把文物还给非洲

Early in the movie Black Panther, a black visitor played by Michael B. Jordan confronts a white curator over African artifacts in a fictional British museum.

在电影《黑豹》的前半部分，迈克尔·B·乔丹饰演的一名黑人游客在一座虚构的大英博物馆里与一名白人馆长就非洲文物发生了冲突。

"How do you think your ancestors got these?" the visitor asks.

“你想想你们的先辈是怎么得到这些文物的？”这位游客问道。

"You think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it — like they took everything else?"

“你觉得他们是给了该给的钱呢？还是直接抢走——就像抢走所有一切那样？”

The visitor turns out to be the villain of the movie.

这名游客最后发现是影片中的反派。

But a similar (if less ultimately violent) discussion is happening in museums around the world over the volume of African art in their collections.

不过类似的讨论（没有这样暴力）正在世界各地的博物馆中开展，关于它们馆藏中的大量非洲艺术品问题。

Officials in Germany and The Netherlands have announced plans to return art and artifacts taken from Africa during the colonial period.

德国和荷兰的官员们已经宣布了他们计划要归还殖民地时期从非洲抢夺的艺术品和工艺品。

And more museum staff are meeting on the topic across Europe.

而在欧洲有更多的博物馆员工都在考虑这个问题。

In 2006, France's Quai Branly museum lent a set of wooden statues and carved furniture to the country of Benin.

2006年，法国博物馆向贝宁借出了一套木制雕像和雕刻家具。

Originally seized from the region by a French military expedition in 1892, they were housed in a Beninese museum called the Fondation Zinsou.

它们最初是在1892年被一支法国军事探险队从该地区夺取的，存放在贝尼尼博物馆，被称为为津苏基金会。

Marie-Cécile Zinsou, founder of the museum, says people lined up for 3 to 4 hours, and that visitors to the exhibition left lots of messages of gratitude in the visitors' book.

博物馆的创始人玛丽-塞西尔-辛苏说，人们排了3到4个小时的队来看，参观展览的游客在游客手册上写下了很多感激的留言。

But they also wondered: "Why do these objects have to go back in France, exactly?" Zinsou says.

但他们也想知道:“究竟为什么这些文物必须回到法国?”津苏说道。

"People were really saying, 'Do you think we could have them back for real, soon?'"

“人们说的是，'你真以为我们还能把它们要回来吗？’”

According to the most commonly cited figures from a 2007 UNESCO forum, 90% to 95% of sub-Saharan cultural artifacts are housed outside Africa.

根据2007年联合国教科文组织论坛上最常被引用的数据，撒哈拉以南地区90%到95%的文物都存放在非洲以外。

Many, like the works from Benin, were taken during the colonial period and ended up in museums across Europe and North America.

许多作品，比如贝宁的作品，都是在殖民时期被抢走的，最后被欧洲和北美的博物馆收藏。

"Some were brought by missionaries," Gryseels says.

“有些是传教士带来的，”格里尔斯说。

"Others were brought by civil servants ... also, some were resulting from military expeditions and sometimes even from plundering."

“其他的是公务员带来的……此外，有些是军事远征带回来的，有时甚至是掠夺来的。”

For decades, Congolese leaders have asked for these objects to be returned.

几十年来，刚果领导人一直要求归还这些物品。

Most of their requests, and those by African countries to other museums, have been refused — with some exceptions, particularly for human remains.

他们和非洲国家向其他博物馆提出的大多数要求都被拒绝了- -也有一些例外，就是对人类遗骸的归还要求。

But recent events in Europe have raised the possibility of repatriations at a much larger scale.

但最近在欧洲发生的事件提高了遣返的可能性，而且规模要大得多。

In addition to the plans announced in Germany, last year French President Emmanuel Macron commissioned a study of how much African art French museums are holding and to make recommendations about what to do with it.

除了在德国宣布的计划，去年法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙还委托进行了一项研究，调查法国的非洲艺术博物馆拥有多少藏品，并就如何处理这些藏品提出了建议。

Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr is one of the study's authors.

塞内加尔经济学家菲尔文·萨尔是这项研究的作者之一。

"The problem is you can't lend people an object that fundamentally belongs to them," he says.

他说:“问题在于，你不能借给别人一个从根本上属于他们的东西。”

The study recommended the return of a wide range of objects taken during the colonial period by force — or where there's simply no documentation of consent.

该研究建议归还大量殖民地时期武力夺取的文物——或者那些没有许可证的文物。

The report got mixed reviews in France, where Sarr estimates there are at least 90,000 African items in museums.

