Rishi Sunak faces a political battle for his survival and that of his Government, and in war, even art and history can be turned into weapons. Downing Street decided months ago to stop in its tracks the well-intentioned attempts – although he also obviously sought his personal glory – by the president of the British Museum, George Osborne, to negotiate with the Greek Government a creative legal solution that would allow the return of the “Parthenon marbles” to the Athenian acropolis. The Greek Prime Minister, Kiriakos Mitsotakis, who was visiting London this week with several meetings on his agenda, including one with Sunak, has left the British capital amid frustration and diplomatic disagreement, after Downing Street canceled at the last minute, with petty excuses, the meeting between both leaders.
Mitsotakis, who personally took over the conversations and exchange of proposals with Osborne (the former Minister of the Economy in David Cameron’s Conservative Government) for more than a year, aired on Sunday on the BBC his disappointment at the way in which London had nipped in the bud a agreement that would have saved the face of both parties and given a happy ending to a dispute that has unleashed fiery passions between the British and the Greeks for almost two centuries. “It’s as if I were telling you to cut the Mona Lisa and you will leave one of them in the Louvre Museum and you will send the other to the British Museum. Do you think his viewers would appreciate the beauty of the painting in that way?” the Greek Prime Minister provocatively asked journalist Laura Kuenssberg. Athens has been defending for years that the sculptures on the pediments, the frieze and the metopes that Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Turkish-Ottoman Empire, practically ripped off with a saw between 1801 and 1812 and were brought to London, they must return to their place of origin and be exhibited in the new Acropolis Museum, built next to the Parthenon.
As soon as they heard Mitsotakis’ statements, Sunak’s team decided to suddenly cancel the lunch meeting, which lasted about 50 minutes, which was scheduled for this Tuesday. The only act that the prime minister had in his program for the day was to chair the meeting of his Council of Ministers. Downing Street has offered as an alternative a meeting with Oliver Dowden, deputy prime minister. But in the British political organization chart that position is more symbolic than anything else, and Dowden, a low-ranking politician.
Before leaving the British capital, Mitsotakis said: “I must express my displeasure at the fact that the Prime Minister decided to cancel our meeting just hours before it was due to take place. “Anyone who is convinced that his position is correct and fair is not afraid to face arguments against it.”
Sunak has slammed the door on a NATO partner, an ally and friend of the United Kingdom for years, simply, his critics point out, to please a hardline wing of the Conservative Party that has insisted on declaring a culture war on anyone who put the United Kingdom’s colonial and imperial past on the table. And within that current, they are especially against all demands from the rest of the world for London to return cultural treasures taken for centuries. From that perspective, the “Parthenon marbles”, or “Elgin marbles”, as the defenders of the ownership of the statues by the World Bank call them – words are also weapons – are the symbol par excellence of this controversy around to the return of art.
“The Government has already established very clearly its position regarding the Elgin Marbles. They have to continue to be part of the permanent collection of the British Museum,” said Mark Harper, Minister of Transport and one of the few members of the Government who has come forward on a clearly uncomfortable issue, on Tuesday. Almost two out of three Britons are clear that the marbles must return to where they should never have been taken. 59% of citizens, according to the latest survey YouGov, supports their return, compared to 18% who support them remaining in London. 22% do not know what to respond to an issue stagnant in time but still capable of unleashing passions among those who follow it day after day.
Mitsotakis, who brought issues on the agenda as relevant as the migratory crisis – one of the most serious problems facing Sunak – or the war in Ukraine, was able to meet with the leader of the Labor opposition, Keir Starmer, whom all Polls show him as the winner in the general elections that must be held within a year. Starmer, who usually swims and puts away his clothes, has avoided a direct confrontation with the Government over the matter of the marbles, but through his team he has leaked to various British media his intention not to oppose any future agreement for the return of the marbles. pieces of art to Athens that could be reached.
The last attempt at a solution promoted by Osborne and Mitsotakis involved a creative arrangement that protected the interests of both parties, by not directly or implicitly recognizing the ownership of the marbles of one or the other. It was not a return: what belongs to you is not returned. Neither is a loan: what you consider yours is not accepted as a loan. It was an exchange: London would send the statues to Athens and receive in return, for exhibition, other pieces of artistic value (of which Greece has plenty).
In the face of sophisticated and intelligent diplomacy, the electoral brush. Sunak has preferred to launch a nationalist message much to the taste of the toughest forces in his party and not run the risk of giving a fair and happy outcome to the eternal dispute over the marbles.
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