Lee Jasper Official Blog: June 2019

Westminster Abbey.

Former Deputy Mayor of London writes its time to return all historical and religious artefacts bathed in blood and stolen by Britain during colonialism.

Somewhere, in the cavernous and murky depths of London's ancient Westminster Abbey, lies a deeply religious artefact, stolen by the greatest Imperial thieves of the 19th century, the Brits. The object, a religious and sacred tablet called a tabot, was looted from Abyssinia in 1868, now known as modern day Ethiopia. This particular item is a holy relic to around 35 million members of the Ethiopian Christian Church, representing one the oldest branches of Christianity in recorded human history.

First I ask, dear reader that yiu take five minutes too simply sign, share and support our demand that Westminster Abbey Should Return Ethiopia's Sacred Religious Relic.

So revered is this particular object, that only priests from the country's Ethiopian Orthodox church are able to lay their eyes upon it. The tabot is said to symbolise the Ark of the Covenant.

This incredibly important artefact is nothing more than a small tablet, one that was among fifteen so called tabots and other precious artefacts stolen by the British Empire' powerful Army and Navy, who were, at the time were the largest cultural looters and vandals in the world. Hundreds of priceless objects were looted by the British in 1868 from Maqdalan in northern Ethiopia, from the mountain fortress of the then Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II.

The Abyssinian expedition was an exercise in projecting Britain's imperial power right across the globe. Formerly an ally of Britain, Emperor Tewodros II foolishly fell out with his colonial oppressors and in an on-going dispute, and made the mistake of jailing British citizens and representatives of the Government as hostage.

Its wasn't a one off either, age Emperor detained any and all of the various representatives dispatched by the British Queen Victoria to negotiate the freedom of the held British captives. In response Britain dispatched its powerful Royal Navy, sending 280 steam and sail ships, 7000 camels, 13,000 donkeys and 13,000 British and Indian soldiers, to East africa in an Imperial effort to save the lives of eight Britons and the reputation of the British Empire.

The ensuing battle was quick and decisive with total surrender and collapse of the Abyssinian forces, and as the battle become a slaughter the Abyssinian Emperor shot himself, ironically it is said, with a pistol given to him, as a personal gift by Queen Victoria herself.

British Barbarians at the gate,

And as we all know, to the victor goes the spoils, and with the British that usually involved the economic, cultural, physical rape and destruction of a country and its people. The Army was let loose to reap the profits of war, As a result, hundreds, if not thousands, of Abyssinian precious religious and historical artefacts were being shipped home to the motherland, as prize booty, imperial theft, the bloody benefit of brutal conquest of the seething "barbarian lands".

The modus operandi that routinely followed British imperial victory was barbarism, theft and brutal oppression, alongside wholesale cultural destruction and religious vandalism. This was not theft purely for financial gain although greed was clearly a factor, no this was an abject lesson in imperial domination and the consequent cultural annihilation and wholesale oppression that can be expected, in the face of defiance or rebellion to the letter and law of British imperial order.

Lieutenant General Sir Robert Napier

These events all took place under the leadership Victorian Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier, a British hero, who proudly wore the butcher apron, having fought in India and China and whose famous battle cry was "Never give way to barbarians".

Unsurprisingly this is a man who today features as one of top Tory, Jacob Rees Mogg's most admired of Britain's Victorian war heroes.

Today these tabots are owned by many British institutions including the British Museum. Just one was donated to Westminster Abbey and is the cause of the current controversy.

The tabot itself, was one of 15 donated by a returning army officer. Then in 1870, the architect George Gilbert Scott incorporated the tabot into his designs for a new Abbey altar in the Henry VII Lady Chapel.

Now, over 140 years later and invisible to almost everyone who visit the great Abbey, hidden at the back of that dusty 1870s altar in the Henry VII Lady Chapel rests the stolen stone.

Even today this relic continues to carry powerful resonance for Ethiopian Christians, over the years whilst in British possession, from time to time senior Ethiopian Christian clergy have been allowed to pray in front of the tabot as part of their religious observance and devotions.

Remarkably, in an act of unbelievable cultural arrogance, Westminster Abbey recently refused point-blank, to allow Ethiopian Christian clergy and senior leaders of the church, who sought the Abbeys permission, to both observe and pray before the tabot.

The Abbeys response was bizarre, disgusting and insulting.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper Samuel Berhanu, a deacon in the Ethiopian church in London was furious, "I was very shocked and surprised," He added, "I just couldn't believe that in the 21st century you could have this mentality whereby they have no regard to cultural, religious issues. They were not even open to discussion."

I'd go further, Im not shocked and whilst I'm no religious expert, I'd safely hazard a guess and say that God doesn't condone theft, that he or she loves a repentant sinner, and Justice demands that those who know better, do better.

