museums and European actors to mask the problems militating against restitution six years after Macron's declaration. I'm gonna discuss just some very few of these problems. The first is the politicization of restitution. European actors approach restitution as a matter of geopolitics, but this strategy is not new. Art historian Benedict Savoy reminds us that European countries were receptive to restitution during the Cold War for political reasons as soft power to improve relations with Africa. Brazilian art critic Francesco Bellarini observes that in the 21st century, America and Europe are intensifying those efforts in their desperate attempts to strengthen commercial and political ties with Africa to counter the increasing influence of China and Russia. Now, since Macron's statement came on the trail of his continental for that specific political goal, there is validity in Arthur Edo Vox's conclusion that restitution is new imperial geopolitics based on Europe's desire to salvage influence among African states. This politicization of restitution explains why today we are hearing of known agreements and museum funding and collaboration with researchers instead of the demands for justice. The second problem is what I call the creation of unethical relations in Africa. Informed by its new imperial ambition, foreign governments and museums engage parallel governments rather than indigenous people. Now, this is causing a lot of chaos in Africa because strict by this European-induced rift, African nations engaged in repatriation euphoria, that is the fixation on the economic dimension of restitution because the Sauer and Savoy report implies financial compensation, even as it focuses on establishing new ethical relations between Africa and Europe. But paradoxically, the result is the emergence of unethical relations and battles in Africa. On to recently, for example, Nigeria was faced with a four-way battle for the ownership of the anticipated Benin bronzes. The Kingdom of Benin, the federal government, the state government and the Nigerian-based Legacy Restoration Trust were locked in the very fierce battle. But this is not unique because the national government, custom officials, the National Museum, Giriyama and Pocomo communities are also locked in their own specific battle in Kenya. We know that after an American museum return, Vigango Post, to Kenya, the objects have sat in constant for many years now awaiting payment of an enormous tariff for their release to the National Museum of Kenya. The other problem with restitution is Africa's uncertainty about restitution. Beside a struggle for ownership, there are discrepancies in African perception of the matter. For example, a way of Macron's deceits, the Malian writer, Manthia Diawara, declares that we need reparations, not restitution. Pogole's artist, Titi Akamel Azonpo, argues that restitution could destroy the continent through economic and international wars for the power to exploit the object's economic values. Art historian, Moyo Ekedigi, proceeds that African art should be left in Europe as forensic evidence of the atrocities of communalism. At the same time, Madhu Bakum, director of the Museum of Black Civilization in Senegal, rejects restitution because he argues it degrades Africa. In his words, I quote, when people say 80% of African artifacts are outside the continent, it is not true. We have artifacts to concentrate on here. We cannot reduce Africa's history to the history of colonialism. Now, the most pressing problem with restitution that a lot of people don't talk about in Europe is what I call the decolonial vacuum. I'm happy that Andreas mentioned part of it in his presentation. Now, restitution emphasis on repatriation fails to define decolonial frameworks for reposition in African art that will remain in Europe. Those who advocate total or comprehensive repatriation fail to realize that relocating a few objects will not decolonize European museums' coloniality. By coloniality, I mean the thinking of superiority that heracize presentation within the museum space. Currently, according to the Kenyan cultural analyst, Christine Mungai, they are an estimated 70,000 African objects at the Musee du Coeur Brunnerie, 69,000 at the British Museum, 37,000 at the World Museum in Austria, 75,000 at the Future Humboldt Forum in Germany, as well as 180,000 at the Musee Royale of the L'Afrique Central in Belgium. Let's face the reality, many of these art forms will not return to Africa because a lot of them are genuinely owned by Europe. Their continued presence in animated suspense will preserve the anthropological gaze distorting African culture and history. Now, the emphasis on object repatriation obscures many questions. For example, was plundering the continent's artifact an act of material dispossession, cultural desecration, or epistemicide? Or does the decolonization of African art and European museum follow from the simple art of object relocation? And finally, does returning object to state representatives or other parties, rather than indigenous people, qualify as restitution? My criticism is not that restitution is unnecessary. What I contend with is the Western monologic to restitution centered on loan, on object loan, or the construction of museum in Africa. By dictating the question in restitution dialogues, Europe obscures the significant issue of ongoing epistemic violence