French Trial - Theft at Quais Branly Summer 2020 Results in Fine
France’s Colonial Legacy Is Being Judged in Trial Over African Art
PARIS — Wearing a protracted, white tunic with the names of two African ethnic teams written on it, the defendant stepped ahead to the bar, took a breath, and launched right into a plea.
“No one has sought to find out what harm has been done to Africa,” mentioned the defendant, Mwazulu Diyabanza, a Congo-born 41-year-old activist and spokesman for a Pan-African motion that denounces colonialism and cultural expropriation.
Mr. Diyabanza, together with 4 associates, stood accused of making an attempt to steal a 19th-century African funeral pole from the Quai Branly Museum in Paris in mid-June, as a part of an motion to protest colonial-era cultural theft and seek reparations.
But it was Wednesday’s emotionally charged trial that gave actual resonance to Mr. Diyabanza’s wrestle, as a symbolic defendant was referred to as to the stand: France, and its colonial observe report.
The presiding decide in cost of the case acknowledged the 2 trials: One, judging the group, 4 males and a girl, on a cost of tried theft for which they might withstand 10 years in jail and fines of about $173,000.
“And another trial, that of the history of Europe, of France with Africa, the trial of colonialism, the trial of the misappropriation of the cultural heritage of nations,” the decide advised the court docket, including that such was a “citizen’s trial, not a judicial one.”
The political and historic ramifications had been arduous to keep away from.
France’s huge trove of African heritage — it’s estimated that some 90,000 sub-Saharan African cultural objects are held in French museums — was largely acquired below colonial occasions, and lots of of those artworks had been looted or acquired below doubtful circumstances. That has put France on the heart of a debate on the restitution of colonial-era holdings to their international locations of origin.
Unlike in Germany, where this debate has been welcomed by each the federal government and museums, France has struggled to supply a constant response, simply because the nation is dealing with a difficult reckoning with its past.
“Our act aimed to erase the acts of indignity and disrespect of those who plundered our homes,” Mr. Diyabanza mentioned.
The restitution debate got here to a head in France when President Emmanuel Macron promised in 2017 to provide again a lot of Africa’s heritage held by French museums. He later commissioned a report that recognized about two-thirds of the 70,000 objects on the Quai Branly Museum as qualifying for restitution.
But in the 2 years following the report, solely 27 restitutions have been introduced and just one object, a traditional sword, has been returned — to Senegal, in November 2019. The remaining 26 treasures that had been designated for restitution, to Benin, are nonetheless in the Quai Branly Museum.
And the invoice supporting these distinctive, or case-by-case, restitutions has but to be voted on.
Calvin Job, the lawyer for 3 of the defendants, mentioned in court docket that the invoice, by specializing in distinctive fairly than common restitutions, mirrored “a desire not to settle the issue.”
“We should enshrine the principle of restitution in the code of law,” Mr. Job mentioned.
Given what they understand as hurdles, activists from Mr. Diyabanza’s Pan-African motion have staged operations much like that in Paris at African artwork museums in the Southern French metropolis of Marseille and in Berg en Dal, in the Netherlands.
At occasions, these actions have epitomized rising identity-related claims, coming from French residents of African descent residing in a rustic the place a racial awakening has started to take place in current months.
“We have young people who have an identity problem,” Mr. Job mentioned in an interview, “who, faced with a lack of action, a lack of political will, have found it legitimate to do the work that others don’t.”
Speaking to the decide, Julie Djaka, a 34-year-old defendant who grew up in a Congolese household, mentioned: “For you, these are works. For us, these are entities, ritual objects that maintained the order at home, in our villages in Africa, that enabled us to do justice.”
Marie-Cécile Zinsou, the president of the Zinsou Art Foundation in Benin and the daughter of a former prime minister of Benin, mentioned that, though she didn’t share the activists’ strategies, she understands “why they exist.” “We cannot be ignored and looked upon down all the time,” she mentioned.
“In France, there’s a post-colonial view on the African continent,” Ms. Zinsou added, saying that some outstanding French cultural figures nonetheless doubted that African international locations might protect artworks.