Let me be crystal clear, it is my view that the British period of slavery and colonialism saw Britain, among many other things, commit some of the greatest and most brutal crimes ever recorded in human history.

Its an outrageous act by the Abbey and we are calling upon you to sign and share this petition seeking to right these wrongs and allow access and eventually the return of this items.

During Britain ruled the world, we amassed not only a fortune from the profits of oppression, but collected a vast array of historical, cultural, religious treasures from across the world and ferried them back to the motherland to enhance its reputation as the most powerful nation on God's green earth.

That was then and thank God those days are long gone. Today Britain is a shadow of its former self and having lost the trappings of Empire, there can be no excuse for the continued retention of these looted artefacts from across the world. Principles of reparation and natural justice demand the return of these precious artefacts to their country of origins.

Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum said in 2006, in what was a remark that for me defined English exceptionalism, stupidity and narrow mindedness stated boldly that in his opinion "repatriation is yesterday's question".

I think its very much todays question and it involves the cone poet of justice and reparation. The UK needs to right the wrongs of Britains imperial past.

Quite frankly all British and European museums should be emptied of their stolen colonial goods, in their entirety and without exception. From the Star of India to the Benin Bronzes all must be returned, should be returned, will be returned, and it is we, the modern-day descendants of the colonial victims, its we who must lead the campaign for the immediate return of these stolen goods.

And these days, this demand is not just the politically correct opinion of some left-wing activist on a soapbox, no... even the young French President Michelle Macron agrees. Recently he published a report on this subject and concluded that European nations, including France, were both morally and legally compelled to return these treasured artefacts to their rightful owners, and set a date for France to do so by 2025.

And here in the UK, a British Church of Englandpriest, the Rev John McLuckie was outraged at the response of the Abbey. He told the Sunday Observer recently:

"This is completely unacceptable. Sacrilege would not be too strong a word. It's loot, taken violently and inappropriately in the first place.

A tabot is a very holy object; no one can see it apart from priests. Westminster Abbey is one of the most visited sites in London. To have it on public display there is an offence to Orthodox Ethiopian Christians. For one Christian church to refuse to return it to another seems profoundly wrong."

It's an extraordinary act of arrogance. Returning the it to Ethiopia would be an act of goodwill. There's no good reason for the abbey to have it. More importantly, it doesn't belong to them."

In 2015 Zimbabwe requested England's natural history natural Museum to return the decapitated heads of Zimbabwean warriors. This was denied with the museum stating it wasn't sure of the provenance of their heads. Then again in 2017 the South African Khi and Nguni people demanded the reparation of their ancient ancestors remains that were stolen and taken to Europe

Maybe its time those of us here in Britain who decry the dirty little secrets stored up in British museums, took a leaf out of the book of the Occupy Movement and occupied some of the offending museums until the goods are returned.

There is something deeply depressing and somewhat spiritually macabre about wanting to hold onto other people's religious and historic relics, to have the interred bones of dead Royal Africans stored up in a backroom utility store alongside shrunken heads and sacred texts. The old saying "don't trouble old bones' speak an ancient wisdom that says no good can come of troubling ancient spirits,

The deeper selfish irony is these historical artefacts have no significance and or sacred meaning, valuable objects that are not even fully understood appreciated by Europeans who horde them. They hang in their museums for reasons of inflated national prestige and desired status.

Rene Maran, the first black writer to win the French Prix Goncourt, summed up the view of the victims of empire when in 1921 wrote in his one of his most famous novels he wrote,

"Civilization, civilization, the pride of the Europeans, and the charnel house of innocents... you build your kingdoms on corpses."

Today the rotting stench and smoke of colonial genocide, rape and theft, emanating from artefacts that are bathed in blood, continues to permeate and denigrate the reputation of a nation. A strong nation, hypocritical and highly dangerous nation a nation whose claimed to own the alter of moral superiority and civilisation, now sees that alter for what it truly is, a now blackened moral and political edifice of "European civilisation" a claimed morality built upon nothing more than greed, racism, violence and theft.

The fact is European 20th-century colonialism is one of the greatest unacknowledged crimes of human history. The misplaced moral certitude of the "white mans burden is today replaced with the stench of moral decrepitude inculcated and nurtured as a result of a deep indifference to the universal principles of justice.

Such is the lingering bitter legacy of Empire that even today, the brutal stone cold reality is that no matter how priceless, sacred or important such religious and historical artefacts are to a nation, its history and its people, their arrogant claims to ownership are resolute, despite the reality of the body miasma that secured ownership by dominating European powers. It was a scandal then and remains a scandal now.

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