Daily Translation #5

大英博物馆失窃案应当向政客追责，而非馆内管理人员

这次事件使我不禁想起戴维·洛奇的小说，《大英博物馆在倒塌》。这座备受厚爱的博物馆正在丑闻的侵蚀下摇摇欲坠。其馆长被迫承认在过去十年间，有高达2000件馆藏丢失。公众的注意已经转向了据说去年被撤职的前馆长。（其子称他没有做错任何事）

博物馆馆长哈特维格·费舍尔立即引咎辞职。其副手乔纳森·威廉姆斯也已辞职等待调查。一位弃暗投明的文物贩子在采访中表示，他对博物馆方面的傲慢态度十分愤怒，前者曾警告过管理人员有人在易趣上上架了疑似来自大英博物馆的文物。警方正在对此事进行调查。

博物馆内的气氛让人感到绝望，即使在丑闻暴露前，馆内的氛围就已经足够低沉。工作人员正费尽心机地追踪和回收在拍卖会上明目张胆出售的文物。

博物馆外，则闹得满城风雨。在如此混乱的状态下，博物馆还要面对多股政治势力的怒火，既有本国的，也有国际上的。在中国，一家国有报纸正要求英国归还文物。同样，要求归还文物的呼声从希腊到北威尔士不绝于耳。

有舆论称，既然大英博物馆管理不好文物，那它就应该什么都别管。更有甚者称，大英博物馆其实偷窃成性，因为它馆内大部分的藏品都是在殖民时期掠夺过来的，它在当代重操旧业又有什么好惊讶的呢？

然而从右翼势力传来了另一种呼声：博物馆只有一项工作，就是保证其藏品的安全，但是大英博物馆失职了，因为它忙着为“黑命贵”和反省奴隶制操心。据每日邮报报道，那些有影响力的人物“痛恨和轻视我们的历史”，这才在某种意义上直接导致了博物馆失窃案的发生。

媒体和公众是否真的关心丢失的文物？其实不然。虽然民众气愤于文物失窃，但我敢打赌，大部分人都被愤怒冲昏了头，没有对此次事件进行深思，这既令人失望，也比较有趣。媒体也不是因文物失窃而愤怒。相反，由于不可否认的制度缺陷，大英博物馆将自己置于一个与其他大型文化机构（比如BBC和国民信托）相似的境地，这实在是令人沮丧。大英博物馆正在打一场文化战争，在这次丑闻平息之前，它可要遭老罪了。

但让我们先思考一下“保管”这一概念。“Curator”即“馆长”这个单词，源自于拉丁语，意思是负责或照看某物的人。但近年来其含义有很大的变化。在2023年，任何事都能被“curated”，从策划音乐节和杂志（欢送，“程序员”和“编辑”），到策划口红系列和酒单。这个词被无形中套上了一层高大上的光环，因此，在希思罗机场甚至有一家酒吧叫“馆长”（“The Curator”）。

恰巧，大约是在同一期间，博物馆馆长真正的工作一直在保守党政府的淫威下进行，后者几乎没有受到来自社会上的抗议。博物馆馆长和研究人员，还有默默无闻的登记员（主要负责组织和追踪文物的流动，尤其是出借藏品）忍受着政府无休止的资金削减。在大英博物馆，来自保守党的固定资金实际上在工党执政的2009-2010年到现在保守党执政，已经削减了37%的财政补助。

由于削减资金，大英博物馆里的人越来越少，但活越来越多。博物馆曾被诟病其文物目录不完整，这可能为犯罪者偷盗藏品提供了便利。但是研究数百年前的藏品，进而创建一个现代化的博物馆目录和800万件藏品的数字数据库也绝非是件容易的事。这种工作必须要完成，也必须要投入大量的资源。公开性和准确性应当成为博物馆公共责任的基础。

这些话并不是为博物馆在盗窃事件中的失职所开脱，也不是为博物馆没有第一时间为失踪文物展开调查而体现的失策找借口。那些监守自盗的行为辜负了其长久以来建立起的信任，比如高级图书管理员安德斯·布里乌斯从瑞典国家图书馆盗窃书籍的行为还历历在目。

这种自私自利的背叛行为十分少见。我在工作中所认识的大英博物馆的员工，不包括与盗窃案相关的那个人，都是我见过最勤奋，最尽职尽责的人民公仆。考虑到在英国最知名的博物馆工作所需的资格和技能，他们的薪水也惊人的少。（一份高度专业化的工作，比如说管理和研究罗马时期的埃及文物，目前招聘的薪水是3.2万英镑）对于在博物馆兢兢业业工作的员工来说，这场盗窃案是一个噩耗，也引发了他们对博物馆的愤怒与不信任。但是似乎没有人在意这些员工，因为媒体逐渐癫狂，文化斗士们也准备好开战。

最讽刺的是房间里的大象？大英博物馆的主席是英国前财政大臣，现千万富翁基金经理乔治·奥斯本。2017年，当他在贝莱德就职时，他的日新是1.3万英镑。其3天的收入比新任馆长一年的收入还要多。作为财政大臣，他支持2010年以来对公共服务和文化组织的“财政紧缩”。这并不能算是盗窃。这是极度的、不可原谅的漠视。

Original Article:

Politicians, not curators, are to blame for the British Museum’s woes

 I can’t help thinking of the title of that old David Lodge novel, The British Museum is Falling Down. The much-beloved institution is teetering beneath the weight of scandal. The museum’s chair has been forced to admit that as many as 2,000 objects have gone missing from the collection over the past decade. Public attention has turned towards an ex-curator allegedly removed from his post last year (his son has said he has done no wrong).

