- Early gestures toward restitution have gradually given way to a refusal to return African cultural objects, says art history professor Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie
- ‘We did not consent to our heritage being removed, reinterpreted … yet we are often asked to be grateful that it is now shared,’ say Koehun Aziz and Karen Ijumba from the Open Restitution Africa
- ‘Biggest issue is changing the historical narrative that excluded us,’ says Restitution Study Group’s Deadria Farmer-Paellmann
These analysts say the debate over restitution has long been shaped by Western institutions themselves.
“Western institutions have controlled the terms of the restitution debate for decades – who gets to speak, what counts as evidence and what pace of return is considered ‘reasonable,’” Koehun Aziz, a communications associate, and Karen Ijumba, a senior researcher at Open Restitution Africa (ORA), told Anadolu.
They described institutional resistance as “structural rather than principled.”
The pattern, they said, can be seen in the global response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 pledge to return African artifacts – despite similar demands being voiced by African scholars and governments for decades.
“It reflects a broader pattern in which African agency is rendered invisible so Western gestures appear generous rather than overdue.”
Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, founder and executive director of the Restitution Study Group, is spearheading a global effort to return the Benin Bronzes to shared care, bringing together Afro-descendants, Nigerian institutions, the Benin Kingdom’s royals and museums.
“What we’ve been faced with is erasure, complete exclusion from the discussion,” she told Anadolu. “The biggest issue is changing the historical narrative that excluded us.”
She said activists are often cast as adversarial for pushing institutions to offer complete narratives around how the artifacts ended up in the West, which often relate to the slave trade and colonialism.
Legal arguments have also complicated restitution efforts.
Aziz and Ijumba said African countries often have to navigate complex legal systems shaped by Western institutions.
“Much of what Western institutions present as fact is itself perspective, institutionalized and legitimized over time,” they said.
Ogbechie said reparatory frameworks are negotiated in Western contexts, pitting Western lawyers against African officials, some of whom are unclear on the consequences of the agreements they sign.
