Author: Danielle Levy

–A noted British art connoisseur feels that justice would now be better served if the restitution of Nazi looted art ended– At what point does justice ends and business begins? That is the idea behind Sir Norman Rosenthal’s recent article in The Art Newspaper, an influential art journal. The prominent art connoisseur, a former leading curator at London’s Royal Academy for more than 30 years, whose parents were Jewish refugees from Germany an Slovakia, has called for an end of the restitution of Nazi looted Art. His reasons are simple, the restitution has become a business. Grandchildren and other relatives of former owners are now in various litigations for valuable pieces, some in museums. Since 1998 during a conference in Washington where 44 countries pledged to find “fair solutions” many have filed claims to recover art taken from former family members through whatever unscrupulous tactics the Nazis used to acquire whatever art they wanted. Needless to say Rosenthal’s argument has caused a stir among those who have championed the righting of this unquestionable wrong through restitution. Rosenthal who is now active in the art world from Abu Dhabi to Philadelphia no longer believes that restitution is an effective way to overcome the past. “We can no longer wipe history clean” he says adding that the claim to art looted by the Nazis should end with the death of the last surviving owners.
Sometimes justice must look forward, not backward, and certainly forgiveness must. It does look that Sir Norman has a point.

–We need to rethink the facts leading to piracy and the motivation of the pirates—We’re so proud of ourselves, we’ve caught a pirate. His parents say he’s 16, we say he’s 18. For one thing that legalizes trying him in adult courts. Given what we know of Somalia and some of the background reports we have since learned, the case cries out for our rethinking our stereotypes and placing the crime in context. Somalia, we all know is a failed state. There is no economy, no real jobs, no infrastructure, no banks, no schools. People exist as best they can with no good way to earn a living. Enter those we call pirates, criminals to be sure, but criminals with mitigating circumstances. What would you do if you were a young man, whose whole life had been lived in a country with anarchy, who had not been able to go to school, who has no skills, no professions, no hope to get any, no real knowledge of the outside world, and then you’re approached by a group of enterprising—if wrongfully so—men who tell that you can earn money by joining them? Indeed you can see how some are driving Mercedes, mostly because the economy of Somalia is now a pirate economy. The ransom money collected from high-jacked ships goes to support immediate and extended family as well as friends. While it may be true that the young man who was caught did board the ship and shoot at the rescuers, it is also true, that this is all he’s known, all that’s basically been open to him. Surely if we call ourselves civilized, that ought to make a difference.

–Our idea of a bad day and what a bad day is can be quite at odds–At first it seemed like one of those days where nothing goes right. The new checks I ordered had the bank’s old name and they wouldn’t redo the order unless I paid a fee. The prescription they sent had the wrong cap and I couldn’t open the bottle, and they couldn’t, they said, send an empty bottle with the right non safety cap, I would have to wait until my next order several months hence. The person I needed to reach in order to decide whether or not to renew a newspaper wasn’t there. The post box at the corner where I needed to mail a letter has been removed. The reimbursement check I was expecting didn’t arrive….. My day in short was filled with little annoyances, little disappointments, things that made me feel I was wasting time and effort. Then I moved on to read one of the newsletters I follow in order to write this blog, and there was a story about the youngsters, age 10 to 18, who migrate from Africa, Iraq, even China to Europe in order to find work, a better life, some even sent by their parents in hope they will earn money to send back home. Here was a youngster still traumatized from the war in Sierra Leone or one whose father sold his cab to pay smugglers to take him from Iraq to Germany. They’ve known bad days in ways I and most of those I know can’t fathom, enough to make me, along with many others, rethink what a bad day really is.

–We ought never to be inured to the hunger of others–I turned on the TV, it was on CNN, I don’t know what program, but I know the head of a village in Afghanistan was talking to a young woman apparently making a documentary. He said that he thought 40% of the villagers just had enough to eat. My heart sank, only 40% with just enough to eat. And then he went on saying that this meant 60% did not have enough food. I couldn’t help it, tears came. Like the people around me I monitor what I eat because I don’t want to gain weight. As many times as I am exposed to hunger in the world, I can’t find it a cliché, I can’t get used to the injustice of some not having food, I can’t forget some must know hunger hour after hour, day after day, I can’t help wondering what never ending hunger pangs mean, like the stories I’ve read or heard of people in concentration camps and during wars. Truth is I hope I continue to react to those who do not have life’s basic necessity, who unjustly—and unnecessarily—suffer, I hope I remember and in whatever way open to me fire up those around me that one day hunger be history.