From a historical point of view, the practice of the restitution of cultural artefacts among States emerged at the beginning of the 19th century, during the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Unfortunately, these rules were not universal. They were only applicable among contracting States, stopping at the borders of Europe, the ‘civilised world’, and did not apply to territories which were or were to be colonised.
Denunciations of the ‘evils’ of colonialism occur over and over again, as does an intermittent readiness to listen to them. But the wounds that have been inflicted cannot be healed, not least because the colonial systems in all their forms have upset the deep structures of the social, economic and political organization of the societies they have targeted.
