British Museum hides behind Elgin Marbles whilst Cambridge Union votes for their return to Athens

posted: 27.02.08

The Cambridge Union Society, in association with easyCruise, debates the motion, ‘This house would return the Parthenon Marbles to the new Acropolis Museum in Athens’.

Campaigners for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens were buoyed by the positive result of a heated debate at the World famous Cambridge Union on Monday (February 18). However there was disappointment from the floor that the British Museum refused to join the debate to defend its position on the Marbles. “It is interesting nobody from the British Museum is prepared to come and defend their own policy,” said David Hill, President of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, who had flown in from Australia to speak at the event.

After a colourful debate on whether the Parthenon Marbles – known to many in Britain as the Elgin Marbles - should be moved from the British Museum in London to the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, members of the society voted more than two to one in favour of them leaving the UK and returning to their original home in Greece.

Leading experts in arts and archaeology mingled with Union members and the general public all of whom turned out in force to listen to the debate.  Also in attendance was Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of sponsor easyCruise, which decided to raise the issue in the public’s consciousness after launching a Classical Greece itinerary as part of easyCruise’s offering this year.  The cruise allows passengers the unique opportunity of visiting some of the most spectacular sites of Ancient Greece, including the Acropolis, home of the Parthenon, within the space of a week.  Speaking afterwards he hailed the result as a step forward saying he hoped it would result in the two museums opening a dialogue with each other. “Nothing is going to happen tomorrow,” he said. “But it’s a good starting point for the process. In my mind the best way to achieve anything is to get the two museums to talk to each other. We need to de-politicise the whole thing.”

Stelios continued “I think the curators of the two museums should sit down and find a way to change things so that both sides can benefit - we can find a win-win situation. The Acropolis can guarantee an exchange of artefacts with the British Museum, they can offer one work of art for another.”

The list of establishment figures who refused the offer to defend the British Museum’s controversial stance in the debate was almost as long as the Elgin Marbles themselves. It included much respected broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough, who has publicly signed a letter calling for the Marbles to remain in Britain, the director of the British Museum itself, Neil MacGregor and MP Peter Luff, who in November 2007 proposed an amendment to the early day motion brought up to return the Parthenon Marbles, amending it to leave the decision with the British Museum trustees.  Other names who turned down the offer to defend the Museum read like a Who’s Who of eminent archaeologists, politicians and experts in antiquities.

A confident David Hill, speaking for the motion said “The British Museum is now increasingly out of step with just about the whole world on this issue.”  He went on to list the many countries, governments and World leaders across the globe who have called for the return of the Marbles as well as highlighting the results of several high profile public opinion polls in Britain which all show a majority in support of the Marbles’ repatriation.

“The entire enlightened World agrees with the principle of the reunification of these artworks,” Mr Hill continued. “It’s irrelevant whether the Marbles were stolen 200 years ago or not, what is important is that we do the right thing now and the right thing is to reunify them. The new Acropolis Museum is designed to put all the surviving pieces of the original collection back - exactly to the millimetre - as they were on the Parthenon, which cannot be done in the British Museum.” He concluded, “I’ve got no doubt the Marbles are going to go back.  Even those who are opposed to it know it is inevitable that they will go back eventually.  The reason they will go back is because there are too many good people who won’t stop, both here in Britain and around the world, until the right thing is done. There aren’t many occasions where we can put right one of history’s wrongs – but this is a case where we can.”

Professor Anthony Snodgrass, Emeritus Professor in Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, also gave a rousing speech in favour of the Marbles’ return to Greece. However many of those who entered the debate without a clear view on the subject were swayed by the powerful argument of Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones, who opposed the motion, who made an impassioned plea based on the beauty of the pieces.  “I believe the issue about the return of the Elgin Marbles has become something which has blinded us to the Elgin Marbles themselves,” he said. “When I look at the Marbles, what I am looking at is art of the highest order - they have a very good case for being the greatest pieces of art ever made. That’s why they created such excitement when they came to London in the early 19th Century.  The British Museum is a wonderful place to see them but I think we should stop talking about where the Elgin Marbles should be and start talking about the Elgin Marbles and why they are so great.”
Sam Block, World Universities’ Debating Champion, also for the opposition, argued that the Marbles actually have a history within the British Museum too and that since their placement in the Duveen Gallery, they have influenced Western perceptions of aesthetics and indeed Neoclassicism.  He reasoned that the history of the Marbles did not end in the 5th century, and that they have had an important and influential two centuries in Britain since then.
He went on to criticise many of the arguments for the return of the Marbles saying they were mired in Nationalist politics rather than an appreciation of artistic beauty.  “Why the hell are we only talking about this art because Greece wants it back? Why does Greece want it? To satisfy a Nationalism rooted in the Greek War of Independence.  Nationalism is the most petty, stupid and blinding of ideologies. The Elgin Marbles belong to the World.”

In time honoured fashion the result of the debate came down to whether the speakers had swayed the views of the audience in the debating chamber. After the gathered crowd filed out and the votes were totted up the final result came in - 114 to 46 in favour of the motion, ‘This house would return the Parthenon Marbles to the new Acropolis Museum in Athens’.

The result was received to applause and the two opposing sides were able to bridge their ideological differences over a drink in the Cambridge Union bar afterwards. But if the passionate scenes here are anything to go by, the international debate over the true home of the Parthenon Marbles is unlikely to be settled in such a good-humoured fashion.