against Africa, which I mean misrepresentation of African cultures that degrade their histories of people. Therefore, to address colonial injustices ethically, we must approach restitution from two perspectives, tangible and epistemic. Andreas talked earlier of moral. I will talk more about the perspective of tangible and epistemic. Let me start with tangible restitution. By tangible restitution, I refer to artifact repatriation where it is needed. We know that there are areas of blatant plundering. In these cases, we must be talking about restitution, return of those objects without the kind of conditions we see being put in European museums at the moment. Yet, for this to be ethical, we must proceed differently. First, Europe should not control the dialogues of restitution. It is critical for the president of France, for example, who has been accused of perpetuating new imperialism in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the Republic of Benin, through francophryic policies to lead the charge for restitution. Jonathan Paquet, the cheerholder of cultural heritage policies, the francophane role, raises an important question. He asks, should we look to former state institutions for ethical restitution? Paquet warns against Europe continuing to detect for Africa what it thinks that Africa actually means. Unfortunately, this is already happening. In February 2022, the new channel, France 24, celebrated the return of 26th object out of 69,000 to the Republic of Benin, not to atone for colonialism, but to promote France's new imperial political ambitions through its 1 billion Euro investment initiative to turn the country into a global tourist destination. Which is better, to offer these countries full decolonization, full self-governance, or to build museums for them. At the same time, the British Museum and the German government have agreed to fund the construction of an indoor museum of West African art to store the Benin bronzes. So you want to create restitution by determining where the object should be kept. This is problematic. Through its sudden interest in funding African museums as a precondition for restitution, Europe continues to undermine Africa. Again, for tangible restitution to be successful, restitution should be to the rightful indigenous owners, not governments. Alexander Hammond, assistant director of the Institute for Art and Law, perceived that the success of restitution can only be measured by returning object to their original homes. In the African context, unless Europe returns the objects to the indigenous owners, the current politicization of repatriation will continue to dispossess them of their revered artifacts. Again, the 26th object returned to the Republic of Benin are displayed in the presidential palace in Couturé. However, the objects originate from Abomey, the seats of the former Dahomey Kingdom before the unification of Benin on their French colonization. Here, France is simply reconfiguring looting by handing the objects to the president of the Republic instead of the indigenous of Abomey. The same goes for Belgium's decision to ignore Bemba, Tutsi, or Chokwé indigenous and return objects in ventures, not the object themselves, to the government in Couturé. Now, the second approach to ethical restitution is what I call epistemic restitution. Most importantly, restitution should be about decolonization to expand the relevance of African art globally. Since many African objects will remain in Europe, rethinking their presentation constitutes an ethical approach to decolonizing European museums and the European mind. To achieve this goal, I propose a reconceptualization of museology in dealing with African material culture. This proposal to rethink African art in Europe reflects the intentions of some African communities. Permit me to quote the thoughts of Mji Maran Chare, the director of cultural affairs at Bamun Palace in Cameroon and signing the contested Bamun Royals Tool at the Hombok Forum. I quote, some say the Germans stole the crown. Others say it wasn't a gift if it was one, a first gift. But we think that the Bamun people maintain the marriage of convenience with the Germans. We hope that those ties will be revived through more significant cultural corporations. The Germans will appreciate the mutual benefit of helping preserve our cultural heritage. The throne in Berlin is an ambassador of our rich culture, unquote. Now, since repatriation accompanied by isolationism may impede the appreciation of African art as cultural ambassadors, the answer to ethical restitution lies in developing what I call post-colonial museology. By post-colonial museology, I mean the formulation of decolonial museum practices, including curating, presentation, narration, and public programming that critically engage colonial histories through indigenous object. That is practices tailored to de-racialize the gaze on indigenous material culture in telling ancient and medieval African stories. To achieve post-colonial museology, I propose three conceptual frameworks or interventions for European museums. The first is that European museums must de-anthropologize African art. Ethnographic museums invented the anthropological gaze to heracize cultures by rationalizing otherness to contain the other. As mediations of anthropological knowledge, ethnographic museums institutionalize the construction of tribal