Systematical surgeon, sounds like a very fun role, don’t you think? You can cut from the inside out and outside in, with such ease..

Can you see these topics’ escalation over time? Same topic, further depth, bigger impact. We can nurse this process for eons. Can you?!

I belong to two of the countries whose history sits behind the glass cases of the British Museum.

Because of that, I do not approach this as a detached observer.

I approach it as someone whose ancestral history has been separated from the lands that gave birth to it. I have every right to question that arrangement, and I believe more people should.

Here is my question.

Why is it called the British Museum when so much of what fills its halls is not British history?

Walk through its galleries and you travel through Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the Congo, China, Persia, the Americas and countless other civilisations. You are travelling through humanity, not Britain.

So why is it not called an international museum?

That question matters because names shape ownership, and ownership shapes perception.

There is another question that follows naturally.

Why are nations negotiating for the return of artefacts that originated from their own histories?

The countries housing these collections are often negotiating over objects that were not originally created by them. Meanwhile, the countries from which many of these artefacts came continue trying to recover pieces of their own cultural memory.

To me, that reveals an imbalance.

And let us not pretend the benefits are evenly distributed.

Every year, enormous numbers of visitors travel to London and walk through the British Museum. Those visitors contribute to the surrounding economy, the city’s tourism, its international prestige and the institution itself. If many of those artefacts were instead displayed in the countries where they originated, those same countries would have greater opportunities to benefit economically, culturally and educationally from their own history.

History is not only identity.

History is infrastructure.

History creates tourism.

History creates research.

History creates investment.

History creates pride.

When you relocate history, you also relocate many of those benefits.

As someone connected to Sierra Leone and the Congo, walking through the British Museum and seeing pieces connected to my own heritage did not fill me with pride.

It filled me with a question.

Why am I seeing them here instead of home?

Every visitor who sees those artefacts in London is one less person who may feel compelled to travel to the lands that produced them.

Those countries lose far more than objects.

They lose opportunities.

I often hear the argument that these museums preserve history for the whole world.

Perhaps.

But if the goal is genuinely to introduce people to other civilisations, then why not encourage them to experience those civilisations where they still live, breathe and continue?

Why should the gateway to another nation’s history always begin in someone else’s capital?

That is not a question of preservation.

It is a question of stewardship.

It is also a question of power.

My broader concern is this.

A civilisation should be willing to tell its own story with honesty before becoming the curator of everyone else’s.

Every nation has moments worthy of celebration and moments worthy of reflection. Museums should have the courage to present both. History becomes meaningful not because it flatters us, but because it teaches us.

That is one of the reasons I describe SHS as a digital museum of humanity.

When I reference someone else’s work, I do not claim it as my own.

When I share my own frameworks, I clearly state that they are mine.

The insights I develop belong to me.

The historical artefacts, ideas and works of others remain attributed to their creators and cultures.

If someone were ever to ask me to remove material that rightfully belongs to them, I would do so.

Stewardship is not ownership.

That principle should apply digitally.

It should also apply physically.

History belongs first to the people and places that gave rise to it.

Humanity should absolutely have access to that history.

But access should not come at the cost of disconnecting nations from the very heritage that shaped them.

Because a civilisation cannot fully benefit from its own history while so much of that history continues to generate value somewhere else.

…

Has anyone asked why is it that the british Museum is called national, but there’s probably, what, maybe 1% that is national history, and the majority is international? Why is it not called International Museum? Because the history, the artifacts that are in the british Museum are so not national. Why is it called british? Why are countries allowing their own artifacts to be in a foreign land, when they would make more money having people going to the land to actually see the history? It really makes no sense.

Keep the focus on my confronting approach, we are not sugar coating anything here. As I belong to two of those countries I have a say in the things that are part of my history and in doing so sdvocating for my cointries not benefitting from their own history, cause other people are hoarding the artifacts of oir history.

Let’s also add the fact that some other countries just allow it. Countries that house their artifacts negotiate belongings that aren’t theirs against the countries who are the real owners of the history. And of course, we don’t even have to ask the question who benefits. Of course, the land where the pieces are in benefits the most. The amount of tourists that travel to London just to go to the British Museum are incredible. There’s not a day that that place doesn’t see at least a minimum of a thousand people. But all those pieces should not be there, should be at home, because that’s how those countries actually leverage their own history and get benefited for their own history instead of another country’s one. The same country that went to their own countries to steal their own wealth is the country that houses their artifacts. That is, at best, Stockholm syndrome. Secondly to that, poor negotiation power or intellect from the historic countries. On the other side, manipulation from the countries who house the artifacts in their museums under the claim of showing the other countries’ history to the world. Well, they can just direct people to those countries. But when we open the scope even more, if the British were to make a museum all about their own history, they would see actually how many people they’ve killed, how much blood is on their hands. They would see how much pain they’ve brought to other countries, how much wealth they actually stripped of other countries. You’ll never find a museum that’s all based on British history. They are not accountable to self, culturally, so that would go against their own ways of being. So how do they fill up those holes? By having another person’s, another country’s history. And that’s why I call SHS a digital museum as well, because it’s a digital museum of humanity. What I share from others, I don’t claim to be mine. What I share from myself, I do claim to be mine. The insights on the things that I share are all mine. The things that I share that aren’t of my creations are not mine. If I was to be asked for it to be removed, I would do so easily, but no one has. So there’s no problem with me having it there. Now when we look at a museum, I walked in British Museum, and I saw pieces from my own country, Sierra Leone and Congo, that I am not okay with them being in British Museum. Because every time that I see it in British Museum, I instantly remember, well, I instantly know that people are not going to my own countries to see these pieces, because they’re here, they’re easily, they’re approachable, not approachable, they’re in reach. So why would someone go out of their own ways to go to countries who are already in the backseat, but also are the countries that have the most elements that the Western world uses, and still, still that is not enough. That is not okay.

They did the same here