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| The Egypt section at the British Museum |
This summer, our family was able to visit England, Belgium,
and France a few weeks ago. It was a fantastic trip, occasioned by KH’s (Amabile)
choir’s participation in the Canterbury Festival and its England tour. We just
took advantage of the occasion and stayed on in Europe to see more sites and bond
as a family while doing so.
Aside from the truly unforgettable experience of visiting
and enjoying some of the most well-known sites in these lands such as Trafalgar
Square, the Westminster Palace, the Grand Place, Bruges, the Champs-Élysées,
etc., one thought that kept coming back to me during this European trip was
that there is an intimate link between travelling-seeing places and the spectre
of empire. The places we visited—England, Belgium, and France—have been some of
the most powerful empires of the past. And an empire can create and control ways
of seeing the world (worldviews) and impose them on others.
Just think of many of the "famous" and
"popular" places that we like to visit and see. If you analyze why
these sites became so famous and popular, chances are the reason is because
"empire" made them so. Empire was able to define what “beautiful” or “good”
or “worth preserving” was and, hence, we continue to think of many things empire
promoted in the past as beautiful, good, or worth it!
Yes, I saw the long shadow of empire in that. Years after these empires
have peaked, their mark is still deeply etched in our psyches. I felt this most
at the British Museum. The British empire has been really strong and vast at
its peak and it was able to do what it wanted such as carting off various
national treasures from their original locations back home to merry ol’ England
in order to showcase the glory of the British empire. Many of these treasures
are now found in places such as the British Museum. Imagine, the British Museum
has an Egyptology section that is even better than the Cairo Museum in Egypt itself!
That is a dark thought. But it is a necessary reminder and warning for
us to be aware of imperialism and not let empire continue its unjust and
oppressive ways.