identities, primitivism, savageness, and barbarism in Africa. We're thinking the future of museums require forced de-anthropologizing African art. The first step, of course, is for European museums to re-designate and relocate African artifacts to classical art galleries. We know that the concept of ethnographic object is an emerging construction through detachment and disciplinary contextualization. No culture creates an ethnographic object. There's some guys in the museums that call them ethnographic objects. Continually displaying African artworks in the ethnographic museums implies that Europe still sees them as objects of curiosity. It is illogical to uphold such misconception in the 21st century. We know that traditional African arts introduce Euro-American modernists to implicit conceptualism by parotting a sophisticated formalism of indigenous African art, Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti, Gabbo, and others revolutionize European modern art to its sophisticated intellectual pedestal. Since traditional African obstructionism inspired European artworks in art museums, curators must relocate African objects from ethnographic collections to galleries designated as classical African art. I used the term classical beyond Greek and Roman situatedness. Classicism is contextualized in this context, forced as a historical artistic occurrence during Asian civilization and second as a philosophy of art that is art concerned with depicting mythology, spirituality, and religion, particularly the idealization of realism based on social societal specific philosophies. Secondly, European museums to de-entropologize African art must open them to multiple presentation, not just the perspective of European ethnographers. As the Archimagee, as the Archimagee cheer in cultural, in critical humanities and decoloniality, Shahid Vauda concedes allowing for multivalent voices and multi-authorial possibilities to strengthen curating, allowing curating to contextualize the complex and specific histories and cultures of indigenous people. It's a central decolonial methodology for 21st century museums. In this sense, there's a need for Europe to include African voices and forms of display, such as temporality. Many African objects were not created to be permanently displayed, but only came out occasionally. Secrecy and haziness where most objects were created mainly for specific initiates of court and where they were made public, they were kept in dark spaces and interactivity. Most objects derived the actuality from being used like the Aquabadolp example shown on the screen. Digital humanities provides a pathway for such multi-authorial possibilities. For example, augmented reality can transpose viewers in Europe to new depictions of the cultural usage of Aquabadol staged by Ghanaian women. Digital humanities in this context will provide a comprehensive experience of their derivative actuality, thus liberating them from anthropological fixation towards more global appreciation. The second conceptual framework to post-colonial museology is for Europe to de-hegemonize and indigenize museum narratives. The rhetorical texts constitute epistemic violets perpetuating injustices towards Africa. The strategy involves a conscious narrative omission that mask colonialism by reinventing objects' histories, explaining why the cultural studies expert, Helene Kozal, described museum texts as racist, sexist, and biased. If you enter European museums, three typologies of narratives dominate European museums concerning African art. The first revolves around glorifying imperial exploitation. It recounts the agency of African indigenous objects in Europe constructed around what the art historian Tejuku called the white-savvy industrial complex. So we went to Africa to serve savage people and we saved their lives by collecting their objects and giving them European civilization. Expert knowledge in position defines the second category, leading to the imposition of assumptions on African art. For example, museum's classificatory systems usually group artifacts from the continent according to regions or tribes, defining an object as between the Sonufo, Bamun, Bambara, or Nock, not minding the flaws that these tribal identifications come from colonial thinking and colonial logic, not the realities in Africa. The most troublesome category is what I call uncritical acknowledgement passed as post-colonial consciousness, where European curators passively, passively reference colonialism without critical implications. I'll give you just two examples. One from the Hombok Forum and one from the House of European History. If you go to the Hombok Forum next to the contested Bamun's tour where the Cameroon objects are displayed, you will find this text on the wall. I quote, The German rule in Cameroon had far-reaching consequences. After the First World War, the colony was divided into French and British mandates. The German past in Cameroon today is remembered differently across the country. In some areas, it is recalled as less harmful than the British and the French rule. In some, in others, the scars of the German rule are remembered vividly, unquote. So to present a post-colonial consciousness, to deal with the problems of the past, the museums invokes comparative analysis that villainizes Britain and France in order to generate Germany. You agree that this is absolute rubbish. If