The following interview with Christopher Hitchens is being republished on the occasion of his death on December 15. It was originally published in the Athens News in May 2009, when Hitchens was in Athens to visit the grave of his mother, Yvonne Jean, who is buried in the first cemetery.
Christopher Hitchens was in
Athens earlier this month to celebrate a death.
A long-time supporter of the
British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, he believes
that the group has now obliterated the British Museum’s arguments for holding
onto them.
“The last argument the British Museum had was
that ‘The Greeks have nowhere to put it’,” he said on the eve of a visit to the
new Acropolis Museum. “I’ve come here to
celebrate the death of the last argument.” His celebration is due to appear in
Vanity Fair.
The Parthenon Marbles - or Elgin Marbles - have been controversial since the 7th Earl of Elgin stretched the terms of an 1802 firman from the sultan and removed to his native Scotland dozens of panels of frieze and metope. He sold them to the British state in 1816 and they became part of the British Museum collection in 1817.
The British Museum has
resisted returning the sculptures on the grounds that Greece could, on the
strength of that victory, ask for the return of other things. The frieze from
the temple of Apollo at Bassai also sits in Bloomsbury. So does a number of
exquisitely painted vases. Why shouldn’t the Greeks ask for everything back?
