‘The Elgin Marbles were not “nicked”! He bought them.’ | UK News
The ownership of the sculptures has been a contentious topic recently.
Do they rightfully belong to Lord Elgin (and, by extension, the British), who obtained them from the Ottoman Empire and donated them to the British Museum? Or, Greece which was under Ottoman rule at the time?
Is it a matter of finders keepers? Or, should they be returned to where they were found?
Read on to see what readers think about this issue, among others.
Share your thoughts in the comments.
‘They’re ours. Why should we give them to Greece?’
You report that the Elgin Marbles were ‘taken from Greece’ by Lord Elgin (Metro, Wed). This implies there was a Greek state to take them from. There wasn’t, never had been and wouldn’t be until after Elgin had permission from the Ottoman Turk rulers to take them.
And nor were they ‘nicked’, as Tony B says (MetroTalk, Wed). They’re ours. The Turks aren’t asking for them back. Why should we give them to Greece?
It’s not as if Greece is restoring the Parthenon and wants them to put back on it. They want it taken from one museum here to put in a museum there, hardly the reuniting of two halves of a wondrous work of art – as they claim – and a museum with about as much relationship to the Parthenon itself as present-day Greece has with Periclean Athens.
Why should we do that to appease a Greek nationalism? The Greek prime minister was rightly told to get lost if he’s nothing better to say. John Cairns, Richmond
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I agree with yesterday’s Metro letters that Rishi Sunak’s refusal to discuss the Parthenon Sculptures (aka Elgin Marbles) was a diplomatic faux pas but it also ignored the wider historical picture.
The sculptures date back to the 5th century BC, so their time in England is a mere blink of the eye, and there is no reason to assume they should now be safer in London than returned to Greece, accompanying other surviving treasures from the Bronze age to Byzantian period in the world-class Acropolis museum, which opened in 2009 on the slopes of the Acropolis itself.
Instead of Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visiting London, perhaps Mr Sunak should had gone to Athens, so the two could have discussed world affairs while contemplating the best future for The Parthenon Sculptures in their natural habitat. Robert Hughes, London.
The Elgin Marbles were not ‘nicked’! As the locals were removing stones for use elsewhere, reducing the structures to little more than rubble, Lord Elgin asked the local Ottoman pasha if he could buy them, which he did. P Davies, Ealing
Does wondering about the skin tone of Meghan and Harry’s baby make you a racist?
When Meghan Markle first aired this so-called concern about the colour of her baby’s skin from a member of the royals with Oprah Winfrey, it was a calculated move towards getting the public to believe she and Harry had been badly done by.
I bet a vast majority of the population uttered the same ‘concern’, which was actually just ‘curiosity’ that has been mistaken for ‘concern’.
Like myself, people were curious but certainly not in a malicious way. Kathleen Foster, South Shields
I am sure many people outside the Royal Family, naturally, wondered the same thing. Does that make them racist? Michael Jones, London
Royal author Omid Scobie claims libel laws stopped him revealing which member of the Royal Family allegedly asked about Archie’s skin colour.
Surely, if you have the truth printed in a book, you should have no concern about libel laws. Maureen Jopson, Maidstone
The myth of reverse racism
P from London (MetroTalk, Wed) says it is wrong to claim white people don’t suffer from institutional racism, because he/she is a white foreigner and has been subject to it on various occasions.
If white people are being discriminated against by other white people then that is not racism, by definition.
They say they were turned down for a job despite being the ‘most qualified and educated person for a role’. How could they know? Robert Bucknor, Tunbridge Wells
What P from London describes is not racism but xenophobia, which is bigotry, hatred, and discrimination based upon the victim being from a different country.
Racism is bigotry, hatred, and discrimination based upon skin colour. Both are abhorrent. Evie, Oxford
hysteria over the integrity of women’s-only spaces
Regardless of what George Radley (MetroTalk, Nov 21) and others say, trans-inclusive toilets are not a threat to women’s safety and never have been.
Trans people don’t rape women – rapists rape women.
The hysteria over the integrity of women’s-only spaces is solely a symptom of the fact that transphobia has become the acceptable face of bigotry.
It used to be that the less scrupulous corners of the media could imply that gay people were sexual predators. The same people have learnt they can get away with spreading the same lies about the trans community, under the guise of ‘debate’.
Just as this poison drove anti-gay hate crimes in the past, so it drives anti-trans hate crimes now. Rob Slater, Norfolk
Can our government learn from covid?
Many questions are being raised by the Covid Inquiry, not the least of which is, did we really need to lock down in the first place? Answers to such questions are supposedly sought to help us in the future.
But in view of the behaviour of our prime minister of that time, as well as members of his government who blatantly ignored the rules, I’d say that the chances of our people following any such instructions again are practically zero. Michael, Chingford
In pointing to Sweden and claiming it suffered fewer Covid deaths than us despite its more liberal approach, Ian Bentley (MetroTalk, Wed) uses statistics to distort the facts about the necessity of lockdown.
While Sweden had fewer deaths than we did, New Zealand – who didn’t leave it too late to impose lockdown (like our government did) – only had 5,100 deaths compared to Sweden’s 25,590: less than a fifth as many.
New Zealand also has a similar population density to Sweden so is more comparable.
Covid is still rampant in Sweden, where there are still 33,481 active cases while New Zealand only has 5,245. This shows that lockdown was effective and necessary to control the Covid pandemic. Martin J Phillips, Leeds
Ignore the ‘divide and rule’ rhetoric, open up our borders to attract the cream of the crop
After I wrote that we should open our borders, many people have written in saying that our public services can’t cope with any more people, they take up school and hospital places etc.
Immigrants make a net contribution to the economy. They pay for themselves. They do not take up overall space in the NHS, or on housing lists, or in education, because whatever public services they use they will pay for with money to spare through economic growth and tax revenue. So they might get places in hospitals and schools, but they will pay for more spaces. This makes sense.
The people who transplant themselves into a foreign culture for their own betterment are likely to be the smartest, hardest workers – the cream of the crop.
The reason we don’t see those benefits is because in 13 years of misrule, the Tories have flat-out refused to make essential investments in public services, and have instead used that money to lavish tax breaks on the richest in society – the people who really can afford to go private.
They then get to play divide and conquer, playing on natural xenophobia by blaming immigrants for their own deliberate, catastrophic neglect, which has driven this nation into the ground.
Once they’ve sold that lie, the Tories can promise to cut immigration, with people wrongly believing that this will help our public services – and the very people who suffered most from Conservative policies become new Conservative voters.
This cycle will perpetuate until either the country collapses or we come to our senses. Ryan Cooper, London
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