you go to the House of European History on the section on European Expansionism Imperialism, you can still see it on your website today. You find this text. The 19th century witnessed a global dominant Europe. Empires expanded, colonists amassed, all pushing energetically forward by the industrial revolution. Colonists provided the raw materials and luxury commodities to meet rising consumer demands. Abuse and inequalities were excused as necessary part of civilizing savage peoples. When you read the text, you would think, colonists provided the raw materials as if there was a mutual agreement. Whereas in Congo, children, women, and men were amputated for not providing enough rubber. The director mentioned the rubber terror. You don't mention that 2,500 people were killed in Ijebudi because they were blocking the bridge from entering the hinterlands of Western Nigeria to extract palm oil to be used in Liverpool. He also talks about abuse and inequality. Africans were not abused, they were dehumanized. Sarah Batman is one example. To address the problem of hegemonic narration, European museums should adopt embodied and polyphonic narratives as epistemic prostitution. This starts with acknowledging African voices within the museum space. I was happy to listen to Andreas, Andreas, the second speaker, who talked about inviting experts and listening to them about what should be included in the museum. Not so within the African Museum in Congo. You listen to the speaker, you listen more about ecological activism, global warming. This is the view of the West being pushed on Africans, not the thought of Africans within the museum space. But Andreas talked upon it very well where they are inviting experts. So African voices must be included in the museum space. Museum must have seen themselves as the authority of African cultures and in the words of the former director of Walker Arts Center of Labiso, positioned themselves as learning communities, not impenetrable centers of self-validating authority. To de-hegemonize curatorial stories, I propose the following. One, museums should acknowledge individual agencies of a traditional African art. As you have all caught to you that you never see the names of African makers in museums. But some of the collectors knew the names of the bakers. I'll give you an example. George Haley lives among the mono people for 20 years. He knew the makers, he knew the cults, he knew the carvers who made them, but he never collected the names of the makers to include in his collection. Number two, there's a lot to explain why this is the case. It goes far away to the Cartesian philosophy where I think therefore I am individuality being instituted as the core of European civilization and enlightenment and they had to deny Africans that to show that they were not as advanced as Europe. So including the individual names would have gone and the tethical to the colonial logic that the people were bounded as simpleton in tribes. Museums should address the issue of misplaced assignation. There are many cases of misplaced assignation where artifacts are assigned to the wrong cultural group. For example, Sonufo. Sonufo is a very often you see artwork saying Sonufo and it's Burkina Faso, but there's Sonufo in Mali, there's Sonufo in Ghana. It doesn't tell us which, it doesn't show exactly which Sonufo tried these artifacts come from. It is important for curators to genuinely address object wrongful assignation using recorded us for all tribal arts. This strategy depicts an ethical acknowledgement of colonial ethnographic imposition thoughts pointing to the post to post-colonial remains. European museums also must include a perspective of colonial collecting told by Africans to highlight all the mutual collecting agencies. This will dispel the misconception that all African objects in European collections were muted. Many Africans think that every African object in European collection was stolen, but this is a blatant lie. And it's also some one of the lies that a lot of Africans in the dashboard are pushing. European museums, European experts collected objects as gifts. They also bought some and exchange. So majority of them were not stolen. We can't question the high handedness using some of the collection, but if there are no cases of blatant violence of looting, it is very difficult to think that all objects were muted. Finally, the third framework of post-colonial museology is what they call critical post-colonial presences. To address the anthropological fixation of ethnographic museums, Europe needs strategic tangible post-colonial collection and exhibition to bridge the gap in Africa's history that they tell in their collections. Africa did not end with the carving of masks for the decoration of Calabashis, yet a conscious chasm exists across European museums without modernist, nationalist, and post-independent African art. European museums engage in post-colonial pretence by retaining and glorifying empires in permanent collections while selectively displaying specific interests 20th century African art. I'll give you one example. For example, the Muzir Royale de la Frick Central in Belgium reopened in 2018 with a supposed decolonial art book. To reflect on Belgium's imperial past, a commissioned Congolese artist, Amin Pane, to create a piece for the Grand Rotunda, a giant-preferrated wooden sculpture, wooden head sculpture, portraying