‘We’re taking it home': Activists on trial in France for colonial art protest

Campaigners charged with theft after parading an African exhibit down museum corridors

(Mwazulu Diyabanza)

Five activists protesting against “the pillage of Africa” are standing trial in Paris for seizing a colonial artefact from France’s main indigenous art museum.

Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza, a 41-year-old Congolese campaigner, organised the stunt, in which he removed a 19th-century funeral staff from Chad and paraded it conspicuously around the Quai Branly Museum, on the bank of the River Seine.

“We’re taking them home”, he shouted in a video posted on social media, as he and four others were arrested at the scene on charges of attempted theft of a registered artwork. Diyabanza and four others face up to 10 years in prison and 150,000 euros (£137,000) in fines.

In response, Diyabanza sued the French state, accusing it of “theft and receiving stolen goods” for amassing a huge collection of artworks from the colonial era, much of which was pillaged or stolen.

The pan-African activist has since staged similar operations at indigenous art museums in Marseille and the Dutch town of Berg en Dal, earning the tagline of the “Robin Hood of colonial heritage”.

“It was important to approach this trial with a combative spirit, even if it’s risky,” Diyabanza told AFP. “We had no intention of stealing this work, but we will continue [staging public protests] for as long as the injustice of pillaging Africa has not been corrected.”

The matter of restitution of artworks to its native owners “deserves a serious debate”, said Emmanuel Kasarherou, director of the Quai Branly, who became the first indigenous person ever to head a major French national museum.

The institution is “documenting the origins of its collections and how they were obtained and using this work as a basis for moving forward”, Mr Kasarherou, a Kanak from the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, continued.

French officials condemned the direct action, which came after President Emmanuel Macron vowed shortly after his election in 2017 to review the status of African art in France.

President Macron has come under renewed pressure to confront the country’s past in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. Whilst he has promised to be uncompromising on racism, he has insisted that statues of colonial-era leaders will not be taken down.

Anti-racism campaigners in France have called on the constitutionally colour-blind society not to be blind to discrimination and to legalise the collection of statistics on ethnicity.