Such grievances on France’s post-colonial legacy had been in full play on Wednesday on the trial as a small crowd of about 50 individuals, most Pan-African motion activists, had been barred from coming into the courtroom by the police due to issues concerning the coronavirus and since some feared that their presence might disrupt the trial.
Activists shouted “band of thieves” and “slavers” on the law enforcement officials cordoning off the doorway to the courtroom and so they chanted, “Give us back our artwork!”
Prosecutors on Wednesday requested {that a} positive of 1,000 euros, or about $1,200, be levied towards Mr. Diyabanza and a suspended €500 positive be levied towards his associates. A verdict is predicted on Oct. 14.
Activists in entrance of the courtroom on Wednesday welcomed the really helpful sentences, which they discovered modest, as a collective victory.
“We all are defendants here; all of us should normally be at the stand today,” mentioned Laetitia Babin, a 45-year-old social employee born in Congo, who had arrived from Belgium in the morning to attend the trial.
“It’s not up to them to decide how artworks are returned to us, it’s up to us,” she mentioned.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/arts/design/france-african-art-trial.html
Congolese activist fined €1,000 for trying to seize African funeral pole from Paris museum
Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza and the other activists who removed the object from display at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac say their actions are a protest against colonial looting
Anna Sansom
14th October 2020 18:38 GMT
Congo-born Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza speaks to reporters after today's verdict at the Paris Palace of Justice AP Photo/Lewis Joly
The Congolese activist Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza has been handed down a €1,000 fine for attempting to seize a funeral pole from the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac by a Paris criminal court today. Initially accused of “attempted theft”, he was convicted of “aggravated theft”, although Diyabanza describes his actions as a protest against colonial looting.
Three other activists were handed down suspended fines of €250, €750 and €1,000, while another was found innocent. According to one of their lawyers, Hakim Chergui, Diyabanza has actually been ordered to pay €2,000, as he had a suspended fine of €1,000 from a previous case for which he is now liable. Diyabanza and the other convicted activists are appealing their sentences, but their cases will probably not be heard by a court for a year, Chergui adds, and the fines would only need to be paid if the appeals court upholds today’s verdict.
All five defendants are members of a pan-African group, Unité Dignité Courage, which strives for the “liberation and transformation of Africa” and the restitution of African heritage. They were arrested after removing the funeral pole, originally from Chad, from its socle at the Musée du Quai-Branly on 12 June this year and were accused of damaging the piece by leaving “pieces of wood”.
The judge recognised the “activist” aspect of their act yet ruled that this method of operating should be “discouraged”, stating that: “You have other means to get the attention of the political class and the public.”
Diyabanza has slammed the court’s decision and denied any real intent to steal the work. “The verdict is a big, political, repressive joke; there was nothing legal about it; it was a political decision to dissuade me from continuing [to demand the restitution of African heritage],” he tells The Art Newspaper. “My intention at the museum was political and symbolic, about liberating a piece that was there illegally. On 30 June, I lodged a complaint at the police station of the seventh arrondissement in Paris against the French state and the Musée du Quai-Branly for theft [of looted African heritage] but the judge didn't take this into account in his ruling.”
Chergui, who represented the five activists with barrister Calvin Job, says: “We consider today's judgment disappointing because the convictions regard the activists as thieves, yet they acted during a ‘happening’ to bring attention to the plundering of African heritage and filmed themselves on Facebook. The Paris prosecutor hadn’t asked for a prison sentence as they're political activists but simply reproached them for disturbing the tranquility of the museum and its visitors.”
The Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac has not yet replied to The Art Newspaper’s questions regarding the decision.
Diyabanza was also arrested in Marseilles on 30 July for attempting to take an ivory object from the Musée des Arts Africains, Océaniens, Améridiens, with a decision in that case expected on 17 November. And in September, Diyabanza and other activists livestreamed themselves taking a Congolese funeral statue from the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal in the east of the Netherlands, a stunt that will again take them in front of a judge in January.
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/congolese-activist-fined-eur1-000-for-trying-to-seize-african-funeral-pole-from-paris-museum
XXX