a futuristic hope through a statue that desists from pointing fingers at anyone for the brutalities of Belgium imperialism in Congo was the result of the commission. You can see why the museum funded such a grandiose project in their mind. It aligns with its strategy of masking colonialism by using African artists as baits to portray superficial decoloniality. In Pane's sculptures, seats adjacent to a statue of an African boy clotching. You can see it on your left. Clotching the ropes of the Belgian missionary with the words Belgium bring civilization to Congo and burden on it. Such declaration constitutes ongoing parotting of the misleading assumption that missionaries went to Africa to civilize the natives when they did the opossum. In the letter to church ministers in 1883, King Leopold urged them not to civilize Africans but to cow them into Western submission. He admonished them to teach Africans to read but not to think or reason so that they may never become competitors to whites. Now, aware of this prejudices, how etiquette decolonial is the exhibition of a contemporary African sculpture next to a statue with such a fallacious claim that celebrate by supremacy. Recently, Laurence and the Woover described the museum's invitation to Africa for dialogues and research which Bart spoke with earlier. She described it as colonial propaganda 2.0. Her proposal of a giant melting ice statue of King Leopold II to represent the fading of white supremacist ideologies in Belgium was vehemently rejected and she was also attacked by the museum management. To resolve Europe's post-colonial pretense and make two suggestions. Exhibit Africa's modernist and anti-colonial art. The 1900s and 1970s marked the substituted intersection of art, indigenous resistance, anti-colonialism and nationalism throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. I know now the man standing in the room, Abraham Salahi, Ernest Macomba and many others drew impetus from pan-African and liberation movement. Thus, the art provides ethical critical alternative narratives to colonialism which will educate European audiences about colonialism seen through the eyes of the colonized not the diaries of experts or the knowledge of ethnographers within the museum space in order to correct the distorted history of African-European museums. Number two, to rate the contemporary in critical post-coloniality. Curators must stop the subjective display of African art that forces them into hegemonic global narratives. Museum showcase works produced by Africans that are critical of Africa but not critical of the West. They use robust patronage to extend hegemonies by exhibiting the works of the likes of Ella Nasi, the likes of Ella Nasi, Gunkalo Mabunda and others to subsume their practices into highlighting the neoliberal politics of global warming and Africa's supposed youth and devastation. You see, we are talking about restitution and we had the director talking about ecological activism, the mission of carbon and the preservation of the environment. This selective activism silences critical voices with Europe using Africans as objects of knowledge while continuing to display them as unthinking. Exhibiting challenging artworks without conceptual alteration is crucial for European museums if they are to become truly universal. In conclusion, I want to reiterate that repatriation is not restitution or decolonization. Thus implementing this tangible and tangible whether it's moral epistemic restitution proposal constitutes a path to ethicality. In particular, post-colonial museology will help European museums create horizontal histories of civilizations towards what the Puerto Rican sociologist Ramon Grasparov calls new reversality or what the Greek social theorists or what the Latin American philosopher calls Erika Deserbe describes as trans-modernity or what the Greek social theorists, Iriakos Contapolo's refers to us heterotheists and the British American philosopher Kwame Anthony Apia describes as cosmopolitanism. Having said this, I want to acknowledge the progressive work done by the National Museum of Scotland and the Rich Museum in the Netherlands to de-racialize their displays. It suffices in conclusion that what we need is collaboration not antagonism between Africa and Europe in achieving this new vision for museums in post-economic Europe. Thank you very much for listening. Gracias, Clement. Quiero aprovechar porque antes no lo he dicho que Clement... We'd like to take advantage of the fact that Clement is from Nigeria, he works in the Advanced Institute of the European University. Now we open a Q&A if anybody's interested in debating and questioning some of the things he has said. Hello, good afternoon. I think you have a very critical stance and perspective and it's logical, it makes sense. But I want to ask you a question. You belong to the Musaistic world. Do you recognize the works of art that were plundered from Africa? But do you recognize the work done by museums, archaeologists? Do you realize all the economic effort and professional effort that has been made for hundreds of years? Because in a way, do you recognize this? Do you see it? Have you thought about this when you talk about restitution? Because you are asking that Europe should recognize all this. But are you also thinking about recognizing this work that has been done in Europe? I'm just thinking