The Times and British Museum debate: Who owns the past?

A debate co-hosted by The Times and the British Museum - considering the question “Who owns the past? The role of the universal museum in future” - featuring Mary Beard, Munira Mirza, David Olusoga and Rory Stewart, and chaired by Matthew Parris.
Read the best of our journalism: www.thetimes.com/
Subscribe to The Times and The Sunday Times KZbin channel: www.youtube.co...
Find us on Facebook: / timesandsundaytimes
Find us on Twitter: / thetimes
Find us on Instagram: / thetimes

[@sararichardson737]

Thank God for KZbin: a platform full of riches.

[@lucianopavarotti2843]

David Olusoga is a huge critic of the British empire but accepted an OBE. I don't get it.

[@buntyclara]

What about the commercial aspect? Doesn’t Greece really want the Marbles in order to boost visits to their museums? And aren’t many artworks hidden away in tycoons’ / tyrants’ bank vaults, not available to anyone else to see? Why aren’t we concerned about that?

[@MZig-rw7su]

Osborne doesn't wear a tie because he's still stuck in that look...he thinks it says something....he's always been considered a bit creepy

[@SimonPayne-je3hi]

A Very good debate. Informative, especially by Mary Beard. I would say a trustee of history not just The British Museum.

[@MihalyBenedek]

Many thanks for the brilliant discussion, I, as an ordinary lover of museums, really enjoyed it. Perhaps there should have been some enlargement of the topic, by looking at other good examples for showing who oowns the past. The Vermeer exhibition comes to my mind, which is/unfortunately was, a nice example of universal ownership. I think museums of our times should step out of the box of being an institution, and be like a caleidoscope, showing one aspect today, and displaying another the next day.

[@MihalyBenedek]

One more short note. Not long ago I've read Mary Beard's excellent book, the 'SPQR.' One of the most astonishing features was its 30 pages of 'further reading.' It is about the issue of who owns the past. Gibbon? Cornell? Goodman? Or all the others enlisted there? Perhaps all of them, including me. Apart from my guess, that evoking the past (remembrance) might be misleading, as the past as a whole cannot be grabbed.

[@Troy-Weight]

These are the people Orwell warned us about I recommend readers turn to the 1997 “Who Owns the Past?” by Andrew Selkirk. Since disowned by the Adam Smith Society - but still on the web. That paper called for an urgent defense of popular independent amateur influence over the understanding of the past. No such defense was mounted, the battle was lost. The 250 year old collaboration between the British Museum and independent enthusiasts ended in 2014, the culprits being elitists like Colin Renfrew, and politicos like Bonnie Greer. We see the dire out turn here. A bunch of talking heads - making a political football of the past, kicked about to suit their personal career aspirations. Notice Beard openly owning the dogma that “nobody can imagine the world without it being absolutely fundamentally ideological”. Really? That is the age old foundation stone of all Euro-elitist propaganda - from Plato and Hegel to Foucault. If Britain has anything culturally to offer the world it is in rejecting such politically driven brain-washing. From Pelagius and Wycliffe to Francis Bacon and Bertrand Russell. :- (

[@IDidntSetAHandle]

Starts at 4:54

[@gidgen]

Mary Beard is the voice of reason.

[@stevengarside]

I have absolutely no time for Olusoga anymore. He is supposedly an authority of racism, colonialism and Empire, and yet he has been completely silent for 10 months about the unfolding genocide in Gaza. He blocked me on twitter/x for attacking him for moral cowardice and careerism, for failing to use his various public platforms and national profile to take a stand. Silence is complicity David. History will remember those who did and said nothing, and put career first.

[@eveszokolai8939]

Those who own the past are those whom are willing and able to preserve the past with honor and without prejudice. Ownership as responsibility to and on behalf of humanity. Sadly, at times of crisis or war, it takes an oligarch or an oligarchy to preserve and protect some of our finest acheivements.

[@Klopp2543]

That's absurd stuff had been preserved at times for thousands of years before colonists came to steal them! Nothing is about humanity stuff belong to descendants! Nothing can justify thievery

[@Klopp2543]

The thief can never own stuff stolen from the owner no matter how great the thief preserve the loot! Nothing is universal stuff belong to people secondly stuff were preserved long before the colonists visited their shores! Protect your finer achievements not stolen stuff

[@eveszokolai8939]

@@Klopp2543 What I mean by "own" is in the historic sense rather than literal. The British Museum may "possess " many artifacts of the greeks, romans and egyptians but it is those cultures that "own" the history.

[@Klopp2543]

@@eveszokolai8939 own possess or however you portray it it's still wrong. Greek, Egyptian and all other artefacts in British museums should all be returned to the rightful owners Egyptians, Greek etc all have descendants they should possess their heritage. If any Brits wants to see view and enjoy they should fly there.

[@eveszokolai8939]

@@Klopp2543 Yes. I agree.

[@bexhill8777]

Owns!

[@lucianopavarotti2843]

Rory Stewart and his weird sword fetish....

[@renmedalla]

It's not about performance and what you do with it. It's about what you did to acquire it.

[@johnwilliamson4302]

life is only 60years old, we make our history, past present and future, you've only begun your journey, be wise and tread the right path! 21/07/24: sixty on the seventeenth of August '24, the lazy Sun 🌞 came to us in 1964 for the first time and is here for ever after as you'll find yourselves since birth, enjoy your life! love Old Father John ❤

[@acd96digital]

Should have had the Greek PM on the panel.