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by ratsbane 3750 days ago
You might be happy to hear that Jesus College at Cambridge just decided to remove the Benin Bronze they've had since 1897 and that it might go back to Nigeria: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/12188018/Cambridge-coll...
1 comments

Actually, not really. I was disappointed with the recent controversy over the Cecil Rhodes statue at Oxford. I thought it was incredibly narrowminded and a poor reflection of the entire purpose of academic freedom. Quite glad when they kept the statue.

History always has multiple points of view, our most recent struggles reflect only one.

I think this is different, sounds like the Benin Bronze was basically stolen from the capital.
Well it was taken down because it was representative of an atrocity, not because it was stolen.

Although, arguing down that route, war spoils are a tricky thing to discuss historically. "Stolen" is very different from "appropriated after successful war". Like I've said above, history and modern morals don't always mix. For that matter, current events and modern morals don't always mix. Take the Iraq oil situation, a bit more than a statue worth there.