about the work being done and the economic effort and everything that has been done. Legitimate or not? Absolutely. Can I answer now? Absolutely. Thank you very much for that question. If you listen to my presentation, the way I've made my presentation, I'm very critical towards those who argue for complete repatriation. Because the first point I will make is that there's a misconception that people think that all objects in European collections were looted. This is not true at all. This is a false assumption. There's also a false assumption that is also parodied, that 80% of African cultural heritage are in Europe. This is a lie, of course. This is not correct. I grew up in Africa. I see African works. There's a lot of African works of scholars of people. There are many reasons why people don't have any interest in these works in Africa. One of it has to do with religion, Christianity. Of course, I recognize this, the work done by Europe. That is why I am very supportive of the concept of the Universal Museum. But my argument is that this has to be true collaboration. I'm also very supportive of the concept of loans. And even reprises, I mean, very supportive. But what I'm critical about is, if we are talking about loans, let it come, let the charge or the discussion be led by Africans, but let it not be an imposition by Europeans. Of course, there's something I took out from my presentation. The reason why we are talking about this African art is because Europe preserved the object to their economic value and cultural and universal significance. There are so many objects in Africa, but nobody pays any attention to this object. So of course, I acknowledge and really respect the work that Europe has done. Do I think that all African arts should go to Africa? No, of course. But the ones that are questionable and problematic, there should be a dialogue whether to return them. And if the people say return them, then you can discuss loan agreement, but let it come from them and not Europe. Because if we continue to allow Europe to impose, then we are extending new imperialism and hegemonies rather than having a dialogue that we should continue to have. The director of BART made a statement where he talked about changing, beginning to talk about partners in Africa. It is important to have partners as opposed to having Africans as subjects of Europe, of knowledge, where you just go to Africa and tell them, I want you to research on this. I want you to research on it. And we know for the past 70 years or 50 years, whenever we have those discussions, it has been Europe telling Africans what to do as opposed to having a collaboration. I support the concept of universal museums. I acknowledge the work done by Europeans and also acknowledge that Europe owns a lot of the objects in Africa because a lot of the objects in their collection from Africa, Africa doesn't have the documentation to show that everything was limited. First of all, I want that so everybody can understand. I feel lucky to be in the African Museum because I was surprised about the number because it's a museum of Congo. The name says a lot, not the number. So some of the impressions of this museography and the museum that nowadays I have confirmed by listening to you. And I'm very hopeful to see that there are other discourses and narratives. And the most important thing is not so much to remain in this debate of restitution but to recognize both parts and especially why this legacy is here. One of the things that I was surprised about was the absence of Afro descendants. It was like a museography, clearly propagandistic even nowadays. Therefore, of course, you have a much more global vision including many more museums. But I don't know if there is any European proposal in order to, within the many Afro descendants who are in Europe, I don't know. There can be some consensus taking into account the legal framework in Europe. I don't know if this is a utopia or not only a debate but also a legislation which can be of this European present something real, not only in the objects but also in the dialogue and the practice. Yeah, thank you very much for that question. Like you're rightfully say there's a lot of propagandistic display that I feel that requires a lot of change but at the moment I'm not seeing that change in Europe. I mentioned the Museum of Scotland. The reason why I mentioned the Museum of Scotland is that they had an exhibition called the exhibition of wall cultures in 2021. In that exhibition, the curators refused to organize the works according to tribes or nations but rather according to themes and materiality. So when you go there, you see wall cultures without hierarchies but you see what Richard the Sur would call trans-modernity or pluriversality, horizontal telling of history. But we don't see that in Europe. And this is very problematic. America is well advanced. One of the questions I wanted to ask but I didn't want to take, wanted to take chance of the audience members was András. András, if you listen to András, he has a completely different perspective towards what has to be done in the Museum. And I wanted to ask if it's because of the advancement of decolonial thinking in America influencing that decision which we don't have in Europe at the moment. I'll give you something I've not seen. I hope to see a kind of framework developed within Europe to rethink completely