[Talk] The Politics of Restitution

Readers may be interested in this talk by Jos van Beurden and Hilmar Farid hosted by the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at SOAS on 20 May. Zoom registration in the link below.

Lessons for the Future: Returns by the Netherlands to Indonesia in the 2010s and the 1970s
Jos van Beurden

Between 1949 and 1975 Indonesia and the Netherlands negotiated about the return of a number cultural and historical objects, lost during the colonial era. At the time, the Netherlands was praised internationally for this return. But how do we look at it now?

In 2013, the municipality of Delft made a generous offer to Indonesia: the repatriation of the bigger part of the collection of the defunct Nusantara Museum: some 15,000 objects. Finally, in December 2019, only 1,500 of them were shipped to Indonesia. What happened in between? And how generous was the Dutch offer?

If return of involuntary lost heritage is meant to heal a relationship that was violated and to undo some of the injustices from the colonial past, what can be learnt from these two returns?

The Future of Restitution: What is Possible?
Hilmar Farid

Source: The Politics of Restitution