The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

The bitterest rivalries often

produce the sweetest music

Weekend essay

Pages 36-37

take good care of them and ensure

their safe return — which we do

every year, including to Greece.

We’re leading the work in Benin City

to excavate its past and build a

museum space to display its beautiful

bronzes.

But nor are we embarrassed or

defensive. Almost three centuries on,

we remain one of the very few places

on earth where you can see the great

civilisations of the world side by side.

Our only ambition is to do it

better. Hence our Rosetta project,

which is a huge redevelopment of the

buildings and digital presence of the

museum, so that we can tell a more

global story — not just about the

classical world of the

Mediterranean and Mesopotamia,

but of Africa, Oceania and the

Americas too.

Today there is no shortage of

forces trying to divide us from each

other, separate us into silos and

ensure the conversation is easy

because we never meet anyone

different who disagrees with us. The

best response to this fragmenting

society is to remind us of all that we

share and of how our histories and

cultures are all connected.

Museums of culture should not

shrink in the face of the culture wars.

We need to tell the story of our

common humanity. That’s why the

case for the British Museum has

never been stronger than it is today.

George Osborne is chairman of the

British Museum

Matthew Parris is away

It’s right to be proud of the British Museum

Culture warriors demand we choose sides but it’s possible to recognise both the great achievements and errors of our past
RICHARD BAKER/GETTY IMAGES

in all countries, even though the

concept of those rights sprang from

the French and American

revolutions of the Enlightenment

age.

We are just a museum. We cannot

alone resolve these contradictions.

Instead, we can help do what we’ve

always done: educate, inform and

engage. We should do so with

confidence.

Sure, there are those who question

our right to exist — they did back in

1753 and then do so again in 2021. Of

course, there are those who demand

the return of objects they believe we

have no right to hold. That is not

new either. Lord Byron thought the

Elgin Marbles should be back at the

Parthenon.

Our response is not to be

dismissive. We are open to lending

our artefacts to anywhere who can

Debate about sending back the Elgin

Marbles has gone on for centuries

commission to purge other statues

across our cities. To hold these views

is not muddled; it represents the

middle where most people are. It is to

understand that humans are capable

of acts of great kindness and

appalling brutality towards one

another.

The artefacts in the British

Museum, with their depictions of

love and war, reflect that truth over

the course of two million years. It is

why they help us understand

ourselves better. That was the

founding purpose when it was

established as the first national

public museum of the world in 1753,

and it remains the purpose today. It

was a product less of the British

Empire (which was largely created in

the following century) and more of

the European Enlightenment.

Much has changed in the

intervening 260-odd years. The

visiting public back then was largely

male, white and exclusively western,

while today we welcome millions of

people from all societies. But the

Enlightenment ideals of rational

discourse, scientific study and

progress have remained essentially

unchallenged — until now. When we

opened the magnificent Norman

Foster roof over the Great Court at

the Millennium, we could confidently

call ourselves “the museum of the

world, for the world”.

Today that is contested.

Globalisation is no longer assumed

to be a good thing; progress is not the

universally assumed goal. We find

ourselves instead in the crossfire of

two strongly held current views that

have yet to be reconciled. The first is

that the Enlightenment was a

western construct imposed on others,

and that the value sets of all cultures

deserve an equal hearing. The

second is that there are universal

human rights that should be upheld

S

ome years ago I bought a
T-shirt from my gym with the
letters WOKE emblazoned
across the front.
Embarrassing, I know, for a
man heading into his sixth decade;
and a little provocative. At the time
the word was new and gentle. I
wanted to say “I’m liberal too” — I’m
pro-immigration, worried about the
climate and understand that
transgender people feel unsupported.
A few years later “woke” has become
weaponised and the T-shirt remains
unworn. I find running on the
treadmill hard enough without
having to explain that no, I don’t
think Winston Churchill was a war
criminal, and yes, people who have
cervixes can be called women.
The ferocity of the culture wars
should not have taken us by surprise.
Economic historians would tell us
that after an economic collapse as
sharp as the financial crisis, societies
fracture into tribes of identity.
Historians of technology would add
that the effect is turbo-charged when
the medium of communication is so
fundamentally disrupted in the way
that social media has upended things.
Sure, I raise my eyebrows at people
getting all worked up when a bunch
of students say something obviously
silly. You didn’t need two cabinet
ministers to wade in when students
at my former university college
passed a motion to take down the
Queen’s portrait. These things come
in cycles. When I was there members
of the same college voted to rename
the Nelson Mandela common room
after the football striker Roger Milla.

But I admire the way the likes of

JK Rowling and this newspaper’s

Janice Turner have engaged in the

public debate, fighting the corner for

important principles. As another

author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

puts it: we risk having a generation

“so terrified of having the wrong

opinions that they have robbed

themselves of the opportunity to

think and to learn and to grow”.

