Europeans routinely destroyed the artifacts of any culture they considered heretical. They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles. The premise that they somehow deserve to be considered the librarians and guardians of the very cultures they colonized and exploited is an absurd, and implicitly racist, imperialist ideal.
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.
This conveniently ignores that Ancient Egyptian monuments were often little cared for by the natives of the land for centuries to the point where they would go and deface ancient statues because religion. I think at some point a zealot was lynched when he tried to damage the Sphinx of Giza though so there's also that. And it's not like ancient European monuments fared any better at the hands of later Europeans. They'd also go and pillage Byzantium FWIW. Likewise the pharaohs would often pride themselves how they killed and dismembered enemies and what riches they brought back as spoils of war. I will not excuse slave trade or tolerate war as a business model, however show me the civilization that did not wage war for gains when in doubt.
Whereas Antiquity Egyptians were well-known for being a well-behaving people, that never ever dared touch their neighbor's property? Didn't countless Pharaohs proudly inscribed in stone how many foes they killed, how many lands they conquered, how much riches they pillaged?
So you - and a lot of people judging from the comments - believe that it's perfectly legitimate to steal from someone who has ever, themselves, done anything in the past you consider wrong. That morality, ethics and laws should only protect the blameless, and everyone and everything else is fair game.
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.
> believe that it's perfectly legitimate to steal from someone who has ever, themselves, done anything in the past you consider wrong.
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?
> They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles.
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 they should continue changing by repatriating artifacts if the original owners want them back. It's entirely possible that some cultures might prefer having their artifacts be kept by others, but that clearly isn't always the case. For instance, bones and sacred items taken from indigenous peoples.
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.
Recently Buddha's jewels where on the news due to it's british owners putting them up for auction and all the buddhists of the world not being very happy about it
> 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!
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.
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.