THEY DENY OUR CULTURE YET FILL MUSEUMS WITH IT!

Europeans long portrayed Africans as lacking culture. And yet they couldn’t resist stealing our cultural treasures in their thousands and putting them in museums around the world - if private collectors didn’t snap them up for a small fortune first.

Experts reckon over 80% of plundered African artefacts remain in European museums. The British Museum, for example, holds over 70,000; Belgium’s Royal Museum nearly 200,000; another 75,000 are in Germany’s Ethnological Museum; and France’s Quai Branly Museum keeps almost 70,000. The list goes on.

In this clip, pan-African academic PLO Lumumba argues that one reason Europeans stripped us of our culture was to erase our identity - and thereby make the task of subjugating our people easier.

Video Credit: Kabalega Foundation (YouTube)

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/12/750549303/across-europe-museums-rethink-what-to-do-with-their-african-art-collections

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/15/africa-art-museum-europe-restitution-debate-book-colonialism-artifacts/

https://amp.dw.com/en/africas-lost-heritage-and-europes-restitution-policies/a-59763966