How did the theft of the Louvre Museum reveal the legacy of colonialism and the plunder of cultural resources? | culture

Last Sunday, the iconic Louvre Museum in the French capital was the scene of a quick robbery, during which 8 pieces of precious jewelry dating back to the Napoleonic era disappeared from its second floor.

The stolen items included a crown belonging to the jewelry collection of Queen Marie Amalie and Queen Hortense, an emerald necklace used by Empress Marie Louise, a large brooch belonging to Empress Eugenie, and other similar valuables.

International media reported on the theft with predictable drama. For example, CNN ran with its headline, “Historic jewelery theft in ‘national disaster’ for France,” and the article went on to state that one of the looted crowns “contains 24 Ceylon rubies and 1,083 diamonds that can be detached and worn as brooches, according to the Louvre Museum.”

“National disaster”

This pathetic slur is almost reminiscent of another contemporary “national catastrophe” in Paris, the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in April 2019, which broke the hearts of politicians around the world, while they remained seemingly unaffected by events more tragic by objective measures, such as the repeated Israeli massacres of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Now that we’ve witnessed two full years of total genocide in Gaza, sponsored by the US-backed Israeli military, it seems that losing all those rubies and diamonds may not end up being so “catastrophic” – at least, you know, in terms of the general state of humanity and the future of the planet.

In fact, many of us may find ourselves rooting for the thieves, to some extent, if only as a symbolic “finger of protest” raised in the face of a world built on gross inequality and misplaced priorities.

To be clear, the Louvre and similar elite art institutions are symbols of historical injustice, serving as repositories of treasures amassed by kings who built their fortunes at the expense of the working classes, not to mention cultural artifacts and relics stolen from former colonial possessions and other spheres of imperial power.

This is really “looting”.

In her book Decolonize Museums, curator and researcher Shamrit Lee points out that “even the term ‘loot’, derived from the Hindi word ‘lut’, meaning ‘stolen property’, was appropriated and introduced into the English language as a result of British control of India.”

Commenting on how the British Museum in London “traditionally displays looted sculptures from India and Benin bronzes,” the West African kingdom (now located in Nigeria) that Britain conquered in 1897 and later annexed to the British Empire, Shimrit Lee notes that “the French Louvre established galleries in the early 19th century specifically to house many of the pieces that Napoleon and his entourage seized from Egypt.”

Lee writes that nowadays, “it is impossible to find a Western museum that does not preserve some degree of cultural material from Africa, Asia, Oceania, or Native America,” a legacy of violent and exploitative colonialism whose repercussions continue to affect the lives of indigenous and black peoples around the world.

However, “the museum, with its white walls and lights, aids in historical amnesia, giving visitors the illusion that this violence only exists in the past.”

“The museum, with its white walls and lights, helps with historical amnesia, giving visitors the illusion that this (colonial) violence only exists in the past.”

Here, the Sunday jewelry thieves were presented, as if they were playing the role of “Robin Hood,” but unfortunately, this kind of romanticization is insufficient, as it is most likely that the alleged “Robin Hoodians” did not carry out this exciting movement as a political and cultural statement against historical amnesia, but rather simply to achieve financial gains by selling the looted treasures to other wealthy people who specialize in the art of economics based on exploitation.

In her recent article on the theft, Emmeline Smith, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, asserts that the stolen jewelery is “the product of a long history of colonial extraction,” in which the looted gems were mined in Asia, Africa and South America, regions that “were systematically exploited for their cultural and natural resources to enrich European courts and empires.”

As Smith puts it, “French colonial outposts and broader European networks channeled these valuable resources to royal courts and major collectors,” all based on the legacy of ancient slavery.

Among the targeted items is a 19th-century statue sculpted by court enslaved artist Akate Ekplekendo from the Kingdom of Dahomey – a former French colony – in the present-day Republic of Benin (which should not be confused with the Kingdom of Benin, which was seized by Britain), which Smith notes, “Benin has repeatedly demanded its return, but it is still on display in the Pavillon des Sessions in the Louvre.”

Again, then, it is not difficult to see why we who care about global justice might be inclined, in theory, to look favorably on the material loss of the Louvre on Sunday.

But in the end, this theft isn’t worth all that much romance. It also does not deserve to be classified as a “national” or international disaster, and the fact that there are people who portray it as such is in itself a disaster.

• The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.
• Columnist for Al Jazeera. She is the author of Darien’s Gap: A Reporter’s Journey Across the Deadly Crossroads of the Americas (Rutgers University Press, 2025), Inside Siglo 21: Locked in Mexico’s Largest Migrant Detention Center (UR Books, 2022), Zipolite Checkpoint: Quarantine in a Small Space (UR Books, 2021), and Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World (UR Books, 2021). Box, 2019), Martyrs Never Die: Travels Through South Lebanon (Warscapes, 2016), and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman in Action (Verso, 2011).