how we look at ethnographic and other ethnological object or art, indigenous art. I've not seen that. I hope to see that. Or maybe the race, I'm not aware. I want to give you an instance with the policy or the guideline for recitation. Both the one in France and in Belgium. It states something. All societies or communities or nations asking for restitution must provide evidence of ownership. Evidence of ownership. I want to give you an example of what happened in Benin where thousands of Benins were killed and the works were forcibly taken away and the place was burnt down. Where do you want the people to get the evidence? That shows you clearly that Africa cannot provide that evidence because Africa doesn't have the evidence. Number two, Africa until the coming of Europeans operated with oral history. Not documented writing. So when objects were, artifacts or objects were passed for one generation to the other, both the stories surrounding the object and the ownership were transferred through oral history. Where do you want the evidence, the documented evidence of ownership? So I'm only bringing that part to tell you that within Europe, even what we call dialogues is still one-sided. And then finally, the problem we have with European museums is that the decolonial perspective of the new ways we want to reimagine museums in Europe is coming from within the museum itself. I'll give you, the American womanist and activist Audrey Lord says that you cannot, the masters too, cannot dismantle the master's house. So you cannot stay within the museum and rethink the museum functioning by yourself. Olufemi Taiwu, a philosopher in the US, says that when you privilege voices within the museums, you actually end up marginalizing those who already marginalized, marginalized. So whoever asked that question is a fantastic question. I haven't seen, I'm hoping to see, I've seen somebody called Truverin, I'm not sure of the exact name, but she wrote, she did a wonderful research where she talked about the problems concerning the demographic objects, but those solutions and those consorted dialogues I haven't seen yet. There is a project called in the University of Edinburgh, led by a professor called Karen, is called Decolonize or De-Center. It's a fantastic, fantastic organization, but again, it's operating from the margins, the preference, not within the museum. We need this conversation within the museum space to make both epistemic policy and practical changes within the museum I haven't seen yet, but I hope to see. And maybe we are all having the conversation now. I want to ask a question to Clement. I have a question for Clement. My greetings once again, I'm Celeste. First of all, just to congratulate you for your talk. It was a very stimulating conference and I think we've taken a lot of notes, although you cannot see very clearly the context of the room. My question is about one question that you have pointed to at the beginning of your conferences which deals about the instrumental political uses in the context of this debate of the restitution. For example, in France, they have used this concept of restitution in order to try to recover influence in some areas of Francophone Africa. And it is also true that the question of restitution fits within a movement of repair claimings which is much wider, canceling debt, economic compensation, et cetera. But out of all these demands which are much more structural, the question of restitution, the question is about restitution. And I don't know why you think restitution has been prioritized instead of other structural demands. Maybe it was simpler and maybe talk about the question of the industry of colonization. Is it because it's easier to speculate with museums? And nobody can forget the fact that the technological museums were in decay and with the questions of decolonization they have been revitalized. Maybe these speculative aspects can be part of this reading and interpretations. The global perspective on repair and why the question of reception has taken much bigger centrality. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much for that question. I wish I could see the room. Yeah, so my concern earlier on was that repatriation has been prioritized instead of restitution. So Europe makes it look so safe if we return, in fact, I call it material missionaries. If we return a few objects, then you're gonna keep quiet and give you some money to build some museums. The reason is simple, right? African nations, particularly the politicians, when you give them the money, of course, if you go to give somebody 35 billion dollars, 35 million dollars, that is a lot of money to construct a museum and with few objects, of course, they will take it. Now, the reason why repatriation in the context of a museum is very intense and serious, whereas other aspects of colonialism has been marginalized or put to the background is because museums have the tangible evidence of colonialism. They have the tangible evidence of racism. They have the tangible evidence of expropriation and then they have the tangible evidence of ongoing, what I call epistemic violence, which is the least representation. Other aspects of colonialism, of course, it is there, but without this tangible evidence, people can not claw on it, but people can see the museum and they can see the object and of course that gets them all riled up and then