The director of the museum, Hartwig Fischer, has resigned with immediate effect. His deputy, Jonathan Williams, has stepped aside pending an independent review. An antiques dealer-turned-whistleblower has given angry interviews about the museum’s apparent complacency when he alerted managers to the fact that items he had seen listed on eBay seemed to have originated from the BM’s collection. A police investigation is under way.

Inside the museum, the mood is despairing, in an institution in which morale, even before this scandal, was often desperately low. Researchers have been turning their skills towards painstakingly tracking down and recovering missing objects apparently sold on the auction site.

Outside, a storm rages. In a state of chaos, the museum has opened itself up to a barrage of fury from both sides of the political divide both in the UK, and internationally. In Beijing, a state-backed newspaper is demanding the return of Chinese artefacts; there have been calls from everywhere from Athens to north Wales to repatriate objects.

Since the museum can’t keep hold of its own collection, it shouldn’t be allowed to be a custodian of anything at all, runs the argument. Some would go further, and say that the museum is institutionally steeped in theft: since large parts of its collection were wrongfully obtained under colonial conditions, why should anyone be surprised if its modern keepers also turned out to be thieves?

From the right, though, comes another warcry: the museum had one job to do – keep its objects safe – and it failed to do it, because it was too busy worrying about Black Lives Matter and apologising for slavery. According to the Mail, the alleged thefts at the museum are – somehow – the direct result of the fact that those in positions of influence “hate and despise our past”.

Is much of the press and external reaction to do with passionate care for the missing artefacts? Resoundingly, no. It is depressing, and fascinating, to see such ire roused in the breasts of so many about objects to which, I am willing to bet, most of the fulminators have never given a second thought. The media outrage is barely about the objects at all. Rather, the British Museum has – through undeniable institutional failings – put itself in a position that will be depressingly familiar to other large cultural institutions, such as the BBC and the National Trust. It has become a stand-in for the culture wars, a proxy in a battlefield on which it will suffer many wounds before this scandal is resolved.

But let’s think about the idea of care for a moment. The word “curator” – from the Latin meaning a person who takes charge of or undertakes the care of something – has in recent years undergone a rapid shift in meaning. In 2023, everything is curated, from music festivals and magazines (farewell, “programmers” and “editors”) to lipstick ranges and wine lists. The word is understood as projecting an amorphous aura of cool – hence, for example, the bizarre fact that there is even a bar called The Curator at Heathrow airport.

As it happens, it is over more or less the same time period that the actual, real job of museum curator has been cheerfully ground beneath the stiletto heel of the Tory government, with little protest from wider society. Museum curators and researchers – along with registrars, the unsung museum workers responsible for organising and tracking the movement of objects, especially loans – have borne endless Tory cuts.  

As a result of these cuts, there are fewer and fewer curators in the British Museum, with more and more work to do. The institution has been much criticised for having an inadequate catalogue, which could have eased the way for a criminal discreetly to pilfer items from the collection. But the idea that it is somehow easy or quick to undertake the archival work of studying centuries-old acquisition inventories to create a fully modernised museum catalogue and digital database of 8m objects is pure fantasy. Such work requires huge resources – but it needs to be done. Transparency and accuracy should be the bedrock of the museum’s public accountability.

None of this is to excuse the alleged thefts from the museum, nor the apparent institutional blindness that seems to have delayed swift and vigorous investigation of missing objects. Those dark and disturbing occasions when curators steal from collections – consider the case of Anders Burius, a senior librarian who stole numerous volumes from his employer, the National Library of Sweden – constitute the ultimate betrayal of trust.

This kind of destructive, selfish betrayal is exceptionally rare. The British Museum curators I have encountered in the course of my work – who do not include the man who has been named in connection with the alleged thefts – have been among the most diligent, generous and committed public servants I have ever met. They are also paid shockingly little given the qualifications and skills required for the work at the country’s most celebrated museum. (A highly specialised job as a curator focused on Roman-period Egypt, for example, is currently advertised at £32,000.) The case of alleged thefts is a terrible blow for those working on the ground in the museum, and the cause of fury and disbelief. And yet, no one seems to care very much for the curators, as the media become ever more frenzied, and the culture warriors sharpen their swords.

The ultimate irony, the elephant in the room? The chair of this foundering museum is George Osborne, the ex-chancellor of the exchequer, now multimillionaire fund manager. When he took a job at BlackRock in 2017, he was paid a day-rate of £13,000 – yes, earning in three days more than that new British Museum curator will make in a year. As chancellor he was behind the “austerity” cuts to public services and cultural organisations of 2010 onwards. That was not a theft. What it was was a withholding – on a grand and unforgivable scale – of care.

 原网址：

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/01/british-museum-curators-thefts-funding