Respect for difference, freedom of

speech and toleration are values that

have to be defended and we owe

those who do our gratitude. Most

people in positions of authority, and

most institutions, choose to keep

their heads below the parapet and

hope that the battle will leave them

unscathed.

Given the animated conversation

about our country’s history, that is

not possible for the British Museum,

which the trustees recently elected

me to chair. Should we be ashamed

of Britain’s past or should we

celebrate it? Acknowledge the stain

of slavery, or the suffering that many

imperial ventures visited on others,

and you are called “unpatriotic”.

Recognise our contribution to the

spread of democratic ideas and the

defeat of fascism and you are called a

nationalist bigot. Yet we are told that

we have to choose between the two.

I reject that. You can think that the

British Empire achieved many great

things while regarding the Amritsar

massacre as an abhorrent crime. You

can cheer when the statue of the

slave trader Edward Colston is pulled

down while also thinking it’s

ridiculous to set up some puritanical

We’re open to lending

artefacts to anyone who

can take care of them

There is no shortage

of forces trying to

separate us into silos

Comment

Carol Midgley Notebook

a lake but the reality is bruised

buttocks, wet jeans and your

partner secretly

videoing the

humiliation to email

to friends.

Terrible idea

I

know that etiquette

experts have to eat

too, but really. This

week an “elegance

coach” decreed that it

is better to use

“terribly” rather than

“very” as an intensifier.

As in “It’s terribly full in

here”, not “It’s very full”.

Hilarious tosh. Do they

want everyone to sound

like Prince Charles?

Jimmy Carr’s stand-up

tour has the slogan

“Terribly Funny” but I

don’t think he means it like that.

How is “very” inelegant, anyway?

It’s perfectly inoffensive. Perhaps it’s

only acceptable if we use the posh

version “verr” as in “verr good”. The

expert also deems it common to call

champagne “bubbles” or “fizz” and

here she may have a point. Though

she should know that where I’m from

it is sometimes called the even more

mortifying “shampoo”.

Modern Scrooges

I

t’s that time of year when you

might get an email from a friend or

firm you use regularly which says:

“This year to be eco-conscious we

are not sending Christmas cards but

will make a donation to charity

instead.” Laudable, obviously. But am

I the only cynic who thinks: “Hmm,

but how do we know?” Could they

just be skinflints saving a wodge of

cash under the guise of virtue-

signalling? Before you call me a

flinty doubting Thomas, an

acquaintance once told me they’d

been doing this for years, enjoying

the “great gesture, mate” backslap

while never sending a penny to

charity. “It frees you from Christmas

card tedium, buying stamps and

everyone thinks you’re a hero,” he

said. I’ll leave it with you.

Teenage kicks

T

hérèse Coffey has asked us not

to kiss under the mistletoe, one

government edict which I’m

sure we’re all delighted to obey. I

assumed no one had done this since

about 1985. Horrifyingly, it was once

a thing, particularly when I was a

teenager. At the youth club

Christmas disco boys would roam

beady-eyed demanding every girl

gave them a “Christmas kiss”.

Amazingly you would dutifully

pucker up for a festive snog,

earnestly exchanging saliva, even

if the boy looked like a bulldog

licking a nettle and at school flicked

your bra strap. Even more

astonishingly, unless I’m grossly

misremembering, I think we even

quite liked it and were miffed if not

asked. Simpler, germier times.

or arms windmilling like the

loser in a slapstick sketch.

Don’t get me wrong: figure

skating is nice to watch,

Dancing on Ice excluded. I

can still tear up at Torvill

and Dean’s Bolero. But the

average punter is just

Frank Spencer on skates.

Obviously going once

every 20 years won’t

exactly hone the skills

but here’s my other beef

with pop-up ice-skating

rinks — they only pop up

when it’s freezing. As the

humourist Dave Barry

said: “The problem with

winter sports is that... they

generally take place in

winter.” Quite. I want

toasty fires, not more ways

to be cold. You might

fondly see yourself in a

traditional Christmas card with

bewhiskered gentlemen in

velvet frock coats gliding round

N

o laughing please, but the
other day I went
ice-skating. It was the first
time I’d been near an ice
rink in two decades, and
30 seconds in I remembered why. It
is a dreadful activity, the only thing
worse than the constant fall-on-
your-backside indignity being the
sheer, utter futility of it all. Round
and round you slither and crash,
shins aching under the banner of
“fun”. Of course it doesn’t help that
I’m abysmal at it, a hunched biddy
on blades either clinging to the sides

I’d best leave

ice skating

to Torvill

and Dean

George

Osborne

the times | Saturday December 4 2021 V2 29