这份报告在法国得到了褒贬不一的评价，据萨尔估计，法国的博物馆里至少有9万件非洲藏品。

The vast majority are in just one, the state-owned Quai Branly in Paris.

大多数都收藏于一家博物馆，就是法国州立的凯布朗利博物馆。

Its director, Stéphane Martin, said in an interview with radio station Europe 1 that restitution shouldn't be a dirty word,but that the report was too drastic: "Museums should not be the hostages of the unhappy history of colonialism," he said.

博物馆馆长斯特凡纳马丁在接受欧洲广播电台采访时说，归还文物不应该是一个肮脏的字眼，但这份报告过于激进:“博物馆不应该成为殖民主义不幸历史的人质，”他说。

The wrangling over where art comes from and where it belongs isn't new.

关于艺术品的起源和归属的争论并不是新鲜事。

The most famous example is Greece's longstanding dispute with the British Museum over what the British call the Elgin marbles: sculptures from the Parthenon that have been at the London museum for almost 200 years.

最著名的例子是，希腊与大英博物馆就英国人所称的埃尔金大理石问题长期存在争议：埃尔金大理石是帕台农神庙的雕塑，却在伦敦博物馆展出了近200年。

Alexander Herman of the Institute of Art and Law in the U.K. says that in 2002, a group of directors from major international museums issued a general declaration on the topic of restitution.

英国艺术与法律研究所的赫尔曼说，2002年，一些主要国际博物馆的馆长发表了一份关于归还文物的一般性声明。

He characterized it as "claiming we shouldn't just be kowtowing to these claimant countries and giving everything back, and things need to be shared with a world audience, and we're the best places where this can happen."

他将其描述为“声称我们不应该只是向这些索赔国道歉，把所有东西都还给他们，而且这些东西需要与全世界的观众分享，而我们的博物馆是开展这种活动的最佳场所。”

That sentiment still lingers, he says — the Elgin marbles are still in the British Museum – but he does think that other fronts may be more open.

他说，这种情绪仍在延续——埃尔金大理石仍然在大英博物馆——但他确实认为，其他方面可能会更加开放。

For his part, Guido Gryseels of the Africa Museum in Belgium acknowledges that attitudes are changing.

比利时非洲博物馆的圭多·格里希尔斯承认，人们的态度正在发生变化。

"We are fully aware that it's not normal that such a large part of the African cultural heritage is in Europe or in Western museums," he says.

他说:“我们完全意识到，这么大一部分非洲文化遗产在欧洲或西方博物馆是不正常的。”

Gryssels says he's in discussion with his counterpart in the Congo to return works.

格里塞尔说他正在与刚果的同行讨论归还作品问题。

In France, some press coverage has suggested returns could leave vacant shelves in French museums.

在法国，一些媒体报道称，归还文物可能会让法国博物馆的展架空空如也。

Cécile Fromont, a French historian of Central African art, says that's not going to happen.

法国中非艺术历史学家塞西尔·弗蒙特则表示，不会有这种事。

One way of thinking about it, she says, is that more African art can go on display.

她说，看这个问题的另一种方式是，有更多的非洲艺术品可以展出了。

"We are talking about hundreds of thousands of objects," Fromont says.

“我们谈论的是成千上万的文物，”佛蒙特说。

"As somebody who wants to champion the display and study of the expressive art of the African continent, if we can get more objects on view — in more settings, in more museums, in more places around the world — that sounds like a great solution."

“作为一个想要支持非洲大陆表现艺术的展示和研究的人，如果我们能在世界上更多的地方，在更多的环境，更多的博物馆里，有更多的展品，这听起来是个不错的解决方案。”

For now, those wooden objects from Benin are back at the Quai Branly.

目前，这些来自贝宁的木制物品又回到了凯布朗利博物馆。

With a loan from the French Development Agency, Benin is constructing a new museum to receive them, set to open in 2021.

在法国发展署的贷款支持下，贝宁正在建造一座新的博物馆来迎接他们，预计2021年开放。

In July, the French Minister of Culture Franck Riester said the government was prepared to send them on loan to Benin even sooner.

今年7月，法国文化部长富朗克·里斯特表示，政府准备更快地将这些作品租借到贝宁。

But it will take an act of the French Parliament to release them from the Quai Branly's collection definitively — and another law to allow for wider, permanent returns.

但法国议会必须采取行动，将它们从凯布朗利的藏品中明确取消，并出台另一项法律，允许更广泛、永久的返还。

问题

文中提到的埃尔金大理石来自于哪里？

留言回复正确答案，前十名朋友可以获得红包奖励哦，赶快来试试吧！

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