"Are the relics of the Buddha a commodity that can be treated like a work of art to be sold on the market?" wonders Naman Ahuja, a Delhi-based art historian. "And since they aren't, how is the seller ethically authorised to auction them? “

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2elg3zxyo

#Colonialism #ColonialTheft #ColonialViolence

#ColonialCrimes : World #Map of #Justice Initiatives.

“Don’t portray us as a band of beggars coming to demand reparation. […] I think the Europeans have obligations to us, like all the unfortunate, but especially to us for harms that they caused. That is what I call reparation.” These words of Aimé Césaire, renowned Martinican author of “Discourse on Colonialism”, still resonate everywhere in the world 71 years after they were published.

The issue concerns 70% of the world’s population, either as a citizen of a colonizing country or as one of the colonized, according to French #history professor Bouda Etemad, author of the book “Crimes and Reparations, the West faced with its colonial past”. The colonized and their descendants, he writes, have the right to demand #reparation from the #European powers for the harms these States committed over a period of 500 years, from the “discovery” of #America by Christopher #Colombus to independence in the second half of the 20th century. Forced labour, slavery, persecution, executions, extermination, bombardments, looting and forced cultural #assimilation: the list is long of violent #abuses that accompanied #colonization in #Africa, the Near East, #Asia, the Americas, #Oceania and northern #Europe.

This special focus concentrates on the period known as the “second #colonial empire” which from 1815 marked the new #expansionism of the Western powers until the wave of independence in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/78677-colonial-crimes-world-map-justice-initiatives.html

#Legal #InternationalLaw #Decolonization #Landback #UNDRIP #ColonialTheft #ColonialExploitation #ColonialViolence #Injustices #TruthBeforeReconciliation #GlobalSouth #geopolitics

I guess #politicians who are still voluntarily funding #genocide & #ColonialTheft via violence are giving everyone in the world green lights to go occupy, steal & kill/maim their families by any means necessary too. If they don't want to send that message - they should cease relations with #Israel.

Must be terrible to have someone steal your precious treasures.

Oh. The irony meter just exploded..... #BritishMuseum #ColonialTheft #BritishEmpireThieves

"The decision to return some 478 objects followed recommendations by a government-appointed commission last year looking into illegal Dutch colonial acquisitions now being displayed in museums in the #Netherlands." #Restitution #ColonialTheft #TootSEA

Netherlands to return colonial-era treasures to #Indonesia and #SriLanka
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230707-netherlands-to-return-colonial-era-treasures-to-indonesia-and-sri-lanka