it amplifies agitations. So it's a fantastic question. I think repatriation for me is a very political stuff because once you return a few objects and build museums, then people are gonna keep quiet. I want to give the person, they asked the question, an example, in 2000, in 2000 and in 2000 in March, the Benin Kingdom wrote a letter to the British Museum and asked for two things, return all our objects to us or give us the financial equivalent of their contemporary monetary value. They never mentioned the building of museums, but all of a sudden the construction of museums to store venerated object when they add it on, whatever that term is, is not a center stage of the discussions about the institution. So we cannot repair the past unknown, we cannot repair the past if Europe dominates. In fact, O'Hackenem argues that a thief, cannot dictate for the owner of the object is to, where to keep the object. So you're right, you're absolutely right. I think that repatriation, because it can drag people's attention and when some financial compensation follows, it will make everybody interested and people, once they touch money, they're gonna keep quiet. And I feel that museums are the center of this discourse because you have the tangible evidence. There are other aspects. I'll give you an example of Dukas de Art from the beginning of my presentation. It's there as well. Because if, like the director said, there's a lot of racism still going on, but he mentioned of somebody, a member of the team being attacked, nobody talks about them because nobody sees it. But people talk about Dukas de Art because they can see the savage character coming up every August, every year. So when there's tangible evidence, agitation is amplified. When there's no tangible evidence, then it is easy to sweep colonialism and its legacies to the carpet. I also want to mention, Celeste, that in case you need the transcript of what I've said, I can send it to you immediately. We'll finish. If anybody's interested, I'm not sure anybody is, but if anybody's interested, I can send the transcript to you. A final reflection, final comment. It's not for the speaker alone. Thank you very much for your comments. My question, by closing this cycle of preparing the past, the Nologic Museum, which are the tasks that are being carried out in this framework, I would like to know, besides yesterday, the project you presented, to which the museum belongs, the museum in itself, is organizing any of these tasks or are you preparing for this? So this is a question for me. The Atmological Museum of Barcelona, you mean? No, I am not the museum, but I work at the museum, yes. Well, here I have to say something and I don't agree with what was being said before by our colleagues, which is the consideration of artistic objects and also a series of pieces and work of art that we have in the museum, which in reality are for bringers of discourses, beliefs, myths, ceremonies, which do not belong to contemporary culture but happen somewhere else. So they represent communities that are alive and this is part of their heritage history, patrimonial history. Why am I saying that? Because we have to distinguish between our museum, which is a museum, like the typical one that you will find in Europe, which was created to glorify colonies, therefore, European action in the colonies. This is not our case. In our case, it will be a bit long to explain the history of this museum, but this cannot be compared with the Tamburen African Museum or other types of museums. Why am I saying all this? And I will try to answer your question now. We are very worried about creating and working on the imaginary, the social representations that we have right now. And I'm not only speaking from the European perspective, I'm speaking about plural societies, communities through immigration, they have been established in our society. Therefore, we have to create these courses much more coherent with the reality that we are facing. On the other hand, of course, this means to decolonize our mindsets, so our welcoming society. And we think that found of objects, such as the one we have here, representing a huge diversity, can contribute to, with the participation of other communities, creating these imaginary groups, new social representations, that in other words will be the ones allowing not only to explain who we are, where do we come from, but who are the others and how to belong to this new society. And this is why when you were speaking about converting all these objects into artistic objects, to me, this has a totally new dimension because these objects are not valued just because of their aesthetic aspects or symbolic aspects, but in reality, to us, these are instruments that create this new imaginary. I hope I've made myself clear. In this case, I would just like to thank you very much and Meka for your intervention, which has been very clarifying and interesting and has introduced a lot of elements that have truly enriched our conversation and we will be, of course, very, very happy and grateful for you to send the transcript of your presentation. So with that further ado, we will now close this session and we hope that in the future we will have the opportunity to meet again in similar circumstances. Thank you again, Meka. With these words, we close the session of this third edition of our International Seminars. Thank you.