In an article published by the online edition of The Guardian, Helena Smith, the Guardian’s correspondent in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus underlines that now that Amal Clooney has reignited the debate over the Parthenon’s crowning glory, it’s time the UK rectified a historic wrong and return the Parthenon marbles.
“As a Briton, I hang my head in shame,” states the writer of the article that praises not only Parthenon, “the greatest temple of all, peerless, incandescent white, the embodiment in marble of the glory that was the Golden Age” but also the New Acropolis Museum, this magnificent place that was purpose-built to display the marbles.
Citing the immortal words of Lord Byron, the writer proclaims “I am with Greece” and says that she is glad “a squabble that should have been resolved long ago, if logic and common decency had prevailed, has re-erupted with such vigour following Amal Clooney’s visit to Athens last week.”
After presenting and disproving the main arguments used by the British Museum to keep the marbles, such as the claim that that they are better positioned in London to serve world audiences, which she characterizes as nonsense, Ms. Smith notes the following: “As a Briton, I hang my head in shame but take heart in what the poet Titos Patrikios, an old friend, calls Greece’s ‘unbeatable weapon’; the common sense of ordinary Britons who for almost two decades have overwhelmingly endorsed repatriation in successive opinion polls. It was another poet, Yannis Ritsos, who summed up the marbles’ predicament best. ‘These stones don’t feel at ease with less sky,’ he wrote. They needed the luminosity of Attica to be appreciated most.”
After a brief mention of Greece’s ordeals in recent years due to the economic crisis, the writer underlines that the reunification of the sculptures would be a huge shot in the arm for a nation that in times of difficulty has always stood by Britain. “Rarely do we have such opportunities to right a wrong. That opportunity is here now and in the name of everything it stands for, Great Britain should seize the moment. It would, as Stephen Fry put it, be the classiest of acts,” the article concludes.
